I think if you search for Harry Potter on this forum, you find about one million topics about people reading it in Japanese. Search for Lord of the Rings and you find nothing, etc. I've already whined about it in other topics, but why? It's not even good books in English and it's not good to read translated works so... why?

I'm going to have to go out, find easy Japanese novels and write links to people so they stop relying on translations of books.

For now, I recommend Homeless Chuugakusei.

welldone101 Wrote:He was quite obviously bragging when he said it humbly. If you don't want to read the HP books don't read them.

It's possible to have a discussion, you know? There's no need to get all defensive about your precious books. Especially since I've already stated numerous times (here and elsewhere) that it is one of my goals to read this whole book, and probably the others.

So I'll turn it around on you: If you don't want to have a discussion, then don't.

Tobberoth Wrote:I think if you search for Harry Potter on this forum, you find about one million topics about people reading it in Japanese. Search for Lord of the Rings and you find nothing, etc. I've already whined about it in other topics, but why? It's not even good books in English and it's not good to read translated works so... why?

Well, some of us really enjoyed the books. They were light-hearted and fun.

Tobberoth Wrote:I'm going to have to go out, find easy Japanese novels and write links to people so they stop relying on translations of books.

For now, I recommend Homeless Chuugakusei.

And please, do that. I'm dying for some easy non-manga Japanese novels that I can read... Sadly, my vocabulary is barely JLPT4, though. My grammar is worse still.

Well, personally I would think that JLPT4 is far from enough to read anything in Japanese, including Harry Potter. The thing is that no matter what you try reading, you will find loads of words you don't know, it takes a BIG vocabulary to start getting away from that. And since most people who try reading HP in Japanese are at the level were they WILL be looking up a LOT of words and learn, isn't it a better idea, especially for those people, to find Japanese books with natural Japanese?

I would think that if you want to get good at Japanese books, you should read Japanese books. If you want to get good at English books translated to Japanese, read that. The difference MAY be minimal, but it probably isn't, at least not according to natives.

But yes, I'll try finding some books to recommend. I do believe both ドロップ and ホームレス中学生 to be the same level at HP in Japanese so those are my main recommendations, but I haven't read HP in Japanese so it's just a guess. Both are very good and interesting books, originally in Japanese, have been made into movies (at least ドロップ has). Another good thing: They take place in a "realistic" modern world, ホームレス中学生 is even based on a true story, written by the actual main character. Some people are fine with learning fantasy words which are semi-useless in conversational Japanese, but for the others who prioritize useful words, you will probably have more fun mining from those two books.

Tobberoth Wrote:Well, personally I would think that JLPT4 is far from enough to read anything in Japanese, including Harry Potter.

Yes, you are correct. That's a big part of my trouble in finding things to read.

Tobberoth Wrote:The thing is that no matter what you try reading, you will find loads of words you don't know, it takes a BIG vocabulary to start getting away from that. And since most people who try reading HP in Japanese are at the level were they WILL be looking up a LOT of words and learn, isn't it a better idea, especially for those people, to find Japanese books with natural Japanese?

Yes, if they can find things that interest them... Which they can't, since they don't know enough Japanese to read the reviews... Or even the summaries. Working your way through a book that you are pretty sure will be good is a lot different than trying to work yourself through hundreds or thousands of reviews to find something worthwhile.

Tobberoth Wrote:I would think that if you want to get good at Japanese books, you should read Japanese books. If you want to get good at English books translated to Japanese, read that. The difference MAY be minimal, but it probably isn't, at least not according to natives.

But yes, I'll try finding some books to recommend. I do believe both ドロップ and ホームレス中学生 to be the same level at HP in Japanese so those are my main recommendations, but I haven't read HP in Japanese so it's just a guess. Both are very good and interesting books, originally in Japanese, have been made into movies (at least ドロップ has). Another good thing: They take place in a "realistic" modern world, ホームレス中学生 is even based on a true story, written by the actual main character. Some people are fine with learning fantasy words which are semi-useless in conversational Japanese, but for the others who prioritize useful words, you will probably have more fun mining from those two books.

I found ホームレス中学生 on bk1, but ドロップ is producing more books on drop-shipping than anything else. Any pointers on finding it? I've found I'm more willing to take a chance on wasting money in Japanese when people recommend things since it's so bloody hard to find things on my own. So far it's not been too bad.

When my vocab improves a little more, I'm going to be ready to sit down with a book and a dictionary and work my way through it. It's still just slightly too painful right now, but I'm getting really close I think. I can sit down and enjoy random shonen mangas now, but I don't fully get everything being said without a dictionary. I got there by studying vocab and reading with a dictionary, and I plan to continue what's working for me.

IceCream Wrote:Did you read the american version? I heard they changed it in places, sort of translated it into english-for-americans. The original version (the british english version) starts with the sentence quoted above... probably because "fine, thankyou very much" is kind of a british-ism.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure it was the American version. That's probably what's going on here. Dang, now you got me thinking about trying to get both English versions now... They're obviously quite different as well. I agree that the British and Japanese translations are a lot closer than American one, now.

wccrawford Wrote:I've found I'm more willing to take a chance on wasting money in Japanese when people recommend things since it's so bloody hard to find things on my own.

