bladethecoder Wrote:

sheetz Wrote:There are a lot of Japanese voice actors who put up excellent quality audiobooks on their blogs.

Where? And what do you mean by "audiobook" here?

http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?tid=752

Some of the recordings, like a few of the Sherlock Holmes stories, are of professional quality.

For books published the normal way, you need permission from the author and the publisher, the latter likely being more of a problem. For works published by the author for free online, but without a "free license", there may be a decent chance of getting permission.

Sheetz: Ah yes, and some of those have translations too. So, the reason not to just work with these is because they are "old"?

Does anyone have any experience with Soseki Natsume? I am Cat is 22 hours.

I have never read his work, how is the language, style, & difficulty?

digitlhand Wrote:If that is not the case and 4 or 5 of us can do something like that, I would put up $1000 dollars myself. The total time to read the rest of the Harry Potter series would be about 140 hours straight through.

For $1000 I would act out the entire series myself whilst riding around on a broomstick and chanting random latin phrases.

bladethecoder Wrote:Sheetz: Ah yes, and some of those have translations too. So, the reason not to just work with these is because they are "old"?

Not only that, but the Harry Potter books are all available in digital format in both Japanese and English. That makes life a LOT easier if you want to create your own parallel texts.

Quote:For $1000 I would act out the entire series myself whilst riding around on a broomstick and chanting random latin phrases.

If you are serious about reading it I am interested. Would you be willing to read the rest of the series and record it? That's over 100 hours...

If I had any experience with voice acting I might feel comfortable doing it, but never done anything like that. I'll ask a few friends and see if any of them would be interested in though. Male or female voice, or does it not matter?

It matters as far as shadowing goes, but I don't mind male or female; I used female for French. If I can achieve natural listening with a female voice I can always shadow material read by males afterwards.

I think reading for an audiobook isn't as easy as it sounds. There are a lot of recordings at koetaba.net that I wouldn't pay money for.

digitlhand, have you considered trying with an older work? In your place I would try that before spending $1000 on a commissioned audiobook.

bladethecoder Wrote:digitlhand, have you considered trying with an older work? In your place I would try that before spending $1000 on a commissioned audiobook.

Yes, it's probably much simpler to get a group of us together to create parallel texts for the audiobooks that we do have, even if the books are slightly outdated. Although nobody expressed interest in doing that when I first mentioned it in another thread.

I would be interested. I'm supposing one would learn a lot just by putting something like that together before even doing this L-R thing.

You don't need parallel texts, you just need a copy of the English translation. Open the two side-by-side.

mafried Wrote:You don't need parallel texts, you just need a copy of the English translation. Open the two side-by-side.

And at first, you don't need the Japanese text either. I have been listening in Japanese (L2) and reading the English (L1) version of HP1. After a few times through I will change to reading L2 and listening L2. My plan is this:

1x read L1 + listen L2
1x read L2 + listen L2
1x read L1 + listen L2
1x read L2 + listen L2
3x read L2 + listen L2 + echo L2

(this is from a post on http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/ by FSI).

Disclaimer: I am new at this and might change things around once I get into it. I also already know much Japanese - high-beginner/low-intermediate level with RTK finished over a year back, so my progress might differ than others that L-R from a cold start.

From what I read, you're supposed to do it the other way around Japanese/Japanese then read the English while listening to the Japanese.

The point being that you read the English sentence first, then listen to the Japanese and try to make sense of it all, so it's more difficult and more exhausting.

Well, I prefer creating parallel e-texts because I can then use Rikaichan to quickly look up any unknown words.

Vaste Wrote:

yukamina Wrote:

Vaste Wrote:I was thinking trying LR with Korean, but I'm having a hard time finding any* Korean audiobook

I think this site sells audiobooks (but they might not be very long), but I can't navigate or understand the titles.

Which site?

Sorry! I had the site up an another tab but forgot to actually copy+paste!
http://www.audien.com/index.htm

Quote:1x read L1 + listen L2
1x read L2 + listen L2
1x read L1 + listen L2
1x read L2 + listen L2
3x read L2 + listen L2 + echo L2

Sounds like a good plan, though depending on how much previous knowledge you have of Japanese, I'd say one needs about 3x read L1 + listen L2

oops just read the edit Brian... you probably have the formula right for yourself.

I think once one tries L-R for themselves one can see what works and expand on it. I know I'm still discovering my strengths and weaknesses in the method.

I've been playing with the L-R method since 7/12 (almost 1 week).

Using HP1 and doing 1 chapter at a time, I found this works best for me:

Day 1 (Chapter 1)
A. Read L1
B. Read L2 & Listen L2
C. Read L1 & Listen L2
Day 2 (Chapter 1)
D. Repeat B & C

Day 3 (Chapter 2)
A-B-C
Day 4 (Chapter 2)
D

Note: Actually, I've been using 3 languages, but the idea is the same.
Day 1 (Chapter 1)
A. Read L2 (Russian)
B. Read L3 (Japanese) & Listen L3 (Japanese)
C. Read L1 (English) & Listen L3 (Japanese)

sheetz Wrote:Well, I prefer creating parallel e-texts because I can then use Rikaichan to quickly look up any unknown words.

Then buy the ebooks and open them side-by-side.

I'm not understanding the need to "get a group of us together to create parallel texts for the audiobooks that we do have."

@mafried it's really not the same to have two separate books. With a parallel text you never lose your place, and you can glance at the other language for an instant translation of the sentence. With two books you have to keep aligning them the whole time you are reading, pages don't line up etc. Create a parallel text once and it's a resource to save everybody time in the future, including you.

Quick question where did you guys buy the Japanese Harry Potter books? While browsing how-to-learn-any-language.com someone posted a link to this site http://www.bilingual-texts.com/library/japanese/ it has a couple of different books with parallel texts. You might want to check it out

Lyulf Wrote:Quick question where did you guys buy the Japanese Harry Potter books?

I bought mine off ebay.

Blahah Wrote:@mafried it's really not the same to have two separate books. With a parallel text you never lose your place, and you can glance at the other language for an instant translation of the sentence. With two books you have to keep aligning them the whole time you are reading, pages don't line up etc. Create a parallel text once and it's a resource to save everybody time in the future, including you.

Not to mention that text in Japanese books is normally printed vertically while in English books it is horizontal.

If the audiobooks are read at anything close to native speed you'll be zipping through the lines very quickly and it's just too distracting to have to switch back and forth between two books, whether they be hard copy or e-texts in separate windows. Maybe other people can do it but I've tried it and I can't.

@Lyulf. eBay it was like 15usd used, in perfect condition.

After 1 week of testing I found parallel texts to be annoying. I tried it with Alice in Wonderland using the files someone posted on this forum, and it seems much less effective than what I'm doing now.

When I'm readingL2/listeningL2 I don't need/want distractions or hints. I want to try and understand the whole sentence > paragraph > page. I want to concentrate on L2 as much as possible.

When I do step 3 (listenL2/readL1) the words/phrases that I didn't understand during step 2 (listenL2/readL2) pop out to me.

I can see why many people prefer parallel text. I will keep experimenting with both methods and see which is more effective.