Comments on: Why Japanese reading comprehension matters http://www.mutantfrog.com/2006/07/08/why-japanese-reading-comprehension-matters/ Photos, Stories and articles on East Asia Sun, 21 Mar 2010 13:54:22 -0700 http://wordpress.org/?v=abc hourly 1 By: Mutantfrog Travelogue » Blog Archive » Let’s stop hurting each other - negative gaijin competition http://www.mutantfrog.com/2006/07/08/why-japanese-reading-comprehension-matters/comment-page-1/#comment-333378 Mutantfrog Travelogue » Blog Archive » Let’s stop hurting each other - negative gaijin competition Tue, 17 Feb 2009 09:35:08 +0000 http://www.mutantfrog.com/2006/07/08/why-japanese-reading-comprehension-matters/#comment-333378 [...] Japanese language alone does not make a career (and if you want to be a translator/interpreter, it’s harder than it looks). Nor will it make you a very interesting person if that’s all you’ve got. [...] [...] Japanese language alone does not make a career (and if you want to be a translator/interpreter, it’s harder than it looks). Nor will it make you a very interesting person if that’s all you’ve got. [...]

]]> By: Justin http://www.mutantfrog.com/2006/07/08/why-japanese-reading-comprehension-matters/comment-page-1/#comment-57257 Justin Fri, 21 Jul 2006 06:38:14 +0000 http://www.mutantfrog.com/2006/07/08/why-japanese-reading-comprehension-matters/#comment-57257 I agree with Joe--as i spend time away from a subject i tend to compartmentalize it and think of it as if it had shape and could be known but when you are studying something it always feels like a climb, and it isnt ever over. Language goes on and on and my time spent in japan has led me to think of english as if english speakers know it all but i forget about people who always ask questions during movies and dont understand what this or that means in a news story. There will always be points you dont understand, but i think as a foreign language learner i always attribute that to some deficiency in study rather than just something new. Honestly half the time i ask my japanese friends what something means that i heard, they dont know either. Back to the original topic though, i think the goal of most universities and the students in the classes isnt to be fluent and to read, and this is especially the case in Japanese, so the article does seem overcritical. However if someone is in those classes or circumstances described and wants to get a job and cant read then yes it is a critical oversight of theirs and a failure in their japanese. I cant imagine trying to get a job in america and not being able to read. People just shrug it off cause its not easily obtainable and takes lots of work...ask any japanese who was been thru it in school. I agree with Joe—as i spend time away from a subject i tend to compartmentalize it and think of it as if it had shape and could be known but when you are studying something it always feels like a climb, and it isnt ever over. Language goes on and on and my time spent in japan has led me to think of english as if english speakers know it all but i forget about people who always ask questions during movies and dont understand what this or that means in a news story.

There will always be points you dont understand, but i think as a foreign language learner i always attribute that to some deficiency in study rather than just something new. Honestly half the time i ask my japanese friends what something means that i heard, they dont know either. Back to the original topic though, i think the goal of most universities and the students in the classes isnt to be fluent and to read, and this is especially the case in Japanese, so the article does seem overcritical. However if someone is in those classes or circumstances described and wants to get a job and cant read then yes it is a critical oversight of theirs and a failure in their japanese. I cant imagine trying to get a job in america and not being able to read. People just shrug it off cause its not easily obtainable and takes lots of work…ask any japanese who was been thru it in school.