Perhaps we could start a recommended-books section on the wiki? I'm thinking of a semi-standard format giving a brief summary, author/title/isbn plus a brief extract to give an idea of the level of difficulty of the Japanese. At the moment there's some stuff but it's kind of scattered across various threads in the archives...

(I haven't read LOTR in Japanese but I did read The Hobbit, mostly because last time I tried reading the English I found it annoyingly simple...)

I think I found Drop. Is this it?

http://www.bk1.jp/product/02701307

And I think this is the homeless student one:

http://www.bk1.jp/product/03028425

pm215 Wrote:Perhaps we could start a recommended-books section on the wiki? I'm thinking of a semi-standard format giving a brief summary, author/title/isbn plus a brief extract to give an idea of the level of difficulty of the Japanese. At the moment there's some stuff but it's kind of scattered across various threads in the archives...

(I haven't read LOTR in Japanese but I did read The Hobbit, mostly because last time I tried reading the English I found it annoyingly simple...)

Had I read any books, I'd be there helping start it.

Did you find The Hobbit to be fairly simple in Japanese as well? I could enjoy that one. LOTR was too long and had too many boring parts in English... Can't imagine it holding my attention in Japanese. (Having said that, I've read it at least 3 times in English, so it's not -that- bad.)

wccrawford Wrote:I think I found Drop. Is this it?

http://www.bk1.jp/product/02701307

And I think this is the homeless student one:

http://www.bk1.jp/product/03028425

Yes, those are the ones! The ドロップ one is the exact one I read, the other one has a different cover but is definitely the same book.

Tobberoth Wrote:Yes, those are the ones! The ドロップ one is the exact one I read, the other one has a different cover but is definitely the same book.

Excellent, thanks! I should have them in a week or 2 and then I can see how far I am from being able to read them.

wccrawford Wrote:Did you find The Hobbit to be fairly simple in Japanese as well?

It wasn't all that simple, actually. I think that's partly the fantasy setting: after they leave Hobbiton and start the adventure proper there was an increase in odd words I hadn't encountered before, and it felt at the time like I was having to do too much dictionary lookup, so I put it to one side for ages before finally coming back and finishing it.

I think the easiest book I've read was one I tried from a for-kids range. The publisher's website has a '試し読み' button which lets you read the first chapter or so, which is probably enough to gauge (a) how easy you find it (b) whether you can stand the for-kids storyline :-) I suspect that even this is well into JLPT3 levels, though.

Is the Guin saga thingy any good? I bought the English translations a long time ago from Vertical Inc., and I know there's an anime, but haven't read or watched either of them.

pm215 Wrote:I think the easiest book I've read was one I tried from a for-kids range. The publisher's website has a '試し読み' button which lets you read the first chapter or so, which is probably enough to gauge (a) how easy you find it (b) whether you can stand the for-kids storyline :-) I suspect that even this is well into JLPT3 levels, though.

I can actually read that! All of the kanji has furigana, though, which is another of my barriers. Still, books like those will make great practice! Thanks for the link!

I guess the complete list of the books with previews available might be handy too.

Yeah, when I first read that series, I made sure to get the British versions. I don't understand the point of 'translating' them. But then, I've always watched and read tonnes of UK stuff, so.

IceCream Wrote:

wccrawford Wrote:Dang, now you got me thinking about trying to get both English versions now... They're obviously quite different as well.

lol, they even translated the title, so, definately!! The original is "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" ：）

lol It's funny, I keep -calling- it that, even thought I know it's 'Sorcerer's Stone'. Too much Fullmetal Alchemist.

Anyhow, the site I found online with the book is now taken down, and I don't have a physical copy at the moment... But nothing I've found online now has it as I remember it when I was comparing the English and Japanese versions. Maybe that was some kind of pre-release copy that wasn't finalized or something.

So yeah, I'm much less unhappy with the translation now.

I think the Harry Potter series are great books to read before delving into native literature, provided you enjoy the story:
- the setting is familiar.
- there is a lot of vocabulary which is contained in sentences that are not too difficult grammatically (this may be related to the "non-natural japanese" translation, more about that below).
- if you don't understand everything while you read it you're just missing on Harry Potter: I'd rather train on these novels and then tackle books by Japanese authors, hoping not to miss too much.

About the translation. We've had this debate before. I don't think it's very important, as I don't plan to stop reading Japanese books after having read Harry Potter: it's just a stepping stone, like using sentence decks with Anki. Also, although the unnatural character of the Harry Potter translation has been mentioned several times on the forum, I'd be happy to get a link where this is said by a native Japanese instead of just being repeated. Finally, while there may be a difference between native and translated material, there is also one between edited and non-edited material. Material from blogs for example may or may not be a good source if one is worried about the influence it could have on one's Japanese. At least in French I find many mistakes in online content.

