Ruby characters for the lesson transcripts?

[Jason]

http://www.japanesepod101.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=264

[Kiliman]

I also find it difficult to read straight hiragana, especially since there are no spaces between words. The kanji definitely makes it easier to make out individual words.

I created a Word document using the Beginner Lesson #157 transcript and vocabulary files. I added furigana to all the kanji and katakana. I used Word's built-in phonetic guide. Since I'm still a beginner, I compared the output from Word to the hiragana transcript to make sure it was correct.

I definitely think this version is much easier to read. At the same time, it improves kanji recognition.

Anyway, here is a link to the Word document I created. I would be interested in converting all the existing lessons as well. It's a cool excercise, and I think it will help me study. Please take a look and let me know if there is interest in this.

http://www.systemex.net/files/japanesep ... naTest.doc
http://www.systemex.net/files/japanesep ... naTest.pdf

Edit: I included a PDF version as well.
Thanks!

Kiliman

[Jason]

On thinking about it a while longer, when it comes to the online transcripts I really think rikaichan already does a great job of giving you the kanji readings without the problem of having actual furigana cluttering up the transcript. It also deals with verb conjugations.

As for the PDFs, I personally would be in favor of doing away completely with the kana-ban and just having one kanji-ban with furigana. And I like the suggestion of putting furigana on just the first occurrence. Both because it helps keep you from trying to rely solely on the furigana and because it would be less work for the team.

[auntie68]

Over a year after the "natural death" of this thread asking for the "hiragana-only" transcription to be replaced in its entirety by the addition of ruby characters to the main "kanji + kana" transcription, I'd like to try putting it out again. Just to see whether enough users might be in favour this time, to entice JPOD101 to re-consider...

Happy weekend, everybody!

[jkid]

I'm in favour of the change.

[spidey]

Students should have the challenge of reading the kanji without furigana.

Please keep it separated.

Keep the challenge.

[auntie68]

Spidey, what is the benefit -- in terms of language-learning -- of wading through a lot of irrelevant hiragana to get the reading of some kanji, beyond... getting lots of practice in hiragana.

I am good enough at Mandarin Chinese to be able to guess the pronunciation of Chinese characters I've never seen before. But I can't do that for kanji, because I'm not advanced enough in Japanese to be able to make a sensible guess about whether the kanji in question (and in context) should take its on'yomi reading or its kun-yomi reading. By your reasoning, JPOD101 should do away with the hiragana-only text altogether... but by my reasoning, putting in the effort to try and guess the sound of the kanji just gives you... an answer based on a wild guess not informed by anything logical. If your point is that users should be made to work more for their kanji knowledge, perhaps you should be militating for JPOD101 to abolish the hiragana-only text entirely.

What I'm proposing is not a "dumbing down". With respect, I don't see the value of a hiragana-only transcript if it encourages people to ignore kanji and believe that they can learn Japanese phonetically. Hope that explains my request more clearly!

[Javizy]

I'm in favour of the kana transcript being replaced by a furigana one, with the kanji remaining as it is. I think spidey is under the impression that both transcripts would be replaced by a single furigana one, and I agree that this would be a terrible decision. As far as we've been informed, there's been zero progress on this matter anyway, so this discussion seems to be purely hypothetical.

As for guessing kanji readings, it's probably a better idea to use a kanji dictionary if you don't have access to any hiragana transcript

[auntie68]

Hi. I've just read today's replies to the revived thread, and have to say that now I'm really curious to hear from a Japanese native speaker the reasons why furigana is supposed to be harmful to anybody who is thinking of being a "serious" learner of Japanese.

We have an immense Kinokuniya bookstore here in Singapore, they carry over a million titles in English and Japanese. I love to browse the Japanese books (150,000+ titles?) even though it's more "wishful thinking" on my part, rather than any real ability.

And to be honest, I don't think I've ever found a Japanese book that didn't have furigana in some form. How many educated Japanese can read a whole book by a kanji-prodigy like the person who wrote under the pen name Yukio Mishima, without furigana?

I'm asking these questions not to be difficult, but to ask for help in understanding why furigana can be considered to be such a crutch. I promise to read any answers I get here with total respect, and with an open mind. Thanks!

[auntie68]

I'm a big fan of JPOD's "Video Vocab" -- well, I was until their techs discovered the glitch that was allowing me to receive the V.V. and the dialogue-only MP3s even though I'm only a "Basic" subscriber --, and I'm very sure that the V.V. has furigana... Now I'm curious to know -- where do Japanese native speakers stand on the question of furigana? Do they get upset when they discover furigana in textbooks? Thank you.

[Taurus]

I'd like to register a vote for the kana transcript to be replaced with furigana, too. That way those students like spidey, who want to be challenged, can go straight to the kanji transcript, while those students who like to learn stuff without that extra challenge can use the kana transcript

[markystar]

i liked javizy's suggestion of kanji-ban and then replacing the kana-ban with a kanji+furigana.

unfortunately i don't have the technical expertise to design the pdf's to do that. but maybe jason does


what we must keep in mind tho, is that listeners off all different levels check out lessons above (and sometimes below) their level. so the pdf has to be user friendly to everybody.

[spidey]

Hi Auntie,

Thanks for your posts. I can tell you are a very serious student. I hope to study hard too. By keeping the furigana off the kanji it allows students to see if they can read and understand the meaning of kanji text without any help. The JlPT wont be giving us any hints.

You said some students want to be lazy and use the kana only side, well it's their choice. If someone wants to have a realistic challenge it should also be their choice.

Sure wading through the kana isn't much fun, but it beats trying look each kanji up yourself.

s

[sashimidimsum7250]

Jasonさん,
The benefits of ruby characters are clear enough that they are a common feature of many published book both for young native Japanese and Japanese language learners. I have even seen furigana used for katakana characters in children's books. This is presumably because the children don't know katakana well. Furigana is widely used in the Japanese For Busy People series.

As for the crutch aspect, I don't really buy the argument here. I assume JPOD is already holding back on the use of kanji. So the kanji version of the transcripts are not written at the full adult level. We are already working on a sliding scale of complexity in the writing style, and furigana can be used in much the same way. For simpler kanji, the furigana can be ommited.
In fact, rather than simply being a crutch for kanji we should not, furigana can be used to introduce new kanji to the student. I think that for some of the complex kanji JPOD has simply written it in hiragana to avoid complexity. That is the real crutch.
Another way furigana could be used is to only present the furigana for the first occurance of a kanji in an article. This is how it is used in Japanese For Busy People. The first time they use a kanji on a page, it has furigana. After that it is omitted.
One more point, the furigana is so small, if at all possible, the reader will avoid using it.
Honestly the mixture of kanji-ban and hiragana-ban is really cumbersome. There should be a single transcript with ruby characters as needed.
Regarding the browser issue, since IE supports ruby characters, that is about 79.8% of the browser market right away. Firefox has a plug-in so that is about another 13.7%. So I think Ruby characters are here to stay.
I think there should be an attempt to incorporate ruby characters into new lower intermediate and intermediate lessons.
John

You obviously want furigana, but there are others (like me) that don't. As long as Jpod offers "choice" for those that do, and for those that do not want furigana, in the form of separate texts, then I'd say go for it. It's obvious that "one system for all" is not going to work no matter what all the research says to the contrary.

[steves]

A new member here, but enjoying so far. karoshi was a killer - literally, how much new vocab?

Another vote here for the kanji on the left side as it is now and on the right side, do away with the kana only and have the kanji script again with furigana above.

kana on it's own is a major pain to read.

This seems the perfect answer to me and would be helpful to a great number of people I guess, myuself included, don't see a downside to it really.