I love the bilingual books (I got a kodansha bilingual book "Talking about Japan"). I think it is very good way to learn new vocabulary.......but When I opened there was no furigana, so learning new vocab is not possible with the book itself.

Is there a bilingual book with furigana? but with topic of the daily life not a novel or tales?

The reason why is that these books are more intended for Japanese people learning English than Anglophones learning Japanese.

I could suggest "Read Real Japanese" (the essays, if you don't want the short stories) and some of the Japanese Graded Readers, but those aren't actually bilingual...

I don't think you will find bilingual books with the topic of daily life, but I would encourage you to look at books translated from another language to Japanese. It is a relatively simple matter to find the original version online and compare the two to check your understanding, if they have fallen out of copyright:

Kafka:
http://www.aozora.gr.jp/index_pages/pers...hin_list_1

Dostoievsky:
http://www.aozora.gr.jp/index_pages/pers...hin_list_1

Tolstoy:
http://www.aozora.gr.jp/index_pages/pers...hin_list_1

Victor Hugo:
http://www.aozora.gr.jp/index_pages/pers...hin_list_1

You can use rikaichan with the online text, so a printed bilingual book is not required. And since you are Bulgarian, you may be able to understand some of these in the original Russian.

That is actually the road I am taking now: I am in the process of reading all of Arthur Conan Doyle's works in Japanese, in chronological order:
http://www.aozora.gr.jp/index_pages/pers...hin_list_1

How would you rate Arthur Conan Doyle, as far as difficulty, louischa?

You mean the Japanese translations? My Japanese is still quite 下手, so everything is hard for me (I'm 4 years into the process). However, compared to the painful classics in Giles Murray's tome "Breaking into Japanese Literature" (Akutagawa, Sooseki, etc.), these translations are a piece of cake.

The most recent translations of Conan Doyle you'll find on Aozora are by 大久保 ゆう. He is a young, 30-ish translator who had the brilliant idea of making his works available in the public domain, but who partially lives off on income from sales of roudoku CDs of the works he translated:

http://www.alz.jp/221b/holmes.html

One Japanese friend of mine told me that she hated his translations, because they were in "old Japanese". For instance, in 緋のエチュード, you can find tenses such as "連隊を免ぜられ、次に任ぜられた", or "並々ならぬ興味" which are indeed dated. But that is not such a problem. Tenses are just tenses, so once you dig up the reference and understand the meaning, then you're done.

The first novel I attempted to read last year was "プラチナデータ" by 東野圭吾, which was tons easier. However, the absence of an English version has almost driven me to madness: there was no way to make sense of some of the sentences in that novel, so I gave up after a couple hundred pages.

When selecting works to read, I would say that difficulty is not that important: in any case, the first year, and especially the first months of reading native texts are guaranteed to be a painful slog. But persistence pays off in the long run.

What is nice in the case of Doyle is that his works are fun, English is readily available for comparison in cases of doubt, and integral Japanese recordings of Mr. 大久保 ゆう's versions are also all available. The choice is elementary, my dear Watson, especially if you cannot bear Haaaaariiiiii Pottaaaaaaaa.

Quote:When selecting works to read, I would say that difficulty is not that important: in any case, the first year, and especially the first months of reading native texts are guaranteed to be a painful slog. But persistence pays off in the long run.

I can only disagree in the strongest possible terms. How could difficulty not be important? It makes a huge difference in how enjoyable reading something is. I can see the point of people who say 'only read things you're actually interested in rather than just what's easy', but surely you should at least pick the easiest of the things that interest you and start there?
I am happy to say that for me reading has never been a painful slog.

As for the OP - I can't really help you with bilingual books - but if a book is easy enough you don't need to have a translation to pick up words from it. Children's novels/books usually have furigana and it shouldn't be hard to find some which mostly revolve around daily life.

I second maybe trying out children's books (or easy manga) before you go for bilingual books, unless it is something you are very motivated to read.

Children books are typically written with minimal kanji - so if someone has slogged through RTK, reading these books will not make you review your kanji at a sufficient rate.

Second, not everyone enjoys children literature. I couldn't care less about tales about foxes and grandfathers.

Third, congratulations on your magical cleverness if reading Japanese was/is ever easy for you. For me, it was extremely hard, it is still very hard and I believe it will keep on being hard for the foreseeable future.

Pretending that things are easy is doing a big disservice to newcomers.

louischa Wrote:Children books are typically written with minimal kanji - so if someone has slogged through RTK, reading these books will not make you review your kanji at a sufficient rate.

Second, not everyone enjoys children literature. I couldn't care less about tales about foxes and grandfathers.

Third, congratulations on your magical cleverness if reading Japanese was/is ever easy for you. For me, it was extremely hard, it is still very hard and I believe it will keep on being hard for the foreseeable future.

Pretending that things are easy is doing a big disservice to newcomers.

First (you forgot your 'first'; if you're going to use 'second' and 'third', you need to use 'first' as well; but it still sounds haughty and closed-minded outside of instructional texts anyway), 'children's literature' is often used to describe 'young adult' material as well and there are plenty of kanji available, even in books meant for upper elementary and middle school students. Also, you read to learn to read, not to practice kanji (that sounds awfully boring to me).

