Good literature in Japanese online?

[danparvus_502651]

おはよう 皆さん

Can anyone recommend online book recommendations for absolute beginners in Japanese?

I have been through:
Absolute Beginner Seasons 1 and 2, and Newbie Seasons 1, 2, and part of 3. But I am itching to get into some literature. Not Anime, Cartoons, or newspapers so much as books. Perhaps readers aimed at elementary grade school kids.

In Newbie Season 3 Naomieさん mentioned Botchan by Natsume Soseki. Rebeccaさん also mentioned "Kokoro" and "I am a Cat". Are any of these texts available online for free? Would this be a good place to start, or is this the equivalent of learning English from Shakespeare? I am probably looking for something more along the lines of "See Spot Run". Still, I would appreciate having a variety of online literature to choose from and would possibly purchase books if people recommended them highly.

どうもありがとうございました
ダニエル

[mmmason8967]

I am itching to get into some literature. Not Anime, Cartoons, or newspapers so much as books. Perhaps readers aimed at elementary grade school kids.

Me too. My long-term ultimate aim is to read 源氏物語, Genji Monogatari, which was written by Murasaki Shikibu almost exactly 1,000 years ago and is widely acknowledged as the first true novel ever written. I still have a way to go, though...

Can anyone recommend online book recommendations for absolute beginners in Japanese?

I don't know of any but, then again, I haven't looked very hard. My personal opinion is that there are drawbacks to trying to read online material that's above your level: for a start, you'll just end up using Rikaichan far too much. And you'll end up translating into English in order to understand it (I'll try to explain that remark shortly).

In Newbie Season 3 Naomieさん mentioned Botchan by Natsume Soseki. Rebeccaさん also mentioned "Kokoro" and "I am a Cat". Are any of these texts available online for free? Would this be a good place to start, or is this the equivalent of learning English from Shakespeare?

Perhaps more like trying to learn English from Jane Austen. Faced with "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife", a beginner at English is going to struggle to understand the sentence structure and is very unlikely to notice the author's sly, knowing smile or to realise that it is setting the scene for what follows. When you read a Japanese novel, you want to read it, you want to get the jokes, admire the prose, and experience for yourself why that novel is considered to be great writing. If you slog through it with a Japanese-English dictionary, translating as you go, you just end up "reading" your low-grade English translation, and risk missing everything you wanted to get out of reading a Japanese novel. Japanese and English are very different and translating from one to the other is really, really difficult; it's much easier just to learn to understand the Japanese!

But don't let any of that stop you from being adventurous: you'll probably enjoy something like Read Real Japanese. The writers are extremely well-known, so this very much "real literature" despite each story being quite short. And Amazon's "Look Inside" feature lets you read at least some of it online.

I am probably looking for something more along the lines of "See Spot Run". Still, I would appreciate having a variety of online literature to choose from and would possibly purchase books if people recommended them highly.

I'd definitely recommend books over online resources. As a beginner, I still need furigana, the small hiragana characters printed above or next to a kanji to tell you how it's pronounced (and ideally printed in a quite small font so that you don't end up reading the furigana instead of the kanji), and you just don't get that on web pages.

The absolute best resource (in my opinion) is レベル別日本語多読ライブラリー, reberu betsu nihongo tadoku raiburarii, a.k.a. "Japanese Graded Readers". They are, it has to be said, astonishingly expensive; even so, they're great value for money if you really want to learn to read Japanese. You can see them here: Japanese Graded Readers.

The Graded Readers are entirely in Japanese, including the instructions--which, briefly, are "don't stop if you don't understand, just keep going--and don't look stuff up in the dictionary". They're all illustrated and the writers cunningly ensure that the illustrations give you clues to help you understand the less easily guessable words. I read each story many times over; typically I find that the more difficult phrases and expressions usually become clear after reading through ten to fifteen times. The stories themselves are aimed at adult readers, although the early stories are necessarily very simple. But they build on each other and become increasingly satisfying and more and more like real literature as you go along.

