Reading Materials

[hiromihall4124]

I have been using this site for a couple of years now and I have got through most of the beginner stuff. I am quite pleased because I'm not a fast learner and only have 1 hour a day to study. One thing I think that is lacking at the beginner levels is reading materials. Of course that is supplied in the form of transcripts of the kaiwa, but what I mean is practice reading materials that use the same grammar, kanji vocab etc introduced in the lessons and get the student familiar with narriative modes. There is never enough of that in published texts and none of it on this course (at least at the level I'm working on).

I am not sure why this is, but I suppose one reason might be that it's a whole lot of extra work to produce such materials without any obvious return. I can sympathise with such a perspective, if that is indeed the reason for an absence of reading materials beyond the kaiwa transcripts. However, I think I can see a way to do it which would benefit students and probably have a return as well.

You could start off by simply writing a narrative scenario to accompany each kaiwa. These narratives would strive to avoid using grammar, vocabualary, kanji etc. that were not already a part of the series, with the idea being that when someone had worked through the kaiwa series they would then be able to use the readings as review and practice instead of simplly going back and going over and over the same kaiwa again and again.

From my way of thinking this would be a way to keep dead series alive and add more content without having to expand the series content. People who wanted review could always go back to the series they had already been through and find new content - new, but not in the sense of introducing more than an absolute minimum of material that was not already in the original series. Of course, you wouldn't have to stop with the scenarios of each kaiwa, you could then branch of into related stories. OK you couldn't do that easily with every series, but there are several of them that you could.

Learning Kanji is pretty hard for me. Many do it by rote, pretty much in the style of the Japanese education system. But there is growing evidence that people can learn kanji faster by simply reading them in contexts that involve material that they already know. If the guys who run this site decided to get into this side of things seriously it might add a whole new dimension to the program and keep people coming back for more.

[mmmason8967]

That's a great idea! I would love to have texts that were pitched at the same level as the lessons that I am following. However, I can imagine that it is actually very difficult to produce text that uses a restricted vocabulary and is limited to the grammar points that have been covered. That may be why it is so difficult to find beginner-level texts anywhere.

One option is to try to write something yourself. There's a forum on this site called "Practice Japanese - 日本語を練習しましょう" for this very purpose. That's something I want to do, but then I find that it's very difficult to say anything interesting with a tiny vocabulary and limited grammar knowledge. Of course, I can say はじめまして。マイケルと申します。よろしくお願いいたします。 But once I've done that, what do I say the next time?

Having said that, though, I can't help feeling that the only way we're going to get beginner-level texts in the near future is if we write them ourselves.

マイケル

[hiromihall4124]

Yes, I agree that it is a constraint to work with limited material like that. However, I'm not talking about works of art or anything like that. Just simple readable comprehensible material for practice. And of course I am not averse to the idea of including a little in the way of further materials provided that they are kept to a minimum so that the focus is on reading fluency.

Writing pracice is a good thing. However, for learning the language content (as opposed to practicing), I have a problem with the idea of learning using materials that I and other learners have written. When I read and reread something over and over, I don't want to be hardwiring inaccurate structures into my brain. I want to be confident that they are correct. I hope that someone out there will see the need for this kind of thing and find a way to produce them that allows them to receive a return for their effort. I would certainly be a buyer.

Good luck with your studies!

[natsukoy9313]

Hi!!
Good ideas.
Well, reading materials always helps, and you've got unlimited source online nowadays.
Practice with reading books and watching TV are always the best way even if you cannot output whatever you've learnt.
For instance, answering to マイケルsan's question, after the first time meeting, you can just say こんにちは。お元気ですかetc.
which you can see in any TV drama or story.

Natsuko(奈津子),
Team JapanesePod101.com

[mmmason8967]

奈津子さん

You misunderstand my question!

What I meant was this: I am a beginner and I want to write something in Japanese. The obvious thing to write is a self introduction, and it will be like はじめまして。マイケルと申します, etc, etc.

Now I want to write something else. I can't write another self-introduction. So that is what my question was: if you are a beginner, what do you write about after you've done a self-introduction?

It is very difficult for me to think of anything because my vocabulary is very small and my grammar knowledge is even smaller. As I said to hiromihall4124-san, I imagine it would also be difficult for even native Japanese speakers to think of something to say using a beginner's vocabulary and grammar knowledge.

マイケル

[natsukoy9313]

マイケルさん
Oooops So sorry!

Well, self-introduction is always one of the first actual practice in any foreing languages.
When we're at beginner level, like you said, our vocabulary is very limited. So whatever you can say would be fine enough!
For example, using the simple grammar, you can say;
1. your job/occupation
2. your age.
3. your nationality
4. your favourite activities (sport, culture, art, music. etc.)

And, maybe, it'd be a good idea to use this to choose next words to lean! I mean, you'll collect vocabulary that you need for self-introduction!
Don't forget to use us if you have quetions too!
You can ask us also "how to write ........... correctly?" kind of questions!

Does this help? Hope so!

Natsuko(奈津子),
Team JapanesePod101.com

[Jessi]

Hi everyone,
I'd also like to jump in and make the suggestion of keeping a diary in Japanese!
Even as a beginner you can do this. Just use very simple sentences. Talk about what you did that day:

今日はスーパーに行きました。パンを買いました。etc.

You'll start out just making simple sentences, but as you learn more and more grammar, you'll be able to incorporate that into what you write.
Try writing a little bit each day. Talk about what you did, describe the weather, how you feel - anything!
I hope that helps

[dh4m13l]

What I understood when I read the request's title, is that short stories was what Hiromihall-san was asking for. Or maybe I got that because I actually came to the forum, to the requests site, to ask for this

I'd love to have short stories written in simple Japanese, with translations and audio, and probably a vocabuary list. You don't have to necessarily come up with new stories, you can just take Momotarou and abridge it to simpler (and less colloquial?) Japanese, that should be simple enough to do.

Indeed, it IS true that there are many resources online, if you type "Japanese language simple stories" you do find quite a few, but I DON'T want to go to other sites, I want to use japanesepod101. The way you show the language is what I like, the way Peter and Natsuko talk in the podcast is what I prefer.

I hope you take this request into consideration! Well... actually what I mean is, please do this, please upload a couple of short stories for us to enjoy the Japanese language this way. お願いします！！！　ね？