Picking Out Words Free From Kanji

[reboundstudent]

Hey guys. I was wondering if someone might assist me in translating/understanding a few sentences.
For reading practice, I picked up ハリーポッターとけんじゃの石。 I've been able to struggle out most of the first page, but I ran into a sentence that I'm having a really hard time making heads or tails of.

「おかげさまで、私どもはどこからみてもまともな人間です」と言うのがじまんだった。

Okay, so the part that is really confusing me is bolded. I've gotten really used to deciphering words around kanji, so a whole string of kana has really thrown me off. Is からpart of みてもor is からlike the particle?

So I have two requests, kind of... One, would someone explain the translation of the bolded words, and two, do you have any tips on working out vocabulary/grammar patterns when you have no kanji to build off of?

[Airth]

All I can say is that you'll find it's not that hard to pick out the different words once you've got a little more experience.

Instead of translating it for you, perhaps you can work it out if I break it up:

どこ　から　見ても　まとも[な]　人間

How's that?

[Javizy]

You won't want to try any children's books If there are any animals in the book, there's a good chance they'll talk all in katakana as well

Like Airth said, you get used to it, even if you occasionally need to use a bit of trial and error to get there. It's kind of annoying when they don't use kanji in examples like yours though.

[Psy]

Since I own this book I have room to reply. The curious thing is that in mine, まともな isn't boldface, but the does have dots (like an underline) beside it. At any rate, the sentence:

「おかげさまで、私どもはどこからみてもまともな人間です」と言うのがじまんだった。
どこからみても is "from no matter where you look, normal people" which suggests the meaning of "utterly and completely normal people." The form 〜ても is used in constructions like 行っても "even if I go" or どんなに勉強しても "no matter how much I study." I know it is introduced on J-Pod somewhere so you will learn it formally at some point through the podcasts.

You'll find it very common for kanji not to be used in every possible situation. If you can't instinctively divide out words in long strings of Japanese yet, you're going to find it very challenging to proceed in the book. However, nothing is impossible and I encourage you to continue if you're that driven. Feel free to post more questions here when you get stuck.

[reboundstudent]

It was more I couldn't figure out the string of words I seemed to be seeing... all right, どこ... から... Know those... But I haven't come across ても structure yet, and my line of thinking was "Well if it's みて, as in the te form of みる、 why wouldn't they use the kanji 見?"

The みても was the part that was really throwing me off, so thank you for the explination!

Though Psy that leads me to another question... why use kanji in certain situations and not in others?

[Javizy]

Just for a bit more clarity, any interrogative word + ~ても means 'no matter [interrogative word] ~'.

どんなにきれいでも、性格が悪いよ。
No matter how pretty she is, her personality is terrible.
だれからもらっても「ありがとう」って言いなさい。
No matter who gives you it, say thank you.
いつ行ってもつまんない。
No matter when you go, it's boring.

As for your kanji question, my impression is that there are words like なる and なかなか with perfectly simple if not more convenient kanji, which as a general rule don't seem to be used. Other than that, it seems to be a very subjective matter depending on writing style and personal preference.

Newspapers seem to use kanji just about wherever possible, whereas a book I was reading by Haruki Murakami used kanji surprisingly sparingly. Other authors I've read have varying balances. I've also heard that people tend to try to get the right balance between kanji and katakana in their sentences, so sometimes they might use 見, and other times not.

That's just my impression; I'm sure other people can give you more insight.

[Kazu1985]

I wouldn't recommend a translation from a Western book, to start dealing with Japanese texts. Due to differences in the language system and in the culture, those translations may sound kind of strange, as compared to pure Japanese texts.

I wouldn't even describe Harry Potter as a children's book in Japanese, as it mainly is in Western countries, due to heavy use of difficult Kanji and grammatical forms.

I don't know for how long you have been learning Japanese so far, but I would recommend starting with Japanese fairy tales (also very interesting from a cultural point of view) and then moving on to short stories, before challenging a whole novel.

[reboundstudent]

I wouldn't recommend a translation from a Western book, to start dealing with Japanese texts. Due to differences in the language system and in the culture, those translations may sound kind of strange, as compared to pure Japanese texts.

I wouldn't even describe Harry Potter as a children's book in Japanese, as it mainly is in Western countries, due to heavy use of difficult Kanji and grammatical forms.

I don't know for how long you have been learning Japanese so far, but I would recommend starting with Japanese fairy tales (also very interesting from a cultural point of view) and then moving on to short stories, before challenging a whole novel.

I had 2 1/2 years of Japanese classes in university, but I'd still rank myself as a lower intermediate (my tutor says right now I'd be comfortable taking the JLPT 3, and by July he thinks I'd be ready for 2-Kyuu.) I've read a couple Japanese fairy stories (まのたろ) but I thought I'd tackle Harry Potter after various bits of advice on this board and elsewhere.

Honestly, I'm really enjoying the book. It's a huge struggle, but it's worth it if only for the wacky way it translates. For instance:

垣根越しにご近所の様子を詮索するのが趣味だったので、鶴のような首は実に便利だった。
-Conducting (conversation) over fence at neighborhood’s state/appearance is prying/inquiring have experience hobby had, crane like neck is truth convenient was.-*

If I had no previous experience with the book, even the translation would have stumped me, but with my limited Japanese and my extensive knowledge of HP, I was able to make coherent sense of this sentence pretty easily.

Also, I downloaded the audio book, so I listen and read at the same time, or read independently, and then listen to the same collection of sentences to see if I can pick out the words in audio that I understood easily in print.

*This is my direct translation (no Babelfish involved , though it could have fooled ya, right?

[Psy]

I wouldn't recommend a translation from a Western book, to start dealing with Japanese texts. Due to differences in the language system and in the culture, those translations may sound kind of strange, as compared to pure Japanese texts.

There's a good point here. I'd been myself finding difficult-to-analyze yet still very palpable differences in style/flow between this and the other two "pure Japanese" books I'm working my way through. Being a learner I put it off on my lack of experience with novels, but just recently I located a review on Amazon.co.jp which writes it out rather distinctly:

The original review.

By "Orange Pekoe"

このシリーズを原書で読んでいた大人のファンです。原書が完結した機会にと翻訳版も読んでみましたが、つじつまの合わない箇所（誤訳）やおかしな日本語が多数みつかりショックを受けています。
　読む前にネットの掲示板で、misty eyes（＝ぼんやりした目、潤んだ瞳）が 『霧のような瞳』、booming barks（＝とどろく吠え声）が『ブーンとうなるような吠え声』になっているという情報を目にしたときは、冗談に違いないと思いましたが、本当だったのでびっくりしました。『霧のような瞳』とはどんな瞳でしょうか？　犬がブーンと吠えるでしょうか？　たいへん非常識な訳です。
　第１章の最後、原書に「people meeting in secret all over the country＝国中のいたるところで密かに集まった人々（魔法使い達を表わす）が〜」と書かれている箇所がありますが、翻訳はここを『国中の人が、あちこちでこっそりとあつまり〜』（ハードカバー版p30）としているので、これでは英国人全員が魔法使いのようです。
　部分によっては翻訳者の熱意や工夫も感じられるのですが、上記のような不手際が散見されるため、全体に見て子供が繰り返し読むのにふさわしい本になっているとはいえず、たいへん残念です。

Response from ねこさん

粗探しか・・・

Response from abcいるかさん

粗探しではないでしょう。
明らかに変な文章が多くて、読みにくかったです。
Orange_Pekoeさんがわかりやすく書いてくれて良かった。

検証したサイトもあるのでご覧になってはどうかと思います。
→「ここがヘンだよハリーポッター日本語版」