どうもありがとうございました

Unfortunately, that doesn't work for "thanks in advance" because ありがとうございます expresses something very roughly in the same ball park as "Oh, you shouldn't have!"; the phrase you need is よろしくおねがいします, which expresses something very roughly in the same ball park as "I place myself in your hands".

マイケル

[danparvus_502651]

Me too. My long-term ultimate aim is to read 源氏物語, Genji Monogatari, which was written by Murasaki Shikibu almost exactly 1,000 years ago and is widely acknowledged as the first true novel ever written. I still have a way to go, though...

LOL - I imagine I have a little bit more than a ways to go. The language must be very different from modern Japanese, no?

But this is the kind of stuff I like. Classics. Something I can build up to over the long run. Just knowing what the Japanese classics are though, would be interesting. I also enjoy history and philosophy, so maybe that might widen the spectrum of possible material I can get started with.

I don't know of any but, then again, I haven't looked very hard. My personal opinion is that there are drawbacks to trying to read online material that's above your level: for a start, you'll just end up using Rikaichan far too much. And you'll end up translating into English in order to understand it (I'll try to explain that remark shortly).

Rikaichan is a translation tool? I've been using google translate from time to time. And also the Japanesepod101 dictionary. But yes, translating is not always enjoyable. I still remember having to translate Caesar's Gallic Wars. Uggg. Not fun.

Perhaps more like trying to learn English from Jane Austen. Faced with "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife", a beginner at English is going to struggle to understand the sentence structure and is very unlikely to notice the author's sly, knowing smile or to realise that it is setting the scene for what follows. When you read a Japanese novel, you want to read it, you want to get the jokes, admire the prose, and experience for yourself why that novel is considered to be great writing. If you slog through it with a Japanese-English dictionary, translating as you go, you just end up "reading" your low-grade English translation, and risk missing everything you wanted to get out of reading a Japanese novel. Japanese and English are very different and translating from one to the other is really, really difficult; it's much easier just to learn to understand the Japanese!

Agreed! It is about immersing myself in the different thinking patterns. Although very difficult, I find it quite relaxing at time. Just trying to think in SOV patterns is itself a leap. If I can get beyond the point where I have to rearrange the words in my mind into the English patterns, I think that will be a good first step.

But don't let any of that stop you from being adventurous: you'll probably enjoy something like Read Real Japanese. The writers are extremely well-known, so this very much "real literature" despite each story being quite short. And Amazon's "Look Inside" feature lets you read at least some of it online.

Yes, this looks perfect. Thank you for the recommendation. I can also see what other books each writer has produced.

I'd definitely recommend books over online resources. As a beginner, I still need furigana, the small hiragana characters printed above or next to a kanji to tell you how it's pronounced (and ideally printed in a quite small font so that you don't end up reading the furigana instead of the kanji), and you just don't get that on web pages.

The absolute best resource (in my opinion) is レベル別日本語多読ライブラリー, reberu betsu nihongo tadoku raiburarii, a.k.a. "Japanese Graded Readers". They are, it has to be said, astonishingly expensive; even so, they're great value for money if you really want to learn to read Japanese. You can see them here: Japanese Graded Readers.

The Graded Readers are entirely in Japanese, including the instructions--which, briefly, are "don't stop if you don't understand, just keep going--and don't look stuff up in the dictionary". They're all illustrated and the writers cunningly ensure that the illustrations give you clues to help you understand the less easily guessable words. I read each story many times over; typically I find that the more difficult phrases and expressions usually become clear after reading through ten to fifteen times. The stories themselves are aimed at adult readers, although the early stories are necessarily very simple. But they build on each other and become increasingly satisfying and more and more like real literature as you go along.

I see that I can purchase the books individually. That could ease the financial burden over a year or two. This is certainly good advice.

