Japanese Language Discussion

[rancor]

The translation you've done is pretty accurate. It's obviously meant to be a humorous set of rules that the user of the sword lives by:

honor
bravery
kindness to animals
obey your parents
etc..
and then the final is "drink your milk"

Not much to explain there.

[Rob]

Any of you readers in hiding have recommendations for modern-ish novels?

[hzt]

舞城王太郎　ビッチマグネット
阿部和重　ピストルズ
神林長平　ぼくらは都市を愛していた
森見登美彦　夜は短し歩けよ乙女

depends what you're into and why you want to read them

[Rob]

Looks like stuff I can dig. Thanks.

[UnscathedFlyingObject]

JLPT tomorrow! Good luck, folks!

I didn't register this year for various reasons. Crazy new job, moving, and just didn't feel that I had it to pass the test after procrastinating for a couple months. I'm gearing up for next year's test, tho. 2013 is the year

[NTSC-J]

It was last Sunday. Anyone here take it?

[greg]

I took the N4 test on Sunday without studying much. I'm pretty sure I passed it. The vocab was probably the weakest part for me, while the listening was super easy. I surprised my boss when I took N5 in July, because my Japanese level is one of the strongest among the teachers in my city. (Maybe not vocabulary and kanji-wise, but I speak the most naturally.) I told her I'm just an OCD sperg and wanted to work my way up from the bottom. Next will be N3, and it's time to start seriously studying for that one.

[hzt]

JDE probably won't read this but he did N5 - I told him it would be really easy and he didn't believe me, but when I asked him how it went he just started laughing.

[UnscathedFlyingObject]

It was last Sunday. Anyone here take it?

Man, I'm out of touch. hahahhaha.

[GaijinPunch]

I did not. I think I might be done w/ tests gauging my Japanese.

[ryu]

i've finished my japanese III classes at university a few weeks ago, and unfortunately my university doesn't offer any higher level classes for students that don't actually study japanese for a degree. supposedly those three language courses only cover the extend of the n5 jlpt test, so i'm still on a beginner's level and pretty much on my own from now on.

can anyone recommend me any good textbooks or good materials in general? we've worked with minna no nihongo in my past classes, but those are pretty expensive (split up into multiple books, and i would have to purchase the next batch of books since i'm done with the contents of minna no nihongo I) and not that good for studying.

The book I used to learn most of the commonly used characters is Kanji ABC which I think has a decent approach and is cheap.

would you recommend that book over this? it's the only resource for studying kanji i have available at the moment, but i think the number of vocabs it lists per kanji is a bit excessive. it's a bit tricky to figure out which words to learn, and i don't feel like learning all of them would do me very good. especially considering that learning all the associated words would slow my kanji learning down to abysmally low levels.

[amaradona]

For the kanji and if you are serious about it,you should study with "remembering the kanji".

[Rob]

i've finished my japanese III classes at university a few weeks ago, and unfortunately my university doesn't offer any higher level classes for students that don't actually study japanese for a degree.

You've been freed. Self-motivation beats any low bar language class. I also took 3 years of Japanese (high school, though) and got basically nothing from it but the spark to continue later.

Dictionary of Basic-Advanced Japanese Grammar. Organized in a way that doesn't make it feel like homework and covers enough of what you'll need to understand most sentences you're likely to encounter. There is a decent amount of stuff in the Advanced book that's very common and a decent amount of stuff that I've rarely/never seen. Then there's some common stuff that's not covered at all, but it serves as a decent entry point. Then you can trash textbooks and use Google.

Kanji - for just accustoming your eyes to common characters, the jouyou list is fine. Should cover 90%+ of what you'll see. The list has some stuff that you'll never see outside of the list, but Remembering the Kanji or whatever is no better. It's all about vocab. There is a relatively small group of characters with many frequent words/compounds. Just memorizing 1000s of characters isn't the key to reading competency, let alone getting started. These flashcards have 1-6 words per card, which is appropriate for an overview.

[GaijinPunch]

Dictionary of Basic-Advanced Japanese Grammar.

This series is crazy good. Probably the best Japanese books out there. My only complaint is that it feels extremely weird to have romaji and furigana in an advanced level book... but yet, it's there for the latest instalment (Advanced).

I should leave this one off on my desk to grab and dig into every now and again.

[ryu]

thanks for those quick replies

For the kanji and if you are serious about it,you should study with "remembering the kanji".

could you elaborate on that one? apparently it has a focus on getting the learner to properly memorize the kanjis, which has not been a problem for me so far.

This series is crazy good. Probably the best Japanese books out there.

Dictionary of Basic-Advanced Japanese Grammar. Organized in a way that doesn't make it feel like homework and covers enough of what you'll need to understand most sentences you're likely to encounter.

from what i've gathered in this thread it seemed to me like these were especially good for preparing for the higher level jlpt tests. so i was mistaken there and these are also recommended for general learning, and recommended over the use of textbooks to boot?

There is a decent amount of stuff in the Advanced book that's very common and a decent amount of stuff that I've rarely/never seen. Then there's some common stuff that's not covered at all, but it serves as a decent entry point. Then you can trash textbooks and use Google.

you're making it sound like it's best to start with the advanced book. that's not what i should be doing, is it?

Just memorizing 1000s of characters isn't the key to reading competency, let alone getting started.

alright. guess i'll just have to take this a bit more serious from here on out.