I am currently finishing the second book. I've been adding sentences to an Anki deck for the vocabulary in the book (the sentences come from the Japanese dictionary included in the MacOs Dictionary app). If anyone is interested I will post it after I finish the second book.

nyquil Wrote:I am currently finishing the second book. I've been adding sentences to an Anki deck for the vocabulary in the book (the sentences come from the Japanese dictionary included in the MacOs Dictionary app). If anyone is interested I will post it after I finish the second book.

I would be very much interested in that.

pm215 Wrote:I guess the complete list of the books with previews available might be handy too.

I love you for this. I'll probably be embarrassed to read these in public, but they're about my level and actually seem like they might be interesting... At least some of them. Witches always seem to be a recipe for success: http://shop.kodansha.jp/bc2_bc/search_vi...?b=2159031

@wccrawford: don't be mislead by まともな人間. It simply means here "normal people", so no need to feel unhappy with the translation.

I checked the first chapter sentence by sentence and it is definitely a very close translation. Still it is "natural Japanese", natural enough for the Japanese readers.

Just a side note: There are complete websites filled with the collection of errors in HP translations in different languages. A very productive pastime.

Matthias Wrote:@wccrawford: don't be mislead by まともな人間. It simply means here "normal people", so no need to feel unhappy with the translation.

I checked the first chapter sentence by sentence and it is definitely a very close translation. Still it is "natural Japanese", natural enough for the Japanese readers.

Just a side note: There are complete websites filled with the collection of errors in HP translations in different languages. A very productive pastime.

Thanks for that. That nuance obviously didn't survive a dictionary lookup.

pm215 Wrote:Perhaps we could start a recommended-books section on the wiki?

So I created a page and stuck in a couple of reviews as a start to see if anybody else wanted to add any :-)

CharleyGarrett Wrote:Thanks for the deck. It's actually my first sample of an audio prompt type of deck. I've got to say that I like that. I should try to do more of that. Still, I'd imagine that a sentence might be better than a single vocabulary word.

I'm glad you like the audio prompt format. I've been using it for a while now to study vocabulary and I find it enjoyable and effective. I also study sentences but I like studying words in isolation as well. Often times I've found that having 3 formats (sentence reading, word reading in isolation, word audio recognition in isolation) improves my comprehension. Rather, it broadens my comprehension. Sometimes I can hear a word very easily but the reading is difficult for me. Other times the reverse is true where I can read the word easily (perhaps I already know the kanji readings) but I have trouble hearing it. Having multiple formats helps with that.

To give you another example (sorry, I know you didn't ask for it) I've sentenced mined all of the intermediate sentences from Jpod (lower intermediate, intermediate, and upper) and I study the sentences in isolation. The back side of my card contains the audio for the sentence as well. I've found it to be very effective when I listen to the full dialogue later on my iPod. One problem however is that often times the meaning of the sentence has simply been memorized and I don't necessarily understand all of the words.

I think that this isn't a big problem because enough repeated listening will get you to notice more "information" about the sentence. By information I simply mean you will start to identify the dictionary form of a verb or other parts of speech like correct particle usage and so on. For me, having an isolated vocabulary deck speeds up this process.

A quick and simple example of this is the phrase お邪魔します or　o-jama-shimasu. I learned this as a set phrase that you say when entering a house. One day I added the word 邪魔 to my vocabulary deck and then I understood how the phrase was constructed. I was also very amused by the choice of kanji in the word jama. It helped demystify things and then of course I realized there were other useful expressions using jama.

nyquil Wrote:Also, although the unnatural character of the Harry Potter translation has been mentioned several times on the forum, I'd be happy to get a link where this is said by a native Japanese instead of just being repeated.

I've had many discussions with my girlfriend about written Japanese (who happens to be a native Japanese). She described Harry Potter as difficult. She never described it as strange. Dialogue is obviously going to be strange at times because it's a fantasy novel. The dialogue can be strange in English too but it's still correct English. A lot of the vocabulary is advanced, obscure, or even archaic. Whatever you want to call it really. The same is true for Murakami et al. Many Japanese have difficulty reading literature. Certainly, the same is true in other languages as well. I know it's true for English.

The fact of the matter is that written Japanese and spoken Japanese are very different regardless of the source language. I grew up reading fantasy novels and it didn't affect my spoken English. I never spoke like Frodo or Sturm Brightblade (but I did grow a handlebar moustache once. I also got a "C" on a spelling test in the fourth grade for spelling several words in British English.). The important thing is that the Harry Potter translations are more or less "correct" Japanese. If you're at the point where you can read it fluently then I doubt this is even an issue for you. I can't say because I can't read fluently.

I would like to write a quick note about native sources and blogs. I'd be careful about which blogs you use for sentence mining. Being a native or a fluent speaker doesn't automatically qualify you as a good user of the language. Growing up in America I met many native speakers of English. Many of them were not good speakers or writers. Conversely, I have some friends that are not native speakers of English who are far superior speakers and writers. I'd much rather read a blog written by my L2 English friends than some native speakers that I've met. I think the biggest difference is in the amount of "correct" English that my friends have read. Just read correct Japanese and you'll be fine. Sooner or later you'll be reading native sources anyway right Harry Potter is just a drop in the language bucket.