]]> By: Joe http://www.mutantfrog.com/2006/07/08/why-japanese-reading-comprehension-matters/comment-page-1/#comment-55099 Joe Wed, 12 Jul 2006 12:47:22 +0000 http://www.mutantfrog.com/2006/07/08/why-japanese-reading-comprehension-matters/#comment-55099 I don't think there's ever an end to the language road. As Max put it, people don't even know their own languages properly. That's not a phenomenon limited to Japanese, either: everyone makes English mistakes, even educated people. The beauty of language, though, is that it evolves to tolerate error. You've probably all seen that e-mail where the vowels are all jumbled up and it still makes sense; truth be told, English mks sns vn wthht th vwls, and Japanese will make sense even if you use the wrong word or write the wrong character or tell Koizumi to <a href="http://japan.donga.com/srv/service.php3?biid=2001041212148" rel="nofollow">反省しる!</a> Personally, I speak Japanese ten times better when I'm drunk, because I stop caring whether I'm correct or not and I just <em>talk</em>. Who cares if you know the kanji for "aisatsu" or not? Language is like math, physics or religion: you can never completely understand it, you can just keep working your way up to a new level, and chances are you'll never quite get to the apex. I don’t think there’s ever an end to the language road. As Max put it, people don’t even know their own languages properly. That’s not a phenomenon limited to Japanese, either: everyone makes English mistakes, even educated people.

The beauty of language, though, is that it evolves to tolerate error. You’ve probably all seen that e-mail where the vowels are all jumbled up and it still makes sense; truth be told, English mks sns vn wthht th vwls, and Japanese will make sense even if you use the wrong word or write the wrong character or tell Koizumi to 反省しる!

Personally, I speak Japanese ten times better when I’m drunk, because I stop caring whether I’m correct or not and I just talk. Who cares if you know the kanji for “aisatsu” or not? Language is like math, physics or religion: you can never completely understand it, you can just keep working your way up to a new level, and chances are you’ll never quite get to the apex.

]]> By: Maxamillion http://www.mutantfrog.com/2006/07/08/why-japanese-reading-comprehension-matters/comment-page-1/#comment-55089 Maxamillion Wed, 12 Jul 2006 06:01:14 +0000 http://www.mutantfrog.com/2006/07/08/why-japanese-reading-comprehension-matters/#comment-55089 This bursting people's bubble about Japanese language acquisiton is not limited to language. It easily extends to all of society. The Western media, and in fact the Japanese media, often over romanticize Japanese culture. When ever I am in the States, people asking why if I hate Japan so much, why do I spend so much time there. When it is actually the case that the only things most people know about Japan are what is spoon fed to them from the media. And what I say sounds totally foreign to them. It is like nothing they have ever heard said about Japan. So therefore I am Japan bashing when I talk about the way Japan actually is. Unfortunately, the Japanese who can write a book about the real Japan won't because of the repercussions they will face. And most foreigners don't have the background necessary, and those who do don't have the desire to write about it. The one exception is Alex Kerr. He is someone who truly knows about Japan, loves Japan and wants to make it a better place. The first book of his which I often recommend is "Lost Japan". And his more hard hitting book is Dogs & Demons. While the latter isn't perfect, it is definitely worth reading. Too bad Alex hasn't written a book on what it actually takes to learn Japanese. College Japanese is an introduction to Japanese. 4 or 5 years is usually sufficient to bring people up to the advanced beginner stage. Adam is talking about intermediate and advanced Japanese studies. I consider myself a beginning intermediate student. And I work for a Japanese company, in a 95% Japanese environment. All of my reports are written in professional, business Japanese. I am the only native English speaker out of 4000 employees. And one of my undergraduate degrees in Japanese. I wish I had it so easy as to just translate. Ha! Justin said it is definitely not an easy 2nd language for Japanese speakers. Hell, it isn' t even an easy language for Japanese. The amount of time spent in the class room learning Japanese by Japanese people is SIGNIFICANTLY larger than that spent by native speakers of English studying their own language. MANY Japanese now carry electronic dictionaries with them because they can't remember kanji (mainly due to word processor usage). And the market is growing exponentially at the moment (maybe not exponentially, but it sounds better!). The bottom line is that it is a long road and most people never reach the end of it. Many people often take a side street and come to a dead end which they mistake for fluency. Ciao, Max This bursting people’s bubble about Japanese language acquisiton is not limited to language. It easily extends to all of society. The Western media, and in fact the Japanese media, often over romanticize Japanese culture. When ever I am in the States, people asking why if I hate Japan so much, why do I spend so much time there. When it is actually the case that the only things most people know about Japan are what is spoon fed to them from the media. And what I say sounds totally foreign to them. It is like nothing they have ever heard said about Japan. So therefore I am Japan bashing when I talk about the way Japan actually is.