Unfortunately, that doesn't work for "thanks in advance" because ありがとうございます expresses something very roughly in the same ball park as "Oh, you shouldn't have!"; the phrase you need is よろしくおねがいします, which expresses something very roughly in the same ball park as "I place myself in your hands".

Right, so ありがとうございます would be more appropriate after receiving something, whereas よろしくおねがいします better expresses the sentiment of requesting aid or asking for a favour. Right?

Thanks again for your detailed post! Now that I have received this such an excellent response, would ありがとうございます now be appropriate?


ダニエル

[community.japanese]

ダニエルsan, マイケルさん、
こんにちは。
I am impressed you two set specific goals.
I recommend you to go to the sites below.
If you haven’t visited them, please go.

ふぁんた時間
http://fantajikan.com/lineup/audio/index.html
They are Audio picture books so they might be boring for you.
However, they are really famous stories and almost all Japanese native speakers should know.

Old stories of Japan
http://www.geocities.co.jp/HeartLand-Ga ... 1/top.html
http://www.geocities.co.jp/HeartLand-Ga ... kaoni.html
The page above has English and Romaji however, if you click Japanese, Japanese sentences come up.
They are also tale stories so may be childish for you however, they are famous stories.
ふぁんた時間　is audio and visual, however, you have to read sentences by yourselves here.

青空文庫
http://www.aozora.gr.jp/index.html
It has real Japanese novels.
Some novels have furigana and others don’t have.
Although the novels may be a bit difficult to read, you can try.

マルチメディア対訳版で読む世界の名作 （Multimedia Bilingual Versions）
http://www.bauddha.net/
This site has novels are from overseas and translated into Japanese, famous people’s speeches and so on.
If you have read the novels in English from the site, it would be easier for you to understand Japanese, too.

がんばってください。Good luck！
Yuki 由紀
Team JapanesePod101.com

[danparvus_502651]

Thank you 由紀さん! This is exactly what I am looking for.

I am already able to read some of 桃太郎

むかし、むかし ある所におじいさんとおばあさんが住んでいました seems about perfect for my current level.

I appreciate the help.
ありがとう
ダニエル

[danparvus_502651]

I'm looking at 泣いた赤鬼　

I find it interesting how different the translation is from the original text:

昔、昔、山を越え、峠を越え、人里離れた山の奥に、赤鬼と青鬼が住んでいました。

Long,long ago, (OK) beyond the woods, through the forests and the pass (that's a stretch...I see a pass I see beyond the mountains, but I don't see forest and woods. unless that somehow gets infered from 人里) , in the deep mountains of Japan (Well, maybe from 山の奥に, but certainly no mention of Japan) , there lived a 'Aka-Oni',a red Ogre and 'Ao-Oni',a blue Ogre.

It is interesting how the translation is almost a distraction at best or downright misleading at worst if your goal is to learn Japanese. I much prefer literal translations even though that isn't and should not be the goal of a translator.

Interesting.
ダニエル

[community.japanese]

ダニエルさん、
こんにちは。
We are happy it is useful for you.
Yes, 桃太郎 should be a good one.

Regarding your question,
I don’t see forest and woods either because those sentences don’t have them.
However, basic Japanese mountains have woods and forests so it was freely translated into English.

人里 means “human settlements.”
山の奥に means “deep in mountains” or “in a remote mountain place.”

The direct translation should
“Long long ago, going over mountains and passes, a red-ogre and a blue-ogre live in the maturations a long away from any human dwellings”

I hope it could be helpful.
Yuki 由紀
Team JapanesePod101.com

[danparvus_502651]

ダニエルさん、
こんにちは。
We are happy it is useful for you.
Yes, 桃太郎 should be a good one.

Hi 由紀さん!

Thanks for responding.

Regarding your question,
I don’t see forest and woods either because those sentences don’t have them.
However, basic Japanese mountains have woods and forests so it was freely translated into English.

Agreed.

人里 means “human settlements.”
山の奥に means “deep in mountains” or “in a remote mountain place.”

