But, in terms of learning, it also works well the other way round.
I wanted to test what I'd been learning so I typed the romaji versions of some basic phrases into GT to make sure I got the correct response. GT then suggests the kana/kanji version of what you've typed. I then started to experiment with the various building blocks of sentences, moving from 'my name is...' to 'my friend's name is...' for example, without having learned that particular phrase
GT has three ways of inputting Japanese text. You can type it in romaji, you can use the keyboard to generate hiragana, and you can use the mouse to draw kana and kanji.
When you type to generate hiragana it's important to remember that you need to double tap the N key to make ん, to make sure you use a double consonant when you want a small tsu e.g. matte まって (wait), and type compound hiragana as they sound (kyu (きゅ) rather than Ki u (きう) or Ki Yu (きゆ).
The ability to draw kanji and have GT interpret them is great. Recently, I was trying to work out what 非常識 meant and managed (admittedly after a bit of trial and error) to input all the kanji and get to the meaning: Insane! The drawing doesn't have to be dead on and GT will put up multiple suggestions.
As you can see, my version of 識 (しき) is rubbish, but it was enough to generate the correct Kanji.
GT is great (and let's all appreciate that it's free). It's far from perfect and doesn't replace actual conversation and other ways of getting insight into the Japanese language. However, it can get you out of a jam and provide you with some insight once you've got some basic grammar and vocab under your belt.
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