Has anyone out there studied the Jordon method? I have the two writing books in front of me. I like the writing books but hate the speaking books (written only in romaji). The writing books cover 400 kanji. I assume the "first" 400 kanji.

My question is this: would studying the 400 kanji in the two Jordon writing books cover the 284 that are on the JLPT 3 test? Anyone have experience e with this and know? I would assume that they do, but the Jordon method is screwy and I don't trust it.

The Jordon Method? Want to clarify? You mean Eleanor Harz Jorden? If so, which books?

Maybe you should read the preface of the book. It might have something interesting to tell you.

If you just want to pass a test, then get test prep books from UNICOM. They're the best, IMO. But the JLPT is kind of useless unless you're going for level 1. The other levels are good for checking your progress, but don't expect too much from it. This is coming from someone who's signed up for level 2 this fall... I'm taking it with no expectations of it actually helping me.

That said, if you want to learn Japanese, get better textbooks than Jorden's. It's not hard, really. The books you're talking about are Beginning Japanese and Writing Japanese, I'm guessing. I have those books as well, as I mistakenly bought them about 10 years ago when I was first interested in the language. There's some good info in there, but it's presented in such a pedagogically obtuse manner that unless you buy into her system completely, it's a waste of time.

And I *really* dislike her system of teaching Japanese. Romaji should only be used in phrasebooks for people who aren't going to bother learning the language. Otherwise, it should be in the dustbin of Bad Ideas. Separating the writing from the rest of the language just feels unnatural, and needlessly delays you learning and mastering hiragana, katakana, and kanji. Every day you put it off, the harder you make it on yourself long-term.

It would make a lot more sense to pick up a series like Minna no Nihongo, Japanese for Everyone, or Genki I and II and go through those. Even then, that won't necessarily prepare you for JLPT level 3. You'll need to go a little bit farther than that. (At least that was my experience with Genki I & II-- it got me close to level 3, but not close enough to pass it.)

But for starters, I'd grab one of those books, and work through it. I'd also grab Understanding Basic Japanese Grammar by ALC and work through it, as well as the Kanji Odyssey books. UBJG is a good supplement for a textbook, as it presents similar information in a different way, reinforcing and giving you more examples. Kanji Odyssey is just a really handy way to learn a bunch of useful kanji and vocab after you finish RTK. Both KO and UBJG are best used with Anki or another SRS.

If you want specific recommendations for just passing JLPT level 3, then get the books by UNICOM. They're excellent. UNICOM makes great JLPT prep books.

Actually, JLPT2 is worth taking. JLPT1 is of course much more useful, but JLPT2 actually matters in some situations... some schools will only accept you if you have JLPT2, some バイト requires it, even some real jobs. JLPT4 and 3 however are mostly for show and "progress report", I don't really recommend people to take them since it costs money, might be pretty far to travel, the test takes most of a whole day and it just isn't fun to take it. However, if you feel it gives you motivation, why not!

Yeah, that was my experience with JLPT3 as well. It was a royal pain in the butt, expensive (in that I had to drive to Washington, DC, spend a night there, then drive back), etc., but it did help my motivation down the road.

Also, I found it's best to practice the audio portion by playing the audio tracks of old tests thorough a pair of speakers (broken ones are best!) that are half-submerged in water. At least that's how the listening portions sounded to me.

We used Japanese the Spoken Language in University. It's a very good series but is not a self-study book. It was designed for the classroom. I would not recommend it for anyone else. You need the videos, drills, kanji transcripts, dialog videos, audio tapes, teaching materials, etc. etc. Also a lot of the drills and practice are designed to do with a teacher or other students. However, I do have all the core conversation videos and drill audio tapes that I have 'digitized' so if anyone really needs them I could get them out. The fact that it was in romaji was no problem at all for me. What exactly is unnatural about separating spoken and written language? Isn't that how you first learned English? You sure didn't learn to read and write first. Of course kanji were also taught but the book uses vocabulary and words in order of usefulness in conversation and not how easy or hard they are to write. It also is then able to include pitch markings to help train where to place your pitch while reading a sentence to learn proper pronunciation. In any case those book put my well on the way to fluency and if you are willing to put in the time, are excellent.