The direct translation should
“Long long ago, going over mountains and passes, a red-ogre and a blue-ogre live in the maturations a long away from any human dwellings”

I think the part you translate as in the maturations is this one in bold, right? 人里離れた山の奥に Literally, it seems to be, in the "in the mountain's back". Perhaps "mountain pastures", or "mountain valley" would be better or as you originally said, "deep in mountains"? Maturation is something that a good wine or scotch does, or a child as they mature.

ダニエル

[mmmason8967]

... My long-term ultimate aim is to read 源氏物語, Genji Monogatari ...

LOL - I imagine I have a little bit more than a ways to go. The language must be very different from modern Japanese, no?

As I understand it, it's changed to about the same degree as English has over the same period.

Rikaichan is a translation tool? I've been using google translate from time to time. And also the Japanesepod101 dictionary.

Rikaichan is an add-on for the Firefox browser. You hover the mouse over some Japanese text and Rikiachan pops up a box showing the pronunciation and a short definition of the word under the cursor. It'll tell you if the word is a noun, adjective, adverb or whatever, and it can recognise verb inflections. It's very clever and extremely useful. But if you're not careful it's easy to end up sliding the cursor along and reading the Rikaichan box instead of the Japanese text.

But yes, translating is not always enjoyable. I still remember having to translate Caesar's Gallic Wars. Uggg. Not fun.

I quite like doing translation; the trouble is I suspect myself of using it as a way to smuggle English back into the process of learning Japanese. Even with something as simple as "sakana means fish", I can take it, turn it round to be "fish means sakana" and I can appreciate intellectually that both versions are equally true; but, deep down, part of me thinks the second version looks wrong.

Unfortunately, that doesn't work for "thanks in advance" because ありがとうございます expresses something very roughly in the same ball park as "Oh, you shouldn't have!"; the phrase you need is よろしくおねがいします, which expresses something very roughly in the same ball park as "I place myself in your hands".

Right, so ありがとうございます would be more appropriate after receiving something, whereas よろしくおねがいします better expresses the sentiment of requesting aid or asking for a favour. Right?

Yes, that's about the size of it.

Thanks again for your detailed post! Now that I have received this such an excellent response, would ありがとうございます now be appropriate?

Indeed ... and I, of course, respond with どういたしまして.

昔、昔、山を越え、峠を越え、人里離れた山の奥に、赤鬼と青鬼が住んでいました。

Long,long ago, (OK) beyond the woods, through the forests and the pass (that's a stretch...I see a pass I see beyond the mountains, but I don't see forest and woods. unless that somehow gets infered from 人里) , in the deep mountains of Japan (Well, maybe from 山の奥に, but certainly no mention of Japan) , there lived a 'Aka-Oni',a red Ogre and 'Ao-Oni',a blue Ogre.

Long long ago, going over mountains and passes, a red-ogre and a blue-ogre live in the maturations a long away from any human dwellings

I'll have a go as well: Long, long ago, over the hills and through the pass, deep in the mountains and far from the homes of men, there lived a red oni and a blue oni.

And the justification:-
昔、昔　⇒　Once upon a time. Long, long ago.
山を越え　⇒　Across/over hill(s)/mountain(s).
峠を越え　⇒　Through a/the pass(es).
人里離れた　⇒　Far from human habitation. The middle of nowhere. The back of beyond.
山の奥に　⇒　Deep in the mountains.
赤鬼と青鬼　⇒　Red oni and blue oni (and we know what an oni is).
住んでいました　⇒　Tradition dictates this must be "there lived".

マイケル

[community.japanese]

ダニエル san,
こんにちは。
すみません。
I have a typo. That must be “mountain”.
I am really sorry I made you confused.

マイケルさん、
どうもありがとうございます。
すばらしい翻訳ですね。

Yuki 由紀
Team JapanesePod101.com

[danparvus_502651]

As I understand it, it's changed to about the same degree as English has over the same period.

