Missing the forest for the trees there Tobberoth. Harry Potter is one tree. If that's all a person read, then they don't really care about learning Japanese. It's 450 pages out of the 100,000+ pages of material one should read over time.

It's literary equivalent of guys moaning Heisig taught Gall Bladder way near the beginning of 2000 kanji instead of the end. It's a moot point. If the Gall Bladder kanji were all one learned, yeah, that'd be pretty stupid. Don't bitch just because I tossed that kanji on top of the rest I'm going to learn.

Now, had you extended effort early on talking about that other book ドロップ, you would have others not only agreeing with you, but maybe want to try out the book. Instead, we have 10 posts talking about the book you don't want people to think about. By insulting Harry Potter, you bring out defense actions from others to justify their reasons for reading. If you offered a suggestion of something else, you instead get inquiries.

It's the whole attracting getting more flies with honey instead of vinegar (or a sharp downward slap of the hand).

Nukemarine Wrote:Missing the forest for the trees there Tobberoth. Harry Potter is one tree. If that's all a person read, then they don't really care about learning Japanese. It's 450 pages out of the 100,000+ pages of material one should read over time.

It's literary equivalent of guys moaning Heisig taught Gall Bladder way near the beginning of 2000 kanji instead of the end. It's a moot point. If the Gall Bladder kanji were all one learned, yeah, that'd be pretty stupid. Don't bitch just because I tossed that kanji on top of the rest I'm going to learn.

Now, had you extended effort early on talking about that other book ドロップ, you would have others not only agreeing with you, but maybe want to try out the book. Instead, we have 10 posts talking about the book you don't want people to think about. By insulting Harry Potter, you bring out defense actions from others to justify their reasons for reading. If you offered a suggestion of something else, you instead get inquiries.

It's the whole attracting getting more flies with honey instead of vinegar (or a sharp downward slap of the hand).

I brought ドロップ up in my second post, and the first one was really short and not offensive at all, it was worded as a question... Nor did I ever insult Harry Potter, I just said that I personally don't like it much and that it has extremely little to do with Japanese, so outside of having been translated, it's completely useless as a tool of study.

vosmiura Wrote:I thought the point was that reading something you know already is easier to read, so you can use it to advance your reading level first.

And I'm saying that assumption is quite baseless. What you need when reading to understand from context, is understanding of the context. When you read a book you've already read, you have a good idea of the context, but that won't help you if you can't read at all. If you CAN read, you will get a pretty decent context quite quickly, even if you haven't read the book before. The first one or two chapters will definitely be hard, but I think the difference is quite negligible. Therefor, I don't think having read a book first let's you "jump ahead" of your level. You will still need to be able to read, and when you can read, you're good enough to read a new book.

つまり: If you can't read well enough to understand the basic context after 1-2 chapters, you aren't going to learn anything from "reading" anyway.

Tobberoth Wrote:I brought ドロップ up in my second post, and the first one was really short and not offensive at all, it was worded as a question... Nor did I ever insult Harry Potter, I just said that I personally don't like it much and that it has extremely little to do with Japanese, so outside of having been translated, it's completely useless as a tool of study.

Fair enough, it sounded like you were downplaying people's choices to read Harry Potter in Japanese for fun. While it has little to do with Japan, that it's in Japanese makes it very relevant to the language though. If it's you think despite that that one shouldn't study from it that's a fair critique that I would agree with in part.

Personally, I don't think one should mine an entire book (even one that is Japanese in origin) for sentences, phrases and vocabulary. It's too specific to one area and bound to get a tad boring regardless of the book. Now, should one mine say a chapter or two from Harry Potter or one manga volume or one episode from a TV show or movie I wouldn't argue against it.

I'll look into the book you mentioned.

Not to stoke the fire any further but...I read Harry Potter in Japanese because I find the series enjoyable enough (trashy fiction, but enjoyable) and had the urge to reread it. Since I was going to reread it anyway, why not do it in Japanese?

I was browsing our lib catalogue last week. I ordered needful things (by Steven King) in Japanese. Though its way above my level I was interested in having a go. Its like when I read Agatha Christie novels (in English). They are easy to read as I know the stories. So its just easy reading. Sometimes there is too much to keep track of - the chars (harder when foreign names I find), story and the kanji/Japanese. Sometimes its just easier to do one. Plus I think that the Japanese have taken on so much of Western culture and use katakana that it useful to read Western books. Its a great practice on katakana words and also how people translate English -> Japanese as its not an exact science.

blackmacros Wrote:Not to stoke the fire any further but...I read Harry Potter in Japanese because I find the series enjoyable enough (trashy fiction, but enjoyable) and had the urge to reread it. Since I was going to reread it anyway, why not do it in Japanese?

