Can I ask if anyone knows of any good resources - either books or online - for learning how to write well in Japanese? By this I mean something which explains (in depth) how to write appropriately in different contexts, and in general, methods for developing a good, native-esque (is that a word?) writing style. I ask because whilst I would say my written Japanese is fairly good, I spend a lot of time writing Japanese which probably makes sense but I feel still might seem awkward or badly written by native Japanese standards. I am looking for something a lot more in-depth than simply the "the de-aru form is used in written Japanese" and "use keigo to be polite" kind of stuff. I would like something by which I would be able to improve the quality of my writing.

I have recently started a new job in which I'm writing a lot of reports and e-mails in Japanese. I am learning a lot simply by doing these things but I am still faintly embarassed to be submitting reports to my 部長 that are returned to me with a fair bit of red pen scribbled on them.

Writing has always been the most difficult part of this language for me as it is very hard to develop a sense of what is "good" or "appropriate" in written Japanese without being a native speaker and I've had trouble finding any resources to help me improve.

Any help would be very much appreciated.

Cheers.

Writing Letters in Japanese (日本語の手紙の書き方 )

Might be hard to find.

i want to know this as well. I know doing kana to kanji works you're memory from hiragana readings for specific kanji from memory for using SRS. But other than that, it's not going to really make you write better in japanese. I'm fairly confident on my own i can reach a really high level in reading+understanding no problem. So that leaves speaking, which i know gets better if you keep practicing, keep immersion, keep learning more vocab+more context. Well it will help it improve.

Also i think, you just need to keep writing as much as possible, until you get a flow to it. Until you're able to write everything down+fast without much effort+correctly(well this really doesn't always matter, cuz everyone strokes are probably different)

here http://www.amazon.co.jp/%E6%97%A5%E6%9C%...4789006646
06646
I found this on amazon.jp
日本語の手紙の書き方

You could try visiting high quality japanese internet forums. By high quality I mean any forums where people write intelligently on a range of topics.

@nadiatims
I presume you mean, like academic sites or academic forums. For me personally i want to improving my writing in japanese. Starting with journal writing i guess and probably production cards i can increase to further the growth.

I can think for speaking i might get a private tutor if possible or just get a language exchange partner cuz i seriously suck at speaking. Understanding is my strongest skill at the moment, then reading, then writing and then speaking is the last one.

nadiatims Wrote:You could try visiting high quality japanese internet forums. By high quality I mean any forums where people write intelligently on a range of topics.

Links?

You might find this useful :

http://www.h3.dion.ne.jp/~urutora/bunshoupeji.htm

I have an ebook somewhere on "how to write Japanese letters" Will try find it when I get time.

I'm not sure if this is the sort of thing your after but when it comes to letters I like these websites (because I have no money for books)

http://www.letter-g.com/basic/
http://www.midori-japan.co.jp/letter/

ta12121 Wrote:@nadiatims
吾 presume you mean, like academic sites or academic forums. For 僕e personally 吾 want to improving my writing 中n japanese. Starting with journal writing 吾 察uess and probably production cards 吾 可an 増ncrease to further the growth.

I mean sites like this one. I think you'll naturally become able to imitate (in speech or writing) whatever language you're exposed to. I've become quite aware recently, that most of my exposure these days comes in the form of low-level social interaction, novels/audiobooks, manga, music and tv. Different types of media expose teach you different things. I'm reading a fantasy novel which is great, but a lot of the new vocabulary is in the form of obscure adjectives/adverbs, in other words colorful desciptive language. Manga on the other hand tends to be full of simple dialogues (transcribed spoken language). I live in Japan and get plenty of exposure to and involvement in low level social interaction so I don't have too many problems with 日常会話. Having deep conversations about complex topics however is still difficult for me. This is partly a vocab problem, but it's also points to a lack of exposure to this kind of language. A forum like this one but in japanese would be great because people write intelligent arguments. There is a lot of articulate description/persuasion/counter arguing and so on going on at this forum. And this is how I'd like to write/speak in Japanese too. I don't see such a disconnect between speaking and writing by the way.

womacks32 Wrote:nadiatims wrote:

You could try visiting high quality japanese internet forums. By high quality 吾 mean any forums where 民eople 書rite intelligently on a 域ange 之f topics.

Links?

Haven't really looked yet. I tend to get far too easily distracted by English sites when using the internet.

@OP: If you're in Japan, goto bookoff. They have a whole section for books on how to write and 105en means you can buy a stack. You may also want to study for and take the 日本語文章検定.

I've done a fair number of translations of business correspondence, and it's all VERY formulaic. Go over everything in your inbox with a fine-toothed come and try to emulate it.

There is also the Nihongo Kentei exam.

It's an exam to test a native Japanese speaker's ability
to use "proper" Japanese. I can imagine that this will
include a lot of discussion on proper writing.

http://www.nihongokentei.jp/

Here's an interesting blog by a Tokyo english tutor who talks about Japanese in Japanese. It's not updated all that often, but I do find the discussion interesting.

http://nihongodaybyday.blogspot.com/

Uhm, what is improving the speed of my Japanese output now is to play online games with Japanese people. Having to negotiate with people is really an interesting exercise.