Hmm I'm just wondering , how much of japanese you guys actually know ?
If the answer is nothing than learn at least the basic two alphabets ( hiragana and katakana ) . It will be a start to understand japanese as a language instead of seeing it as random characters .
When using google translator English > Japanese :
Use very simple english to write sentences in google translator and always translate back to see the accuracy of the translation . If the sentence is very long , do it in parts . Do not use slangs or expressions that only makes sense in english ( e.g. run like hell / f**king good ) .
If it is a specific term ( computer / science etc ) use the second link and search the word there , if you can't find it , try english wikipedia and see if there is a translation in japanese . There are a lot of words in japanese that comes from english , though most of them can't be recognized at first glance .
Sprite - スプライト ( supuraito )
Graphic Tool - グラフィックツール ( gurafiku tsuuru )
Do not use personal names in the middle of the sentence since the translator may interpret the name as a word and try to translate it into something bizarre . If you are not sure if your name will be translated , use a very common name , like alex and change the name for your own .
Bad example "Hi my name is Kyo" こんにちは私の名前は京は "konnichiwa watashi no namae wa Kyou (kanji used in the words Kyoto / Tokyo ) wa.. " . は (ha or wa depending in the case ) is used as if you were going to continue to say something .
Good example "Hi my name is Louis" こんにちは私の名前はルイです "konnichiwa watashi no namae wa Rui desu" . です ( desu ) is used in the end of a sentence , meaning the sentence is complete . Louis translates as Rui because japanese words are written accordingly to the vocalization ( and there's no "L" in japanese either )
Also take a look at these :
http://nihongo.j-talk.com/kanji/ - translate japanese to 'romanji' ( latin alphabet ). The furigana option is pretty good .
http://jisho.org/ - good dictionary .
http://kanjidict.com/demo/index.html - just for fun . A 'full' kanji summary - pretty sure it's not complete but has many of the most common kanjis .