Thanks for all this feedback. My question is simpler than all this though (sorry I did not make myself clear):

Do the 400 kanji in the Jorden's "Japanese: The Written Language" include or mostly include the 300 kanji on the JPLT 3?

Thanks.

@canji: the only way to know for sure would be to examine her book and check it against the JLPT list. IIRC, the JLPT spec allows for a certain amount of adding kanji that aren't on the list, so take any list you see with a grain of salt.

I'd still recommend using the UNICOM kanji book for JLPT 3 over a textbook if you want to have a better shot at nailing the kanji. The order any textbook writer will pick will not necessarily jive with what test-writers want.

@megaboyx-- different strokes for different folks. I learned hiragana and katakana in class in about 2 weeks, and never had any problems. I actually found Jorden's way of using romaji very difficult to read/follow in comparison. I'm at an age where I already have a lot of clutter in my brain-- adding another layer of clutter (romaji) just never made sense to me. I thought it was easier to just suck it up, learn hiragana/katakana, and move on.

Yeah I remember learning kana in about 2 or 3 days before I even started Japanese class just by making out some vocab lists on flash cards with it. I thought the whole point of romaji was it was something you DIDN'T have to learn. Don't you already know those letters? Are you saying the whole book should have been written in only kana? What's the difference between romaji and kana except that kana would be more difficult to read since it has no spaces and without the kanji to break up the words it would totally obscure the grammar. The spoken language books concentrate on the logic of Japanese and the grammar and using kana or kanji obscures those points and make it harder to use. You have to remember that Jordan comes from a linguistic background and was interested in studying the language from that angle. And that is why I enjoyed that book over any other and got so much out of it. If that's not want you want, sure another textbook would be better for you but saying that particular one should use kana or kanji misses the point.

@canji,

I have Japanese the Written Language around the house. (My college classes used the Jorden books for the lower levels.) If you'll give me a couple days, I can scan the index and mail you the images. You could go from that to get the answer to your question. Just send me a personal message to remind me.

@megaboyx

I don't think you can actually say that you already "know" romaji before you start out. For one thing, the Jorden books use an idiosyncratic form of romaji. It's pure in a linguistic sense, but the student has to learn that, for example, "tu" is pronounced "tsu". I understand the reason she did it that way (to make the relationship with "ta", "te", and "to" clear), but it still requires students to learn something beyond the Roman alphabet. Personally, I think that effort could be better spent learning kana and kanji.

Of course, you can always learn kana and kanji simultaneously, but now you're in the position of always having translate from romaji in JSL to kana in other places. Again, wasted effort.

Now, my Japanese classes had good teachers, so they were still worthwhile, but I think it's a shame that we used those books, because we could have made a lot more progress with different books, I think.

sfekas Wrote:@canji,

I have Japanese the Written Language around the house. (My college classes used the Jorden books for the lower levels.) If you'll give me a couple days, I can scan the index and mail you the images. You could go from that to get the answer to your question. Just send me a personal message to remind me.

You are very kind, but I am alright. I think I'll just use KO2001.

canji Wrote:You are very kind, but I am alright. I think I'll just use KO2001.

No problem. KO2001 is better anyway. (I'm working my way through it now.)

Jorden used the official system and the one recommended by the Japanese government itself. Anyway don't tell me it took more than 5 seconds to learn tu is pronounced tsu or di is ji, etc. That's how you can type it in an input method system anyway. It also lets you see points like maziru and mazeru as being more closely related where as majiru and mazeru hides that fact. The transition from romaji to kana is one-to-one and once you have the system down, the symbols used to represent it are trivial. Every class is different and I think our class after finishing all 3 books in the series in 2 years made tremendous progress, among those who stuck it out of course. Being familiar with romanized Japanese is a skill you must know regardless and it is a big help for the beginning student of Japanese. By the 2nd book in the series I was using the Japanese transcript which you can order separately, to go through the drills and lessons to practice reading too so they ARE available if you have to have it.

megaboyx Wrote:Jorden used the official system and the one recommended by the Japanese government itself. Anyway don't tell me it took more than 5 seconds to learn tu is pronounced tsu or di is ji, etc. That's how you can type it in an input method system anyway. It also lets you see points like maziru and mazeru as being more closely related where as majiru and mazeru hides that fact. The transition from romaji to kana is one-to-one and once you have the system down, the symbols used to represent it are trivial. Every class is different and I think our class after finishing all 3 books in the series in 2 years made tremendous progress, among those who stuck it out of course. Being familiar with romanized Japanese is a skill you must know regardless and it is a big help for the beginning student of Japanese. By the 2nd book in the series I was using the Japanese transcript which you can order separately, to go through the drills and lessons to practice reading too so they ARE available if you have to have it.