So something equivalent to Chaucer! Wow, you are brave.

Rikaichan is an add-on for the Firefox browser. You hover the mouse over some Japanese text and Rikiachan pops up a box showing the pronunciation and a short definition of the word under the cursor. It'll tell you if the word is a noun, adjective, adverb or whatever, and it can recognise verb inflections. It's very clever and extremely useful. But if you're not careful it's easy to end up sliding the cursor along and reading the Rikaichan box instead of the Japanese text.

I just downloaded rikaikun, the port of Rikaichan to Chrome. すごいですね! I can see how one could develop a pretty strong addiction to the tool that could end up stumping your learning. But at my stage as a newbie, this is really useful. Perhaps I should use it to help develop my understanding of the vocab for a paragraph, but then come back the next day to try to go through it without any help from the tool.

I quite like doing translation; the trouble is I suspect myself of using it as a way to smuggle English back into the process of learning Japanese. Even with something as simple as "sakana means fish", I can take it, turn it round to be "fish means sakana" and I can appreciate intellectually that both versions are equally true; but, deep down, part of me thinks the second version looks wrong.

Agreed. I just met a woman who spent five years in Korea teaching English, and I asked her if she had gotten to the point where she was thinking in Korean. She said yes. She was even dreaming in the language. LOL

I'll have a go as well: Long, long ago, over the hills and through the pass, deep in the mountains and far from the homes of men, there lived a red oni and a blue oni.

And the justification:-
昔、昔　⇒　Once upon a time. Long, long ago.
山を越え　⇒　Across/over hill(s)/mountain(s).
峠を越え　⇒　Through a/the pass(es).
人里離れた　⇒　Far from human habitation. The middle of nowhere. The back of beyond.
山の奥に　⇒　Deep in the mountains.
赤鬼と青鬼　⇒　Red oni and blue oni (and we know what an oni is).
住んでいました　⇒　Tradition dictates this must be "there lived".

マイケル

Nice! Thanks マイケルさん

By the way, do you have any advice on tools for typing in Japanese? I am still at the stage of copying and pasting from other locations. There are some posts on the forums, but they appear to be out of date for Windows 8.1.

よろしくおねがいします!
ダニエル

[danparvus_502651]

ダニエル san,
こんにちは。
すみません。
I have a typo. That must be “mountain”.
I am really sorry I made you confused.

マイケルさん、
どうもありがとうございます。
すばらしい翻訳ですね。

Yuki 由紀
Team JapanesePod101.com

由紀さん, Thank you so much for your help! I ask so many questions and I very much appreciate your patient responses.

よろしくおねがいします
ダニエル

[danparvus_502651]

I quite like doing translation; the trouble is I suspect myself of using it as a way to smuggle English back into the process of learning Japanese. Even with something as simple as "sakana means fish", I can take it, turn it round to be "fish means sakana" and I can appreciate intellectually that both versions are equally true; but, deep down, part of me thinks the second version looks wrong.

I was thinking more about this in terms of the audio lessons. I find that in the Absolute Beginner Category, in pretty much every season, there are a few characters that sometimes dialog faster than is possible to translate internally in real time. For example, in Newbie Season 3, I've been stuck reviewing 北川 冬果さん's dialogs over and over again, and I found it impossible to catch her meaning in honto jikan. I realize now that I have no choice but to fully memorize the meaning such that I can listen to the dialog without translating it internally to English.

This phrase is just killing me: 私、来週、会社を 休みます。実家へ 帰ります。 Especially 会社を 休みます。My brain is still fumbling around trying to figure out that meaning when she is already going to 実家へ 帰ります。

The this one is also a killer: 四国の高松です。四国のうどんは おいしいですよ。私は東京では うどんを食べませんが、四国では 毎日うどんを 食べます。 The first part is easy: 四国の高松です。四国のうどんは おいしいですよ。, but then I get to the comparison clauses, 私は東京では うどんを食べませんが、四国では 毎日うどんを 食べます。 where I have to fully understand the first part of the comparison before moving on the second part of the comparison with the added 毎日 to throw an additional wrench into the meaning. There is just no time to do any translating and keep up with the conversation.