Same here. If I'm going to read it anyway, it might as well improve my Japanese I don't see how it is useless at all.

Quote:8. 日本語総まとめ問題集 [2級漢字編] (新書) -- Jarvik7 recommended this series. The book looks like fun. Based on signs and things people actually see. Also has sentences. Looks like it's based off of JLPT 2kyuu again, so I'm *guessing* it'll get you ~1,000 kanji again. (No basis in reality on that, just a guess based on JLPT level.) Link takes you to amazon.jp, where you can see a preview.
http://is.gd/1eKhs

I picked up a copy of this out of curiosity, and it's definitely different from the usual stuff. I'm not sure what category this fits in, but I wish I had it when I went to Japan.

First off, it doesn't have sentences in the usual sense. If you're a miner, it'll be tricky to mine. (Not impossible, but you'll have to pick your spots. There's no set pattern.) I don't really plan on mining this aggressively, to be honest. Just bits that interest me.

Instead of the usual stuff, it uses things like warning signs, remote controls for air conditioners (I could have used that!), notices and forms for payments and fees, etc. as examples for encountering kanji and associated vocab in the real world. (There's even a section on point cards. SO COOL!)

It's presented as an 8-week course for getting ready for JLPT2, where each 2 pages is a one-day assignment where you learn 10-15 kanji and their associated vocab. If you're really slow, you can break it down into one page a day, because each page has 5-8 kanji, and a 3 question quiz. The vocab is usually tied to a theme, like a TV remote control, or something like that, so you have a practical application for what the words mean.

At the end of the "week," there's a bigger test, and at the end of the book, there's a sample JLPT2 section.

The book has English, Korean, and Chinese translations, so you don't have to dig around to find out what every word means.

It's 1200 yen. I got it at Kinokunia NY for $16.80.

I also got the grammar book, too. It's also very good. Another 8-week JLPT2 prep course, set out in, "Learn these grammar points today, and here's the quiz," fashion. Same setup. You learn 4 grammar points a day, then on day 7, you have a longer test.

It's also 1200 yen, but for some reason they got me for $19. -_- Meh, it's still worth the money. These are really good drill books.

ISBN for the Kanji book: 978-4-87217-571-4
ISBN for the Grammar book: 978-4-87217-615-5

blackmacros Wrote:Not to stoke the fire any further but...I read Harry Potter in Japanese because I find the series enjoyable enough (trashy fiction, but enjoyable)

I don't think you've read trashy enough fiction if you think that Harry Potter has trashy writing.

I'd generally recommend against reading books translated from English. The reason is that it's almost like reading English with a thin Japanese facade draped over it, as if I can almost see what the exact English sentences were while reading it.

I think it's much more useful to read books written in Japanese, their use of the language is much more elegant and unique to the language. Also, since it's often not immediately obvious how to make a good English translation, it gets you thinking in the language more.

welldone101 Wrote:

blackmacros Wrote:Not to stoke the fire any further but...I read Harry Potter in Japanese because I find the series enjoyable enough (trashy fiction, but enjoyable)

I don't think you've read trashy enough fiction if you think that Harry Potter has trashy writing.

Well to put that quote in perspective, I read Lord of the Rings at age 8 and Harry Potter when I was 10 or 11. I was a serious fantasy buff. Harry Potter does not come out very well in that sort of comparison

Matthew Wrote:I'd generally recommend against reading books translated from English. The reason is that it's almost like reading English with a thin Japanese facade draped over it, as if I can almost see what the exact English sentences were while reading it.

I know it may be too much to ask but do you have any specific example of that? As I said before, those books are translated by professionals and I can't see why Japanese translators would be unable to make a good quality translation that doesn't feel like a translation when this isn't the case with other languages. Though I guess it could be a cultural thing and that Japanese translators actually prefer a more literal style even if the result feels a bit unnatural.

rich_f Wrote:

Quote:8. 日本語総まとめ問題集 [2級漢字編] (新書) -- Jarvik7 recommended this series. The book looks like fun. Based on signs and things people actually see. Also has sentences. Looks like it's based off of JLPT 2kyuu again, so I'm *guessing* it'll get you ~1,000 kanji again. (No basis in reality on that, just a guess based on JLPT level.) Link takes you to amazon.jp, where you can see a preview.
http://is.gd/1eKhs

I picked up a copy of this out of curiosity, and it's definitely different from the usual stuff. I'm not sure what category this fits in, but I wish I had it when I went to Japan.

