So I've finished RtK1 last month, and I'm now working quickly on KO2001. I also have a good grammar and vocabulary base, so I think that it is the right time to start reading...
However, I've seen that most of the people start learning using stories and/or subtitles.
To be frank with you, I don't like Japanese literature AT ALL! However, I really like reading generic news, letters, advertisements, and, most importantly, technical papers.
I have a very ambitious plan to do free lance translation from/to Arabic-English-Japanese starting from next year. This would be preceded by a period of free translation that would made by me and checked out by my teacher, giving me enough time to stand on my feet.
Is this a common path of learning?
Any special notes or advices for following such path?
Did anybody else do it this way?

There's a thread with some information about Technical Japanese textbooks here which might be useful: http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?tid=8533

This statement is a bit confusing though..."To be frank with you, I don't like Japanese literature AT ALL! " You're talking about starting reading so what are you basing this opinion on?

i'm not saying that they're bad, it's just that, i don't like them
i've read some manga before, in addition to watching some movies and tv shows.
i've always thought that they're a waste of time
now what i meant by "Learning Using Technical Articles" is not "using my advanced Japanese Language skills to understand technical articles", but rather "use technical articles to advance my Japanese Language skills".

If you want to be able to understand technical Japanese then obviously reading technical articles are going to help. It depends on what you want to do with Japanese.

For example I had a medical translation workshop with a Japanese -> English translator. He worked in Japan for 11 years teaching English and doing translation within a medical company. He loves medical/pharmacology stuff and in Japanese he's completely fluent in that. However he also told us he can't read a newspaper or understand TV programmes due to his focus within Japanese being entirely on his field of expertise.

It might be obvious point but basically if you want to improve your Japanese as a whole, don't read technical stuff exclusively

If you didn't like manga/films/drama you may like novels. Or you may not be able to read the kinds of things you like until your reading level improves. It seems a bit early to be writing off the entirety of Japanese literature! Unless in your native language you don't like it either?

thank you for sharing your story with me as it is very helpful
more short term goal is having a part-time translation job to cover as much expenses as possible, although by the time I'll start translating I won't be even fluent in the language!
I mean, after starting this translation thing i'll still continue with my rigorous studies of other areas of the japanese language like conversation, business japanese, ultra polite, etc...
as for the literature based reading, the only things that i tried are manga and watching japanese tv shows, which i really didn't like
what i did like on the other hand is american tv shows and movies that come with japanese subtitles. i didn't try novels yet because i'm not used to reading them. i might start reading them next year, however
there's another point that i didn't mention clearly: can i achieve fluency in japanese conversation depending ONLY on my studies while keeping my interaction with the japanese speakers to minimum?
i mean, i'm already living in japan, and i think that i would be living here forever. but it's just really hard for me to have a conversation with them because I'M REALLY NOT INTERESTED! i'm using beginner level japanese all the time while talking to my thai girl and latino friends, but i'm having very little intermediate and advanced level conversations...
that's being said, i can tell you that i'm a very dedicated learner when it comes to japanese, and i don't mind locking myself 5 hours everyday for the next years of my life doing nothing but anki or other systematic studying method, even if they're so boring and dry!
so, is achieving fluency possible with such conditions?

fifo_thekid Wrote:there's another point that i didn't mention clearly: can i achieve fluency in japanese conversation depending ONLY on my studies while keeping my interaction with the japanese speakers to minimum?

I doubt it. If you practice listening (on more than textbook listening exercises), your listening will eventually get fairly good. But if you do no production, you'll never be fluent. Or if the only production you do is technical stuff, you'll probably sound fairly unnatural and stiff. You'll never be fluent conversationally unless you talk to people.

fifo_thekid Wrote:i mean, i'm already living in japan, and i think that i would be living here forever. but it's just really hard for me to have a conversation with them because I'M REALLY NOT INTERESTED!

... you live in japan and you find it hard to have conversations, not because of frustration with your ability, but because you're... just plain not interested in talking to japanese people...? Really?

trolling? what the... doing anki 5 hours a day is more interesting than talking to REAL people?!

zigmonty Wrote:I doubt it. If you practice listening (on more than textbook listening exercises), your listening will eventually get fairly good. But if you do no production, you'll never be fluent. Or if the only production you do is technical stuff, you'll probably sound fairly unnatural and stiff. You'll never be fluent conversationally unless you talk to people.

Hmmmm...I'll keep that in my mind

zigmonty Wrote:... you live in japan and you find it hard to have conversations, not because of frustration with your ability, but because you're... just plain not interested in talking to japanese people...? Really?