Second, if the statement "not everyone enjoys children's literature" is true, then the statement "not everyone finds children's literature boring" is also true. I, for one, still read some series and novels aimed at much younger audiences in both English and Japanese; in fact, almost all of my reading in Japanese is aimed at children or young adults, because it's easier to understand and I enjoy it.

Third, while I agree that some people act like you can go straight from RTK to reading with almost no difficulty, I saw none of that above (though my eyes are bad). Any reference to ease in reading I saw (which was your own post) was qualified with just what kind of material they found easy (or easier than other material).
On second thought, where did you even find this point? I don't see anyone saying that reading is easy, except where they say that material aimed at younger audiences is easier to read when you're starting out.

Maybe if you didn't jump straight into hardcore adult literature from pre-war Japan (I'm sorry, going back, I see you're reading Doyle, not Japanese literature), as you seem to be implying you, along with anyone else with a hope of learning, did, you wouldn't have found things so difficult.

Please excuse my hostility, but you should expect it in return when you show it yourself.

The thing is, there's very little reading material out there that's actually *good* for Japanese language learners. This is because there are fewer people learning Japanese than there are learning English, French, and Spanish; and because the idea that it's good for second language learners to read a lot of easy stuff is still not widely accepted.

Most of what's available is not-quite-right in different ways. The Japanese Graded Readers are very good, but expensive; Read Real Japanese is very good, but only once your level is intermediate to high-intermediate. Children's books and manga have a really wide range of vocabulary and grammar; bilingual books only help so much, and only if the translation is literal enough to preserve the vocabulary and sentence structure pretty much intact.

So it's better to come at this, I think, from a point of view of "how can I take what IS available to get what I need out of it?" than from a point of view of "why are people suggesting to me all this stuff that I don't want."

louischa Wrote:Children books are typically written with minimal kanji - so if someone has slogged through RTK, reading these books will not make you review your kanji at a sufficient rate.

Second, not everyone enjoys children literature. I couldn't care less about tales about foxes and grandfathers.

Third, congratulations on your magical cleverness if reading Japanese was/is ever easy for you. For me, it was extremely hard, it is still very hard and I believe it will keep on being hard for the foreseeable future.

Pretending that things are easy is doing a big disservice to newcomers.

Wow.

Anyway, I guess I'll try and respond maturely.
Um, firstly - most children's books excluding picture books have plenty of kanji. There's only one or two books I've read that I thought had too little, and they were aimed at very young children.

I wasn't recommending children's literature to you - I'd already guessed your bias against it from your mention of Harry Potter. If OP doesn't like children's literature either, that's fine - but given that the OP is asking about books with furigana it seems sensible to mention them.
Personally I'm more into witches and dragons myself. Foxes and grandfathers have never really done it for me either, and my sympathies if that's your experience with children's literature.

Thank you, I guess - but yes, I find it easy. Or if I don't, I go read something that's easier. If you enjoy slogging through books that are obviously going to be very difficult or think it's benefiting you greatly - knock yourself out. But being dismissive of people who are doing things differently with good results is pretty silly.
I'm not pretending it's easy either - it actually is. Obviously you need a decent base of vocabulary and understanding of grammar to read, but the amount needed to get started isn't so great. Given of course that the book you're trying to read is easy.

I'm not even sure how you read all that into my post in the first place. All I was saying is that taking the difficulty of a book into account when you choose what to read is a good idea. Even if you were intent on only reading Great Classics, surely choosing the easiest Great Classic you can find is a better idea than charging into the hardest.

uh uh the best way to start reading is jumping into some 11th century japanese classic. i recommend you the tale of genji ALL JAPANESE ALL THE TIME IMMERSION SWIM OR DIE THE AFRICAN WAY!!!1!!! grammar doesn't exixst LOL! swim fluently in 6 months or die.co.uk

i also recommend hegel's phenomenology of spirit


No, really, I recommend children's books and children's manga. It's not an original suggestion but I've been reading Doraemon and it's helpful - the language is simple but conversational, so you can learn a thing or two. It's true it does have minimal kanji, though.

I get the point you've got to step up some day and it isn't going to be entirely painless, but with sensible planning it shouldn't really be too terrible, although I guess it takes a long time to get to Great Classics level.

i find shapeshifting foxes pretty cool, actually. and you get to learn about jap culture as well. by way of foxes

Here you are. Lots of stuff you can work on for actual vocab after Heisig. Doing some other kind of vocab acquisition activity is of course advised.
http://www.library.metro.tokyo.jp/refere...fault.aspx

sholum Wrote:(I'm sorry, going back, I see you're reading Doyle, not Japanese literature)

Please excuse my hostility, but you should expect it in return when you show it yourself.

Please excuse my hostility, but you are a jackass.

That has to be one of the most pathetic and hypocritical responses to criticism that I've ever seen. Well done.

louischa Wrote:

sholum Wrote:(I'm sorry, going back, I see you're reading Doyle, not Japanese literature)

Please excuse my hostility, but you should expect it in return when you show it yourself.