First off, it doesn't have sentences in the usual sense. If you're a miner, it'll be tricky to mine. (Not impossible, but you'll have to pick your spots. There's no set pattern.) I don't really plan on mining this aggressively, to be honest. Just bits that interest me.

Instead of the usual stuff, it uses things like warning signs, remote controls for air conditioners (I could have used that!), notices and forms for payments and fees, etc. as examples for encountering kanji and associated vocab in the real world. (There's even a section on point cards. SO COOL!)

It's presented as an 8-week course for getting ready for JLPT2, where each 2 pages is a one-day assignment where you learn 10-15 kanji and their associated vocab. If you're really slow, you can break it down into one page a day, because each page has 5-8 kanji, and a 3 question quiz. The vocab is usually tied to a theme, like a TV remote control, or something like that, so you have a practical application for what the words mean.

At the end of the "week," there's a bigger test, and at the end of the book, there's a sample JLPT2 section.

The book has English, Korean, and Chinese translations, so you don't have to dig around to find out what every word means.

It's 1200 yen. I got it at Kinokunia NY for $16.80.

I also got the grammar book, too. It's also very good. Another 8-week JLPT2 prep course, set out in, "Learn these grammar points today, and here's the quiz," fashion. Same setup. You learn 4 grammar points a day, then on day 7, you have a longer test.

It's also 1200 yen, but for some reason they got me for $19. -_- Meh, it's still worth the money. These are really good drill books.

ISBN for the Kanji book: 978-4-87217-571-4
ISBN for the Grammar book: 978-4-87217-615-5

this book is a big reason I passed the JLPT 2. Ive been pulling for it over that wretched KM book because the sample sentences are designed to make the grammar as easy as possible to "get." i mined the entire book and had friends read the sample sentences - it was pure gold - the grammar explanations and english translations leave a lot to be desired (they are often creatively and not directly translated, making the grammar difficult to understand)though with a supplemental grammar dictionary or internet - it isnt half bad at all

the kanji book however is crap - i went through the whole thing several times with my tutor and it just isnt that good for learning or testing. the examples of the signs are ok, but it lacks example sentences that i think are needed to get the meaning of many of the words

Codexus Wrote:

Matthew Wrote:I'd generally recommend against reading books translated from English. The reason is that it's almost like reading English with a thin Japanese facade draped over it, as if I can almost see what the exact English sentences were while reading it.

I know it may be too much to ask but do you have any specific example of that? As I said before, those books are translated by professionals and I can't see why Japanese translators would be unable to make a good quality translation that doesn't feel like a translation when this isn't the case with other languages. Though I guess it could be a cultural thing and that Japanese translators actually prefer a more literal style even if the result feels a bit unnatural.

Yeah I agree I think that reading your favorite books translated into your target language is a huge, fast way to dive into full immersion. Most of the people I personally know who are highly communicative in a second language bridged over on previously-read translations. So I assume it must be successful as well as fun.

@duder
Yeah, after looking at the kanji book a little closer, I'm starting to see what you mean. The way you look up vocab makes no sense at all whatsoever. For some reason some words just aren't there. Like on the air conditioner remote control page, every vocab word is there except for 冷房. WTF? And one of the vocab words was on the facing page for the TV remote. (Huh?) I never could find 冷房. I guess in summer, you just suffer?

Still, the scenarios are handy in their own way. (You're just going to need a dictionary handy at times.) Since I've already finished a good chunk of KO2001, I'm just using it as something to review with to make sure I've got a good handle on kanji.

I should have been more clear on this: I don't think I'd recommend it as something to use as a way to acquire kanji on the first go-round. That would be painful, just because of the confusing vocab layout. Something like KO2001 or even KiC (depending on your level) would be a lot easier, IMO.

I just found some of the examples they used to be pretty interesting, because it's a lot of stuff I needed to know when I first got there.

As for the grammar book, I have both this and KM2, and what I may wind up doing is using this for the 8-week format, and using KM2 as additional source material. Then maybe when I'm done with this, I'll just go through KM2 to see what got omitted.