Roketzu Wrote:Are you at a point where you know enough vocabulary that reading a book in kana won't be too much of a challenge, but yet aren't comfortable enough with kanji to just use normal books? I never found myself in this position at any point, kanji has only ever served as an aid to my reading, it was the constant new vocabulary that was slowing me down. Even then it was the fact they were written in kanji that made them easy to look up immediately, which wouldn't have been the case if everything was kana.

Has anyone else ever been in the same position as John here? I'd be interested to know.

While reading your answer I remembered something you said to me in another topic, some months ago:

Quote:I used to review kanji when I had just started learning Japanese, but I felt the need for it disappeared at some point. When I did review I didn't use RTK but something more like KanjiDamage, and I was always lenient, didn't care if I didn't remember the English meaning, as long as I remembered at least the most common onyomi I'd pass it. I also never went from keyword ➡ kanji, only ever did kanji ➡ keyword/onyomi--more emphasis on the onyomi. For new kanji now I just remember how to write it and use it as part of whatever compound it's in because the kanji I study now only belong to a few uncommon words most of the time.

I quote this because I did the same thing and I think what made me easy to read kanji was/is the fact I was learning on-yomi too (and I still keep rewiewing them).

Also this. What GreenAirth said in this thread.

What frustrated me the most when I finished RtK 1 and I tried to do Core10k was the fact of not knowing al least one common onyomi for at least the most common kanji.

So in the light of this, and of what Roketzu and GreenAirth said, maybe john555's issue is that he recognizes kanji but he has an hard time learning how to read compounds. So he finds easier to acquire vocabulary phonetically.

If this is the case I suggest him to find a more linear approach to learn readings first, so when he encounters new compounds while reading, he is able to learn the word more easily.

This is just my point of view, to know at least one onyomi is what made me easy to read and learn new words, thanks to this things changend as from night to day. But this is just me

I remember john555 was in the process of doing rtk2 so I wonder if he abandoned the method before seeing any advantage?

john555 Wrote:Thanks for this...I may go and buy Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.

I hope the font is larger than normal...I was looking through Japanese books at the public library and they all use the same tiny font.

I found a pic of a page in the book.

https://ccbc.education.wisc.edu/books/ro...japan4.jpg

You'd have to compare to the dimensions of the book though to really know if the font is to your liking.

If you'd like an innocent preview of the Harry Potter books, raseru's "My study method (Study pack included)" thread is a good read. I particularly suggest you read my input on the topic

john555 Wrote:

RawrPk Wrote:I'm surprised no one mentioned Harry Potter series. The entire series has been translated into Japanese and from what I read, has been glossed with furigana.

https://shop.pottermore.com/en_US/books/...ok-1-ja-jp

though these are ebooks from Pottermore

「ハリー・ポッターと賢者の石 」Book 1 on Amazon. It's a physical book if you don't like ebooks

Thanks for this...I may go and buy Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.

I hope the font is larger than normal...I was looking through Japanese books at the public library and they all use the same tiny font.

I have the pocket edition (which comes as a part one and part two, even for the first book), so this may not apply to a larger format, but there isn't furigana on many words, just as a heads up. The print is very clear though, so I'm guessing that they left out a lot of the furigana in order to print larger characters. Make sure you check before you buy!
(EDIT: Just checked, there isn't any furigana in the pocket edition, so don't get those if you want furigana!)

I agree that reading these would be good; even reading the translation, it's very much an English writing style, so it's much more comfortable than the Japanese books I've picked up.

cophnia61 Wrote:maybe john555's issue is that he recognizes kanji but he has an hard time learning how to read compounds. So he finds easier to acquire vocabulary phonetically.

While I don't know john's motivations exactly for a higher level/adult book done in 100% romaji or kana, you could argue that doing it this way separates the word from any possible hint of its meaning. It'd be like interpreting Japanese in the same way you do when you listen to a conversation. Kanji encode a lot of meaning about a word before you might even know the pronunciation.

All that said, I still think the merits of the idea are weak. The higher more sophisticated literature out there, be it translation or not, may be using words that aren't used in conversation that much; ditto for certain grammatical structures.

If someone were to try and convince a publisher to make these kinds of books, I wouldn't go to a Japanese publisher. The idea of trying to convert something like Moby Dick or The Scarlet Letter into a kana only publication would hurt their heads. There's too much of a connection between "kana only" being a children-only thing. I'd imagine they'd see it almost the same way if you went to an English publisher and pitched the idea of changing literature titles to only use words with a max of 5 characters, or adding footnote definitions for every word not in the top 5k frequency lists. You'd probably have better success convincing a English publishing house, that has done second language learning materials, to make these kana-only books. (Also worth noting that these books will span multiple volumes because expanding out to kana would increase the character count drastically. Probably another reason why no Japanese publisher would touch it. Most JP translations already span more volumes for 1 English book and thats even with kanji.)

vix86 Wrote:Also worth noting that these books will span multiple volumes because expanding out to kana would increase the character count drastically. Probably another reason why no Japanese publisher would touch it. Most JP translations already span more volumes for 1 English book and thats even with kanji.

