It seems Harry Potter is quite popular among foreign language learners and I was looking to get a copy of at least the first book in Japanese. However, I haven't had much luck, most online shops I can find have it in almost every other language (Latin, Chinese, Welsh) but no Japanese versions. The few versions I have found in the dark recesses of the internet are upwards of $60 dollars, which unfortunately I am not prepared to pay for one book.

Does anyone know where I can find a copy of ハリー・ポッターと賢者の石 online for a reasonable price? Ebooks just don't have the same appeal.

Have you tried http://www.amazon.co.jp ? Sometimes they don't ship abroad, but usually, with books, you should get lucky.

Yeah I've had a look at amazon japan, the only problem is shipping to Australia is pretty expensive, so it works out to around $50 AUD. I'll probably end up buying from there if I can't find it any cheaper though.

You may be able to buy cheaper second hand versions (中古品), but international shipping will a bit tricky if not impossible. Also, make sure to get paper back's to lower the price. Good luck on your reading adventure

$36.99 on yesasia: http://www.yesasia.com/global/harry-pott.../info.html

￥1,995 on bk1: http://www.bk1.jp/keywordSearchResult/?k...=9&x=0&y=0
(shipping is reasonable)

105Y at Bookoff..

I think it's only popular for language learners because Harry Potter is popular with people in general. I think it's a rather bad book for language learners for several reasons:

-It's long
-It's of a moderate difficulty level
-It's a translation (so it isn't quite natural)
-It's a translation (so you're not using your Japanese to experience foreign culture)
-A large portion of the vocabulary is just totally made up words

If you're a huge Harry Potter fan then by all means read the Japanese translation if your fandom will keep you interested, if not then read something else like some light novels.

I have to agree completely. Personally, I recommend sets of short stories. I'm currently reading a set of "scifi" stories because I enjoy sf. For anyone interested, it's called 「マイ国家」. Read what you will enjoy

Yeah I suppose it's mainly my knowledge of the series that interests me about the Japanese version. I'm familiar with the story so I figure even though it's a moderately difficult read I'll get the gist of it. I want to try out the listening-reading method with it too and figured (wrongly) that it would be one of the easier books to obtain a Japanese translation of.

I do like the series, so I feel it's worth the trouble. Plus i've spent so long looking for a copy of it now I don't think I'll be content until I actually have it. :p

Thanks for the links dat5h and Christoph_D, yesasia looks about the easiest way of getting it while still being reasonably priced.

Offer someone $20 to go and get it at Book Off and ship it to you? They're like a plague in Japan- every Book Off I've been to in Japan has heaps of copies.

Not entirely related, but a linguist who goes by the moniker Bathrobe has gone through and compared the English version of Harry Potter with the Japanese, Chinese and Vietnamese versions. It's incredibly interesting to see the various translation choices each translator made, especially when it comes to word play.

http://www.cjvlang.com/Hpotter/index.html

bluemarigolds Wrote:Not entirely related, but a linguist who goes by the moniker Bathrobe has gone through and compared the English version of Harry Potter with the Japanese, Chinese and Vietnamese versions. It's incredibly interesting to see the various translation choices each translator made, especially when it comes to word play.

http://www.cjvlang.com/Hpotter/index.html

Great resource, this will be very handy when my book arrives.

Personally I think its a very good language learning tool once you get to certain level. I've tried doing L&R with it in Spanish but it was way too early for that so I didn't gain much but I still could see some benefits. I think long term it would be really profitable.

Being long is actually a plus if its your first book since all authors have a certain manner of how they write things, expressions & vocabulary they use etc. so once you get familiar with them its all about comprehension and occasional new thing. With 7 long tomes you've plenty of material to work on, so by the time you're finished you'd probably be fluent

A 100-200 new "totally made up words" are nothing to digest with tools like SRS to help you and can hardly be called an obstacle. Especially if you've read the book already and most of them are probably just katakana versions of original expressions anyway.

But I do agree that translations are not the best resource to work on but its rather because of things "lost in translation" (enjoyment factor) than language errors/inaccuracies. It's still a product of a Japanese mind and expressed in Japanese.

Jarvik7 Wrote:I think it's a rather bad book for language learners for several reasons:

-It's long
-It's of a moderate difficulty level
-It's a translation (so it isn't quite natural)
-It's a translation (so you're not using your Japanese to experience foreign culture)
-A large portion of the vocabulary is just totally made up words

I agree with the first two points, and disagree with the last three. I think using translations books you've already read as a first foray into a foreign language is a great way to go, as it allows you to infer a large portion of the text without using a dictionary, because you already know the story and its events.

But HP is a surprisingly high reading level, comparatively. A Series of Unfortunate Events or the Narnia series would probably be easier starting points.