Ignorance is bliss indeed

~J

I must be the only person in this country who doesn't own a TV set but I have been listening to those transcripted TBS News quite a lot. After the initial steep curve, the going gets much easier as massive chunks of vocabulary are repeated day in day out. All society news feature a 逮捕された容疑者, police is always 詳しく調べることになっています and politicians are always 審議中. Also, one is quickly getting the impression that the majority of society news cover either knife stabbings or money swindles, with a high point some days ago when someone stabbed someone with a knife as part of a larger scheme designed to commit a swindle...

I also get 日経新聞 thrown at my desk every morning but can rarely bring up the patience to read any single item from beginning till end - something that I'm keen to change.

woodwojr Wrote:Ignorance is bliss indeed

Where did that counter-to-reality phrase come from?

Ignorance causes suffering
Wisdom brings bliss

Serge Wrote:All society news feature a 逮捕された容疑者, police is always 詳しく調べることになっています and politicians are always 審議中.

heh, but of course. Enjoyed that.

Quote:I also get 日経新聞 thrown at my desk every morning but can rarely bring up the patience to read any single item from beginning till end - something that I'm keen to change.

I prefer small chunks of text if I can. When I first glance at a full document or a newspaper, I feel overwhelmed...and try to avoid starting.

Mentat: I didn't catch the start of the names list discussion, but wanted to let you know that there is a list available of last names by frequency if that would interest you. I wasn't sure if you were creating a Who's Who or are just wanted to practice reading common names. It would be great to locate a Who's Who by category...

mentat_kgs Wrote:Names have their own meaning.

Btw, I compiled a list ripped from some websites of around ~500 文書 author names.
I did not used celebrities because they sometimes chose stupid fancy names and I'm not interested on that.

From the little experience I've got. I can see that reading names is quite easy. The only thing is that kanjis have special "name only" readings. For instance, しも for 下.

Anyone interested? I can make an anki file available.

しも is not a name-only reading.　

http://dic.yahoo.co.jp/dsearch?enc=UTF-8...8805200000

bodhisamaya Wrote:

woodwojr Wrote:Ignorance is bliss indeed

Where did that counter-to-reality phrase come from?

Ignorance causes suffering
Wisdom brings bliss

From reality, 'cause it sure ain't counter to it. From a position of ignorance, one can fail to recognize the inevitability of suffering and consequently can be free from worry about its future arrival.

For example, from mentat_kgs's position of ignorance, he believes that "reading names is quite easy". This is a position much more in line with optimism and positive feeling than the truth, which is that reading names is a hideous mess that isn't actually possible to do in general, which is why readings are almost always provided when the name doesn't belong to a public figure (who the reader would know, not because the reading was obvious, but because they know the reading for that particular individual). His ignorance has brought him bliss; the truth will bring him suffering. The suffering was there all along, of course, but he will be aware of it.

~J

But I'm not ignorant.

I know I can't read these names yet, but after memorizing a few hundreds it'll get easier.
I know there will be names I won't be able to read, but I know that most names are readable, just not yet for me.

@Thora

I don't want to do this in the most efficient way possible. I just wanted a list of interesting names and I've got it. I'll go throgh it in a slow pace, as it is not a huge priority. There is always so much to learn, after all.

mentat_kgs. My skill in Japanese is not high enough to compare if names are easier or more difficult than kanji used for other purposes so I certainly wasn't thinking of you when I said that.
Ignorance in general can cause a temporary state of calmness but if the area we are ignorant in is important, it invariably leads to suffering. Understanding news articles is important to me. If I could read them better, it would certainly create a more blissful state of mind for me. So I spend hours a day trying to remove my ignorant state. Knowledge alone will not spark that state of bliss, the wisdom to apply it will.

mentat_kgs Wrote:I don't want to do this in the most efficient way possible. I just wanted a list of interesting names and I've got it. I'll go throgh it in a slow pace, as it is not a huge priority. There is always so much to learn, after all.

I understand. I stopped studying names b/c it was the lowest priority after leaving Japan.

However, I would be interested in memorizing a list of real names (and titles) from current events so that I could get through newspaper articles without having to look stuff up. I'm thinking that a news for kids site or school social studies classes in Japan might use such a list. Does anyone know of any?

Thora Wrote:

mentat_kgs Wrote:I don't want to do this in the most efficient way possible. I just wanted a list of interesting names and I've got it. I'll go throgh it in a slow pace, as it is not a huge priority. There is always so much to learn, after all.

I understand. I stopped studying names b/c it was the lowest priority after leaving Japan.

However, I would be interested in memorizing a list of real names (and titles) from current events so that I could get through newspaper articles without having to look stuff up. I'm thinking that a news for kids site or school social studies classes in Japan might use such a list. Does anyone know of any?

I recommend my own tactic: Mine news. That way, instead of getting some list which might have names you won't ever encounter, you make sure you learn names which actually matter right now in the areas you like reading about.

I learn names of actors as well, do I agree with a previous poster that actornames are sometimes extra convoluted.

Quote:Also, one is quickly getting the impression that the majority of society news cover either knife stabbings or money swindles, with a high point some days ago when someone stabbed someone with a knife as part of a larger scheme designed to commit a swindle...

I also get the impression that Japanese news are pretty bad and focus only on minor, anecdotal events. A knife stabbing here, a robbery there.. And then Japanese people are freaked out and tell you how Japan is an "unsafe" place and has an increasing crime rate. Of course, there' s never a news story that presents actual aggregate statistical data, or if there is it must be drowned in the constant stream of trivial reports. I also notice how political issues seem to be never really discussed with any sort of insight. The only articles I read now are the 社説. Anyway, if anyone knows were I can find good news/blogs in Japanese, that would be great.

A Yahoo Kids News article about newly discovered letters from Akutagawa Ryuunosuke to a young writer:
http://news.kids.yahoo.co.jp/topics/740/...-soci.html

We do have some Akutagawa readers here, right?

http://news.kids.yahoo.co.jp/topics/772/

Very unboring article about a wheelchair that operates in accordance with the user's -thoughts alone-

A good way to study is to have an interesting real life story to follow.

Anyone hear about the world marathon Hazama Kanpei's been doing?
Here's a kid's news article: http://news.kids.yahoo.co.jp/topics/779/

And here's his website:
http://www.earth-marathon.com/

http://himika.m78.com/kaori/note/mail3.html

Not news but a good article about how to control your dreams

If somebody is interested, you can download videos from Japanese news sites using Orbit Downloader. Probably the last version would not manage to download videos from some sites, if you have any problem with that just tell me and I'll upload a previous version which I'm sure that works.