Re: [tlug] [tlug-digest] OT (sorta) A Langauge Question

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@example.com>]

>>>>> "KENNETH" == KENNETH M RPSN BURLING writes:

    KENNETH> I am studying Japanese, or at least trying.  Does anyone
    KENNETH> have any suggestions as to software, or books to check
    KENNETH> out?

For immersion:

_Get a Japanese Bible._  It's the only adult literature you'll find
with furigana, you'll know half the stories already even if you're not
a believer (which is really valuable in learning how to use words in
context), and you'll amuse the heck out of your Japanese friends with
your obsolete vocabulary and stilted grammar.  (It's really not that
bad.  I get a lot more teasing for Kansai-isms I've picked up from my
mother-in-law, wife, and now daughter than I do for the occasional Old
Testament phrasing.)

I'm not sure what to recommend on the web.  I find Japanese blogs even
more boring than English blogs.  Hiroo Yamagata's economics and open
source web page is good, but of rather specialized interest.

The middle school manga (comics) have furigana too, but they're
boring, at least from the language standpoint (and from the content
standpoint, too, IMNS puritan O).  Go ahead, move onto the adult stuff
like "Golgo 13"; my 7-year-old daughter can handle stuff almost that
hard (ie, "One Piece" and "Naruto") without furigana.  (My wife wasn't
sure whether to be thrilled or shocked, shocked! :-)

The "Making Out in Japanese" (mixed English and Romaji) series is
amusing, and a reasonable introduction to the way people actually
speak Japanese in informal social settings (such as pick up bars---I'm
sure you guessed that---street brawls, and so on).  Not recommended
usage on first dates or for talking to your future in-laws, but
essential in-between.

For idioms and slang I recommend M. Sasaki's "The Complete Japanese
Expression Guide" and A. Kasschau-S. Eguchi's "Using Japanese Slang."
They're the only ones I have, so there may be better ones, but these
are reasonably accurate as far as I can tell.

Once you get beyond needing the English, or if you're really
ambitious, the itty-bitty pocket references are great for the train.
Among several I have, I actually browse the Shubunkan "Diamond Jiten"
(Diamond Dictionary) for kanji, and the Nagaoka Shoten "Jitsu-you
Kotowaza Sho-Jiten" (Practical Little Dictionary of Proverbs) quite a
bit when I've got no freedom of movement and nothing much else to
think about.

For study:

Kenkyusha's "Furigana English-Japanese Dictionary" is a must.  Most
English-Japanese dictionaries will spew kanji at you assuming that you
know what the reading is.

Some kind of electronic dictionary is highly recommended.  If you have
ambitions of learning to write, you should get something that does
handwriting recognition.  The only ones I know of are the Sharp Zaurus
SL series.  A bit pricey, but they are also pocket-sized fully-capable
Linux hosts (well, I haven't seen Emacs running on one yet, but Python
and Perl do).

The best resource I know of for intermediate-level vernacular grammar
is Yoko McClain's _Modern Japanese Grammar_.  I very rarely run into
constructions that I can't look up there, and it gives them all in
both romaji and Japanese.  For example, many intro/intermediate
grammars will omit the imperative on the theory that it's dangerously
impolite in many circumstances (that's like deleting the "rm" command
because one of your users might hurt himself...).  It also has a
rather comprehensive collection of those little phrases that don't
mean anything by themselves (what is the difference between "tokoro
de" and "tokoro ga", for example).

For high school-level dictionaries, my favorites are the Sanseido
English-Japanese and Japanese-English dictionaries, and the Sanseido
pocket "Kanwa Jiten" (kanji->Japanese).

I can't actually recommend it to the casual student, but my all-time
favorite is the Iwanami Shoten "Suugaku Jiten."  Category theory and
functional analysis, mmmmmm....  You might find the PC/IT dictionaries
to be more practical/interesting.  :-)

-- 
School of Systems and Information Engineering http://turnbull.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp
University of Tsukuba                    Tennodai 1-1-1 Tsukuba 305-8573 JAPAN
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