Just wondering about the transition to monolingual stuff, as I use websites like jpdb.io and such for srs which are bilingual dictionary based, just curious how I would make the transition to srs with monolingual, thanks in advance
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Set up anki and mine using a J-J monolingual dictionary in yomitan.
I don’t have any recommendations, but I just stick to bilingual and check with JP dictionary if it’s being vague or confusing and put the JP definition in the notes.
I don’t know if I’d promote everything this guy is saying, but he has some info on dictionaries. Going monolingual
The following is an excerpt from the link ‘Going monolingual.’
“You want to avoid bilingual definitions because they often fail to correctly express the real meanings of words.”
If I were born and raised in Japan, then this would make sense because when I read the J-explanation of a word that I’m looking up, I would already know the ‘correct’ meanings of the words used in the definition.
But this is saying that an English (any foreigner) speaking person should avoid using a bilingual dictionary because the English words used in the explanation are often misleading.
Well, if I were ever to get to the point where I could read a Japanese explanation of a Japanese word to get the ‘correct’ meaning of that word, my understanding of that Japanese explanation would be based on ALL my misguided definitions that I learned to get to this point. Hence, I would be in the same boat that this person is trying to get me to avoid.
Sounds like a Catch-22! So how can foreigners REALLY understand the ‘correct’ explanation of a J-dictionary?
Think of your native language. Mine is English so i will use it as an example. I lookup a word, read its explanation, and all is well. But if I use an E-J dictionary, then I will have two problems. First, the Japanese explanation could very well be misleading which is the point of ‘Going monolingual.’ But, additionally, my understanding of Japanese is not perfect, so even if the Japanese explanation was perfect, I could easily misconstrue what it was saying!
Now, I’m not saying that NO foreigners should EVER try this. But it just seems to me that this is NOT the cure-all for understanding the correct explanation of a Japanese word. Would it help in your Japanese journey to understanding Japanese? Definitely! Just NOT guaranteed to you correctly understanding EVERY Japanese word that you look up.
All dictionary definitions are inherently limited in their ability to express the full meaning of a word, unless that word has a trivial definition or an exact synonym/antonym. Even as a native English speaker, I would be hard pressed to completely define the meaning of “love” without using the word itself. However, what I can do is compare and contrast it with other English words - “affection,” “admiration,” “lust,” etc. For a language learner, this is often more useful than just giving a rote definition because it helps solidify the word’s context. Instead of just learning “this means that,” you learn “these words are related and here is the nuance of when you would use one vs. the other.”
Language is full of ambiguity and there is no single “correct” interpretation of a meaning of a word. You just have a bunch of mental associations between a word and the abstract ideas related to that word, and the more you’ve seen a word used, the stronger those associations become. The best way to build that mental association is to see the word used over and over again in context, and looking up a word in a native dictionary is going to give you example sentences and contexts specifically designed to highlight the things that most distinguish that word from other similar words. On the other hand, looking up a word in a bilingual dictionary is going to give you the closest analog word in that other language, but generally doesn’t give you any indication of how good of an analog that word actually is, and if it can be used in all the same contexts or not.
I think both are useful, but largely for different things.
I’ll just add my thoughts as I use a variety of dictionaries depending on the situation.
EN-JP dictionaries, like JMdict, are normally based on straight translations rather than explanations. Occasionally you may see a note clarifying context but normally it is lacking. This is extremely useful for simple nouns or for specialist language you already know in English. For example, this is useful for a simple word like ‘車’ (‘car’) or a specialist term like ‘不可算名詞’ (‘uncountable noun’), assuming you already know the meaning of the specialist term. These kind of words generally have low variation in regards to their exact usage and meaning between English and Japanese so a straight translation is quicker and easier to get the meaning from. Of course, if you don’t know the meaning of the word in English then you’ll need to either check an English dictionary or go use the regular Japanese dictionary (this does happen to me on occasion - especially for scientific or historical terms).
Japanese thesauruses (類語辞典) can be very useful for checking the difference between words that have specific usages or which have multiple similar English translations. Good ones will have comparative sentences and short explanations of usage difference. I tend to like these for verbs and adjectives, especially less common ones that are used in more literary circumstances. If you aren’t yet naturally thinking to yourself ‘Wait, what’s the difference between this word and that other word?’ then you probably don’t need this kind of dictionary yet, though.