Just keep in mind that what John really want are romaji books, not kana-only books (he has talked about it before but people keep pushing him away from the idea.) The length of one would be pretty much almost the same as that of a Spanish translation, maybe even less.

gdaxeman Wrote:Just keep in mind that what John really want are romaji books, not kana-only books (he has talked about it before but people keep pushing him away from the idea.) The length of one would be pretty much almost the same as that of a Spanish translation, maybe even less.

Not really, as you have to keep in mind that even using kanji, translations of books from English into Japanese take up multiple volumes (usually 2). Keeping in mind that words in Japanese tend to be syllabically longer than Indo-European languages and that each character is a minimum of two Latin characters, and you will have a transcription that is significantly longer than a Spanish translation.

As an example:
プリベット通り四番地の住人ダーズリー夫妻は、「おかげさまで、私どもはどこからみてもまとも＜・・・＞な人間です」と言うのが自慢だった。不思議とか神秘とかそんな非常識はまるっきり認めない人種で、まか不思議な出来事が彼らの周辺で起こるなんて、とうてい考えられなかった。

ダーズリー氏は、穴あけドリルを製造しているグラニングズ社の社長だ。ずんぐりと肉づきがよい体型のせいで、首がほとんどない。そのかわり巨大な口ひげが目立っていた。奥さんの方はやせて、金髪で、なんと首の長さが普通の人の二倍はある。垣根越しにご近所の様子を詮索するのが趣味だったので、鶴のような首は実に便利だった。ダーズリー夫妻にはダドリーという男の子がいた。どこを探したってこんなにできのいい子はいやしない、というのが二人の親バカの意見だった。
そんな絵に描いたように満ち足りたダーズリー家にも、たった一つ秘密があった。なにより怖いのは、誰かにその秘密を嗅ぎつけられることだった。
420 characters
In Romaji:
Puribetto-dōri shi-banchi no jūnin dāzurī fusai wa,`okage-sama de, watakushidomo wa doko kara mite mo matomo <>na ningendesu' to iu no ga jimandatta. Fushigi toka shinpi toka son'na hijōshiki wa marukkiri mitomenai jinshu de, ma ka fushigina dekigoto ga karera no shūhen de okoru nante, tōtei kangae rarenakatta. Dāzurī-shi wa, anaake doriru o seizō shite iru guraninguzu-sha no shachōda. Zunguri to niku dzuki ga yoi taikei no sei de, kubi ga hotondo nai. Sono kawari kyodaina kuchihige ga medatte ita. Okusan no kata wa yasete, kinpatsu de, nanto kubi no naga-sa ga futsūnohito no ni-bai wa aru. Kakinegoshi ni go kinjo no yōsu o sensaku suru no ga shumidattanode, tsuru no yōna kubi wa jitsuni benridatta. Dāzurī fusai ni wa dadorī to iu otokonoko ga ita. Doko o sagashitatte kon'nani deki no ī ko wa iyashinai, to iu no ga futari no oya baka no ikendatta. Son'na e ni kaita yō ni michitarita dāzurī-ka ni mo, tatta hitotsu himitsu ga atta. Nani yori kowai no wa, dareka ni sono himitsu o kagitsuke rareru kotodatta.
1019 characters.

RandomQuotes Wrote:Not really, as you have to keep in mind that even using kanji, translations of books from English into Japanese take up multiple volumes (usually 2). Keeping in mind that words in Japanese tend to be syllabically longer than Indo-European languages and that each character is a minimum of two Latin characters, and you will have a transcription that is significantly longer than a Spanish translation.

As an example:
プリベット通り四番地の住人ダーズリー夫妻は、[cut]
なにより怖いのは、誰かにその秘密を嗅ぎつけられることだった。
420 characters

In Romaji:
Puribetto-dōri shi-banchi no jūnin dāzurī fusai wa, [cut]
Nani yori kowai no wa, dareka ni sono himitsu o kagitsuke rareru kotodatta.
1019 characters.

Ok, let's see... I can't translate it well enough from Japanese to Spanish so let's just get what Google Translate offers: [cut] 1080 characters UPDATE: Better, yet, I found the Spanish translation of those opening paragraphs, it may give a better comparison:

Quote:El señor y la señora Dursley, que vivían en el número 4 de Privet Drive, estaban orgullosos de decir que eran muy normales, afortunadamente. Eran las últimas personas que se esperaría encontrar relacionadas con algo extraño o misterioso, porque no estaban para tales tonterías.

El señor Dursley era el director de una empresa llamada Grunnings, que fabricaba taladros. Era un hombre corpulento y rollizo, casi sin cuello, aunque con un bigote inmenso. La señora Dursley era delgada, rubia y tenía un cuello casi el doble de largo de lo habitual, lo que le resultaba muy útil, ya que pasaba la mayor parte del tiempo estirándolo por encima de la valla de los jardines para espiar a sus vecinos. Los Dursley tenían un hijo pequeño llamado Dudley, y para ellos no había un niño mejor que él.

Los Dursley tenían todo lo que querían, pero también tenían un secreto, y su mayor temor era que lo descubriesen: no habrían soportado que se supiera lo de los Potter.

954 characters. Right, this time it's less than the romaji one by a little (1019 - 954 = 65.) The only issue is that those paragraphs actually don't say the exact same thing, as is often the case with literary translations.