REALLY!
I'm an Iraqi that has been living in Dubai, making friends from many many countries both in Dubai and Japan. It's very easy for me and them to understand each other regardless of where are we coming from. On the other hand, I've been struggling for almost a year since I came to Japan, trying to find somebody that can at least express his opinions, share a secret, give and advice or show an emotion!
Although I'm living in a town, which means that people would be more on the "under-developed side", still I find that even the people coming from Osaka and Tokyo so childish and unbearably unrealistic! While on the other hand, it was very easy for me to make Latino and Thai friends regardless of our backgrounds and current carriers!

SammyB Wrote:trolling? what the... doing anki 5 hours a day is more interesting than talking to REAL people?!

for me, i don't have any problem studying like a machine: super serious studying with no fun. however, I do have conversations all the time as I'm kind of a "socialization addict" that keeps on making relationships and connections here and there, spending most of my leisure talking!
However, I can befriend ANYBODY, except: Koreans, Chinese, and Japanese!
It's not like Iraqis do naturally hate those nationalities, as back home we don't even know who are they. I just acquired this from the horrible time that I've been spending with them...

fifo_thekid Wrote:I'm an Iraqi that has been living in Dubai, making friends from many many countries both in Dubai and Japan. It's very easy for me and them to understand each other regardless of where are we coming from. On the other hand, I've been struggling for almost a year since I came to Japan, trying to find somebody that can at least express his opinions, share a secret, give and advice or show an emotion!

Hmm... are japanese people friendly towards you or do they generally try to keep contact to a minimum? I'm just wondering if you might be experiencing some good, old fashioned racism. Some japanese people's view of foriegners who aren't white can be... unenlightened to say the best.

zigmonty Wrote:Hmm... are japanese people friendly towards you or do they generally try to keep contact to a minimum? I'm just wondering if you might be experiencing some good, old fashioned racism. Some japanese people's view of foriegners who aren't white can be... unenlightened to say the best.

well, according to my brief experience, japanese are divided into two distinct groups (at least in the country side):
1- 95% of them are typical japanese who don't mingle with foreigners at all
2- 5% who befriend foreigners exclusively
now, for the second group: although i don't look like a stereotypical arab at all (green eyes with fair skin!); still, whenever somebody asks me the standard questions: "are you an american?" and i answer by: "no, i'm an iraqi", they just can't hide their disappointment or even their FEAR due to that answer!
they really seem to prefer to be with somebody called "machael" or "james" to a "scary" "ahmed" or "ackhmed" as westerners say it!
this love for westerners and "lack of love" to middle-easterners is not confined to japanese people, and i can't complain about it coz me myself is a racist that does a lot of stereotyping and prejudges people all the time.
however, due to the lack of foreigners in my city, and since i started being a little popular and unknown here, there are some guys trying to approach me every now and then. still, we i have to mention the same fundamental problem: with or without prejudice, i'm not really interested in talking to them coz it seems like they can never have anything interesting to say
i can write pages and pages about my analysis of the japanese personality, but i don't think that this is the write place for that

What worked for me is, let's say I have a paragraph of technical Japanese. I would use rikaisama to add all the words to a text file (after I would hover over the words and save them). I would later import them into anki but to do this, you must have 3 fields labeled expression,reading and meaning(or at least this is how I do it). Slowly keep doing this at a pace of 20-30 new cards a day. You will eventually be able to recognize vocabulary and kanji with ease over time. Keep going and you will feel real progress form this method. This works for recognition purposes

If your Japanese isn't good enough so you can only communicate with Japanese people in English, then what you're probably encountering is; 95% of them don't speak Engilsh and 5% of them are English chasers who seek out foreigners to practice their English on. They are probably disappointed that you're not a native English speaker more than anything to do specifically with your nationality. Very few Japanese people speak English, and probably 95% of that 5% mentioned above is only going to have basic conversational abilities that won't extend beyond the typical; where are you from? What's your favorite Japanese food? type questions. But, once your Japanese improves enough then you will meet more and more interesting people with interesting things to say.

Edit: I shouldn't say that any Japanese person who can speak English is an English chaser as there are a fair amount that don't care about practicing their English. I guess I was just basing it off of the comment you made that they talk exclusively to foreigners. In my experiences, those types of people have always just been people who wanted to practice their English.

Don't you think that using LWT & Anki would be more efficient?

fifo_thekid Wrote:Don't you think that using LWT & Anki would be more efficient?

put those two resources together and your set. Then again, it comes down to how you use it(well) and doing it daily.

I've just bought this book:
Basic Technical Japanese
I'm planning to finish it in 4 months and then jump to the intermediate version, assisted by one of the Japanese engineering students in my college