Please excuse my hostility, but you are a jackass.

Might I mention that this was my point? With no provocation, you went off on a spew about how stupid we all are for suggesting that starting a reading journey with easier native material might be preferable if one is having difficulty finding accessible material.

Furthermore, you were actually being helpful up until that point; when this thread updated, I was hoping there would be more useful material posted by someone, possibly yourself, but instead I see you going off on people who you should have no quarrel with.

Also, that parenthetical piece you quoted was literal; I had already typed that you seem to think the only way to learn is through difficult Japanese literature (I threw in pre-war for effect). When I went back, I saw that you were reading translations of Doyle's works and added that in. If that kind of misunderstanding makes me a jackass, then I don't even know what to call you.
Of course, I don't need to stoop to name-calling.

If you can't handle debate, disagreement, or criticism, I suggest you quit posting here; this site, while a great trove of knowledge, sees arguments every day. In fact, you should quit participating in internet discussion in general, since this is very common and I'm worried for your health if you can get riled up over light criticism or even nothing at all.

Differences in opinions exist, especially in fields such as learning, get over it; no one was being hostile until you started up, they were just contesting the idea that people new to reading should start with difficult material.

I advise that you wait a few hours, come back, read the entire thread again with a fresh mind, and learn from your mistakes; it will improve your experience on this site and allow us all to have a civil conversation or debate.

I take back the "jackass", it was out of line. Nevertheless, was you wrote was equally out of line.

You have absolutely no business of insulting people who want to contribute to this forum in good faith. I insulted no one in my original post, and your sarcastic reply was meant to insult and ridicule.

Where is the moderator in this forum? I want this person banned.

louischa Wrote:I take back the "jackass", it was out of line. Nevertheless, was you wrote was equally out of line.

You have absolutely no business of insulting people who want to contribute to this forum in good faith. I insulted no one in my original post, and your sarcastic reply was meant to insult and ridicule.

Where is the moderator in this forum? I want this person banned.

Thank you for taking back the 'jackass' remark; in return, I'll take back my sarcasm regarding 'first, second, and third'.

However, you're still doing the same thing: finding issue where there is none and blowing it out of proportion. Your first post was incredibly condescending and was attacking people who had no qualm with you. Your responses to me and others who called you out on your hostility have been equally hostile.

If you, in good faith, were effectively calling everyone stupid and uncultured for suggesting that someone learn to read with more accessible material (not baby books, mind you, but not complex adult literature), then my suggestion that you calm down and examine just what caused the argument from nothing was the suggestion of an enlightened individual.

Also, I was quite serious when I stated that you should reconsider participating in discussions that invite disagreement: if the minor criticism Aikynaro provided caused you to flip like this, you're experience of this forum will be ruined.

Also, just as a tip (literally, just a suggestion, I don't really care), threatening to bring in the mods on a forum over a minor disagreement (trust me, this is minor), especially one where you made the first hostile remark, makes you look extremely bad and can make you look like a troll to the other members of the community.
Personally, the majority of my experience with this forum has been reading only (as evident by my post count), I highly doubt I'd lose much, even if a mod decided to take your side and ban me. I wouldn't try to make a new account or anything, I'd just read the threads that look interesting like normal.

I've seen several threads now where you have contributed positively to this community, including this one, before this whole thing started. It'd be great if you could participate like that without freaking out over something so minor. I mean, it'd be one thing if someone personally insulted you and didn't give any reason as to why they thought you were wrong (though the instant escalation would still have been uncalled for, most likely), but a civil opposition to your ideas does not deserve this response and it's doing no one any service by existing.
Once again, I'll bring up my request that you calmly look over this incident and figure out what happened. If you still feel like your in the right... Well, I guess you should get over it anyways, since this discussion has gone off topic and is helpful to absolutely no one.

Taking my own advice, I'll do my best to avoid making off-topic replies to this thread after this, so have a nice day.

EDIT: (this doesn't count as another post, to me at least)
Just realized that you don't seem to understand what issue was taken regarding your post (the one I originally replied to). I'll ask you to read over it (once again) and see if you can understand why it was interpreted negatively. If you truly had no ill intent in that post, then I'll wholeheartedly apologize for my reaction. However, since I'm not the only one who saw your post as inflammatory, it's clear that there was a mistake on your part that caused the misunderstanding (I'll once again mention that your over all tone, including the way you listed things, seemed very inflammatory). If you felt I misunderstood the intention of your post, you could have simply said so instead of reacting the way you did.

Of course, things happen and, personally, I just want this argument to be resolved, so that we can go back to making positive contributions to the discussion; so, if this whole thing was a misunderstanding, then we can both accept our mistakes and end this.
(back to the no replying thing now)

[Zgarbas]

louischa Wrote:Where is the moderator in this forum? I want this person banned.

And I want you to calm down, learn to take criticism, don't get easily offended and under no circumstances call other users names.


Wow, this conversation escalated quickly.