Not at all. Romaji is "help" for beginners, but it's really just a... uh... It's called a "bear hug" in Swedish, can't think of the English equalient at the moment. Anyway, it's a thing which is trying to be nice, but actually makes it worse for the recipient. So yeah, you learn a few sentences and some basic grammar a few days faster. What's the point? It takes at most 1 week to learn hiragana, and you will have to learn it eventually anyway.

Not only does it show the 混じる and 混ぜる point perfectly, it lets you think in terms of adding tenten instead of changing the letter completely.

As a final point, the student will have to learn kanji and as we all know at this site, learning kanji is like learning kana, just much harder and takes much longer. If they can't spend one week learning hiragana, how will they ever be able to learn over 2000 kanji?

We call it a "crutch" - something you get used to leaning on, but then completely fall over once it's taken away.

Damn training wheels. They didn't make learning to ride a bike any easier at all! :O

Did your classes took 6 months?

Are you saying you should wait 6 MONTHS to be able the most basic japanese?

I dont remember any manga written in romanji.

OK I think we are talking at cross purposes. At no point did I say you should not learn the Japanese writing system if you are learning Japanese. I just stated the fact that it does not belong in the Jorden text books. They have a different "Japanese the written language" book for that. To do so would completely undermine her method. You might as well be arguing that the Heisig is wrong because you don't learn all the Japanese readings along with the kanji right off the bat. There is no one RIGHT way to learn something as complex as a language. But at least Jorden is consistent in her methodology. It is 100% the spoken language and the drills are designed to teach automatic responses in common situations so you can become fluent. The classroom time is spent 100% doing this. It is about communication and speaking not taking kanji tests or whatever else. That was done in a separate class when I took it and in fact I pretty much taught myself because of the time involved. I really don't think you understand the purpose of those books. Did you really use all the materials in the language lab and complete all the books and memorize all the core conversations? Did you do the eavesdropping and ear training? Did your teachers know what they were doing? Again it is a futile effort arguing that kanji or kana belong in that book. If you do it just shows you don't get what the books are trying to accomplish. And I guarantee you, it wasn't a crutch for me.

Personally, I've always disliked the idea of learning standard answers to question and automatic responses in situations, which is why I dislike pimsleur as well. You don't become fluent, you become a robot. You're fluent when your output is completely creative, when you can start a conversation about anything and keep it going. Not when you answer a phone with "moshi moshi" without thinking.

Like it or not, a language is 90% patterns. You can't be "completely creative" and make any sense. You have to speak within a structure of the language. Of course you are free to substitute any vocabulary and topics you want and in fact that is how the Jorden books work, using pattern sentences. If you don't practice the responses to perfection then you will be at a loss when the time comes to say something. Or else you will flounder with some English translation of what you want to say which comes out sounding unnatural. The drills help reinforce previous vocabulary and master the grammar patterns. There's nothing wrong with that and it is quite different from Pimsleur. I don't get your point about saying "moshi moshi" without thinking. Are you supposed to think when saying set expressions?

Romaji, memorizing expressions? Ugh, this sounds awful.

The best method of learning a language is to be born in a country that speaks that language and have parents that are native in that language.

But foreign adults should never, ever ignore the writing system.

Where are you comments coming from mentat_kgs? Did someone recommend to ignore the writing system? If so, I certainly missed it. And nest0r, if you have found a way to learn a language without memorizing anything then please share it because that would really be something. By the way, in the Jorden text, most of the romaji is used to explain grammar points. The actual language practice is almost totally aural in that you respond to recordings by listening then speaking. So you actually don't really ever read much of anything except when you first memorize the conversations but even that can be done by repeating after the videos or tapes.

Yeah, by doing that you are deeming your only japanese studies to these tapes. For me that is ignoring the writing system.