[blackoak]

That grammar dictionary is quite good, always recommended. As for kanji, what worked best for me was finding something I was really interested in and using that as a study tool. I find that abstract rote memorization, even with neat helper cues like "what's the historical/pictographic meaning behind this character??" to be unhelpful in the long run. I suggest making your own "lessons" from whatever it is you want to read, using the vocab there for flashcards/lists etc. I'll add to what Rob said and note that of the jouyou kanji, really only 1200 are used very very frequently. But its the compounds that will get you in the end anyway.

In addition to self-directed study, I also like electronic flash card aids that have memory-based algorithms built in, like Mnemosyne: http://mnemosyne-proj.org/ . Good to look at in down moments, commuting, before bed etc.

The step after that is the inverse; to pick something you have no interest in and read it through. Awhile back I read "shigotogaku", this obnoxious book of business life lessons, but it probably did more for my Japanese than anything else that year.

[Rob]

you're making it sound like it's best to start with the advanced book. that's not what i should be doing, is it?

No, the beginner book is where to start. What I was trying to say is that there is still important material that might as well be in the beginner book even in the advanced book (mixed in with some "literary" and very formal material). As GP said, the furigana (talking grade school level kanji for Japanese) and romaji show that there is no really clear line between beginner/advanced in this set. It's the kind of thing that makes people think memorizing some letters is much harder than it is.

One other suggestion I have is to check out some Japanese message boards for beginning reading material. Not talking about 2ch. Something like okwave. Many reasons. The example sentences in the grammar book can be too lifeless and overly simplistic. Message board posts there are generally small enough to be digestible, but also not grammatically chaotic, worthless "one-liners" (like the bulk of my posts here). And it's vocab people are using to discuss day to day life/interests. Even just learning the category names should be useful.

[GaijinPunch]

One way to look at the Advanced book is that some of it is more obscure...not necessarily Advanced. If you're talking about JLTP preparation, the level 1 will have that obscure, written Japanese that you would never ever say, and that's what this book helps with.

If you indeed are preparing for that test, パターンで学ぶ is essential, I found, for the reading portion.

[ryu]

Whoops, looks like I missed checking this thread again last year...

If you indeed are preparing for that test, パターンで学ぶ is essential, I found, for the reading portion.

I'm still a few years away from getting to that point, the suggestion has been noted though!

One other suggestion I have is to check out some Japanese message boards for beginning reading material. Not talking about 2ch. Something like okwave.

That's something I've always thought I'd be doing someday. For that purpose I'll note the website you've linked, thanks for that.

Anyways, I just came back here to ask about compound words. Is there a trick or something to figuring out the readings of words you can't find in any dictionary?
Right now this is still only a minor issue for me, since most words I'm looking up are actually representated in dictionaries. It's still something iI can't help wondering about since it bothers me every time I can't find the reading for a word.

[Rob]

For that purpose I'll note the website you've linked, thanks for that.

You really should. ;] okwave is also very useful for Japanese language discussion (meanings of words that aren't clearly conveyed with a dictionary, the difference between similar words, etc.).

Anyways, I just came back here to ask about compound words. Is there a trick or something to figuring out the readings of words you can't find in any dictionary?

Example? Are you talking about fancy titles or unlisted words with prefixes like 大? Spend a lot of time reading and you can make decent guesses, or just search for ___ 読み方 and see if anything useful comes up.

[ryu]

Example? Are you talking about fancy titles

Basically I'm currently going through a database for an RPG I'm playing, looking at skill names and descriptions to learn unknown words so I can read everything related to combat. Grammar and vocab of skill descriptions have been no problem so far, but the names for many skills usually don't get me any results on jisho.org

Examples are
氷槍
焔弾
剛殺斬

unlisted words with prefixes like 大?

That's a problem too, yeah.

search for ___ 読み方 and see if anything useful comes up.

Good idea, I'll try that.

[Rob]

the names for many skills usually don't get me any results on jisho.org

Kanji lends itself well to creating fantasy terminology. Using the Chinese readings is the best bet, but better still is to just get the meaning and not fuss about the reading for them. There's more than enough im/practical vocab to log to memory.

[ryu]

the names for many skills usually don't get me any results on jisho.org

Kanji lends itself well to creating fantasy terminology. Using the Chinese readings is the best bet, but better still is to just get the meaning and not fuss about the reading for them. There's more than enough im/practical vocab to log to memory.

Heh, that's what I figured more or less. Thanks for letting me know

[drauch]

Does anyone have any good advice for learning particles? Doing fairly well in everything else, but when I'm trying to form sentences I'm always forgetting ni, ga, etc., or simply reversing them.

[Rob]

I think the most that can be expected from instruction in English is a rough, semi-confusing outline.

My advice is to build up basic vocab enough to read or listen to lots of natural Japanese. I don't think there's a replacement for repetition when it comes to language.

[hien]

Since I haven't read the whole thread, I'm not sure if it has been mentioned already (or how it's rep around here is) but what I found to be a very helpful flashcard app is "Japanese" for iOS. It's imo more practical than other apps or mobile versions of Anki since all functions are linked. So even while studying, you can easily look up words, single kanji and example sentences (mainly from the Tanaka Corpus, so the same as jisho.org), if you're not sure about the exact meaning or other stuff. It's also an okayish dictionary (I seldom use it as one since I'm still using a very old version without handwriting recognition, so the later versions probably are much more useful). Since it's also pretty cheap, you can't really go wrong with it if you have a device to use it on. And boy, do I wish it wasn't iOS only btw. …