西本 秋さん's dialog is always very easy to listen to because he is so slow with lots of interjections like あの, へぇ, and so on.

ダニエル

[community.japanese]

ダニエルさん、
こんにちは。
It’s ok so please feel free to ask any questions.
We are happy to help you and I believe マイケルさん will be so.
一緒に頑張りましょう。
Yuki　由紀
Team JapanesePod101.com

[mmmason8967]

I just met a woman who spent five years in Korea teaching English, and I asked her if she had gotten to the point where she was thinking in Korean. She said yes. She was even dreaming in the language. LOL

I'd love to get to that stage. I've had maybe four or five occasions where I've completely understood something said in Japanese without any effort and without any translation going on. The first time it happened I was watching a movie, and I actually rewound it just to make sure they hadn't been speaking English at that point.

By the way, do you have any advice on tools for typing in Japanese? I am still at the stage of copying and pasting from other locations. There are some posts on the forums, but they appear to be out of date for Windows 8.1.

The Japanese IME lets you type Japanese on an English keyboard, and it's built into Windows: you just need to turn it on. I use Windows 7 and I haven't used Windows 8.1, so I can't give fully detailed instructions, but the general idea is:-

• Open the Control Panel. If yours is displayed in Category View, click on Change keyboards or other input methods, which is under the Clock, Language and Region heading. If your Control Panel displays an Icon View, click on Region and Language.
• Select the Keyboards and Languages tab on the dialog box that opens and the click the Change Keyboards button.
• Select the Add button on the dialog box that opens.
• Scroll down until you find Japanese. Expand the Japanese heading, then expand the Keyboard heading.
• Tick the Microsoft IME option, then click OK and Apply until you've closed all the dialog boxes.

Japanese input is now installed. To try it out you need a need a program you can type into: you could use Word or you could use the boxes on Google Translate. On Windows 8.1 I think you type Windows-key plus space-bar to switch languages; on other systems you type Control-Shift. You may also need to type Control-CapsLock to select hiragana input (you should see some kind of indication in the task bar telling you what kind of input you have selected).

Now you type in roumaji and it will be converted into hiragana as you go. If you type nihongo, you'll see it change into にほんご. You'll notice it's underlined: if you hit space, the IME will convert the underlined text into kanji and you'll see 日本語. If the kanji that comes up is wrong, hit space again to see all the possible conversions. Finally, hit Enter (or just start typing the next word) to confirm the conversion.

The IME is context-aware; if it won't gve you the kanji you're expecting, it's likely there's a typo. And sometimes if you type too many or too few characters before converting, it doesn't always offer you the kanji you think it should be offering you. This might be because the IME has got 'confused' by what you've typed, but often it's a sign there's something else wrong--a verb with an ending that doesn't belong to that verb, for instance. You don't have to convert your text one word at a time: you can type phrases or whole sentences and then convert them.

I was thinking more about this in terms of the audio lessons. I find that in the Absolute Beginner Category, in pretty much every season, there are a few characters that sometimes dialog faster than is possible to translate internally in real time. For example, in Newbie Season 3, I've been stuck reviewing 北川 冬果さん's dialogs over and over again, and I found it impossible to catch her meaning in honto jikan. I realize now that I have no choice but to fully memorize the meaning such that I can listen to the dialog without translating it internally to English.

I have the same problem: some speakers seem to be much more difficult to follow than others. For me, male speakers are usually more difficult than female speakers. I find that reading the Lesson Notes helps--the trick is to read it out loud: if you read aloud, you have to deal with pronunciation, and if you can get the pronunciation right (or close enough), then you know what to expect in the audio track. And then you can use the audio track to help improve your pronunciation, and back around we go...

マイケル