Regular Japanese dictionaries are useful for words that are more culturally specific to Japan, more slangy, more old-fashioned, etc. A lengthier explanation will give more information than a straight English translation can and you’ll better understand the nuance.
I also like to use kanji origin dictionaries to check the origin and usage of kanji in words where I find the kanji usage vague or unexpected. I will also check this information for new kanji I see about 50% of the time. I find this useful for solidifying the usage of kanji in my head and compare usage of the same kanji. For example, what is the connection between 三昧 and 曖昧? What’s 昧 doing in both words here and why does 三昧 have the meaning it has?
My personal opinion here is that you should be using monolingual resources when you have a question or doubt which can only be answered by monolingual resources. This applies more to the difference in nuance between words or etymology. Even looking these things up you will likely still need to get repeated exposure to the same words in various contexts to intuitively understand the nuances anyway so it is still a first step.
Different dictionaries are best for different tasks (that’s why there are so many types) so if you’re interested in monolingual dictionaries then I’d suggest to slowly start using them for looking up especially interesting words and you’ll pick up the ability to understand them better as you go and also work out how you personally like to use dictionaries.
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As @adorable, setting up a monolingual dictionary with Yomitan is the way to go with SRS. I also transitioned to Monolingual only, which is free reading immersion as well when you’re repping your cards. I also include the bilingual definition as a secondary if I am not able to read or to lazy to look up the words in the definitions. Personally, it helps me to understand some nuances when multiple words have the same meaning (I have some example sentence on the cards as well). Would never go back after this transition
You can set custom dictionaries, including monolingual ones for jpdb with this extension: Nakura Nakamoto / jpdb_cdm · GitLab
I advice you to look into the jpdb discord, you can find plenty of custom scripts and such.
Do you have any links to an online Japanese thesaurus, regular Japanese dictionary or kanji origin dictionary you use? 
The way you explained it there sounds useful and I wanna start using them!
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For thesauruses I like the goo one however I believe they’re closing down their service next month. They give a short definition then solid example sentences and a final explanation of differences between similar words. I believe it is based on the 使い方のわかる 類語例解辞典 (published by 小学館) which you can still find physically; it is a bit old so you can find newer books that are based on a similar idea if you look online/in a bookshop. You can also find digital versions of it for Yomitan floating around online. I also have a couple of physical books about 類語 however they’re more like books about 類語 rather than traditional reference books (although I use them as references).
For regular Japanese dictionaries, I personally like 明鏡国語辞典 as I find their definitions concise and they normally have good but short usage notes (including things like mistaken kanji). Honestly, all the major ones are fine and it comes down to personal preference. I’d try a variety and see what you like.
I also have a physical one for children (例解学習国語辞典, also from 小学館) which I would highly recommend for learners as it has full furigana and sometimes has illustrations. Since it is for elementary school kids, it explains concepts very clearly in very simple terms. Good for learning how to read a dictionary although of course the definitions lack depth and the word coverage is lower. It has features like labelling the grade level of kanji and highlighting important words, meaning you can easily tell if you should bother remembering a word or not.
For kanji origin stuff, I mainly use the 新字源 from 角川, which is considered one of the authoritative dictionaries for this stuff. It is not an easy dictionary to use if you aren’t already quite comfortable with kanji/Japanese and the vocabulary examples mostly focus on showing how the kanji have been borrowed into Japanese through Chinese loans so the vocabulary itself is not practical in many cases (full of archaic terms, etc). I love this dictionary and is probably the physical dictionary I use the most but it is definitely in heavy kanji nerd territory; the majority of knowledge in this dictionary is beyond what a normal native speaker knows.
For online kanji stuff, both kanjipedia and 漢字知識 are good.
As a bonus, I also love 書道字典 (calligraphy dictionaries) as you can see the variety of ways kanji can be drawn. They have very little practical use if you aren’t practicing calligraphy but they’re pretty nice as objects. Example of typical pages below:
That’s probably enough to get started on! Enjoy!
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Lovely stuff! Thanks for your comprehensive reply. The 書道字典 is indeed an aesthetically pleasing object