Unfortunately, the Japanese who can write a book about the real Japan won’t because of the repercussions they will face. And most foreigners don’t have the background necessary, and those who do don’t have the desire to write about it.

The one exception is Alex Kerr. He is someone who truly knows about Japan, loves Japan and wants to make it a better place. The first book of his which I often recommend is “Lost Japan”. And his more hard hitting book is Dogs & Demons. While the latter isn’t perfect, it is definitely worth reading.

Too bad Alex hasn’t written a book on what it actually takes to learn Japanese.

College Japanese is an introduction to Japanese. 4 or 5 years is usually sufficient to bring people up to the advanced beginner stage.

Adam is talking about intermediate and advanced Japanese studies. I consider myself a beginning intermediate student. And I work for a Japanese company, in a 95% Japanese environment. All of my reports are written in professional, business Japanese. I am the only native English speaker out of 4000 employees. And one of my undergraduate degrees in Japanese.

I wish I had it so easy as to just translate. Ha!

Justin said it is definitely not an easy 2nd language for Japanese speakers. Hell, it isn’ t even an easy language for Japanese. The amount of time spent in the class room learning Japanese by Japanese people is SIGNIFICANTLY larger than that spent by native speakers of English studying their own language. MANY Japanese now carry electronic dictionaries with them because they can’t remember kanji (mainly due to word processor usage). And the market is growing exponentially at the moment (maybe not exponentially, but it sounds better!).

The bottom line is that it is a long road and most people never reach the end of it. Many people often take a side street and come to a dead end which they mistake for fluency.

Ciao,
Max

]]> By: Justin http://www.mutantfrog.com/2006/07/08/why-japanese-reading-comprehension-matters/comment-page-1/#comment-54797 Justin Mon, 10 Jul 2006 09:43:49 +0000 http://www.mutantfrog.com/2006/07/08/why-japanese-reading-comprehension-matters/#comment-54797 I think a point that all of us can agree on is that no single method is best for everyone. I started in a university course in Japan which stressed reading and writing abilities, but starting from scratch with Chinese and Korean students in the same class, I was rapidly left behind and pretty much lost interest. So I studied the speaking part with a vengeance and was fairly illiterate for the first couple of years. I studied reading and writing harder the last two years, but it wasn't until I got a job and started technical translation (and learned basic office skills) that I became truly comfortable with it. Looking back, it was exactly opposite of the learning path taken by most of the other students, but there are a few others like me. To each his own, I guess, but Adamu is right - you'll never get any more out of it than you put in, and hey - Japanese is definitely not an easy second language for English speakers. I think a point that all of us can agree on is that no single method is best for everyone. I started in a university course in Japan which stressed reading and writing abilities, but starting from scratch with Chinese and Korean students in the same class, I was rapidly left behind and pretty much lost interest.

So I studied the speaking part with a vengeance and was fairly illiterate for the first couple of years. I studied reading and writing harder the last two years, but it wasn’t until I got a job and started technical translation (and learned basic office skills) that I became truly comfortable with it. Looking back, it was exactly opposite of the learning path taken by most of the other students, but there are a few others like me. To each his own, I guess, but Adamu is right – you’ll never get any more out of it than you put in, and hey – Japanese is definitely not an easy second language for English speakers.

]]> By: Charles http://www.mutantfrog.com/2006/07/08/why-japanese-reading-comprehension-matters/comment-page-1/#comment-54765 Charles Mon, 10 Jul 2006 03:54:31 +0000 http://www.mutantfrog.com/2006/07/08/why-japanese-reading-comprehension-matters/#comment-54765 Durf got me thinking, and I might know why translation and writing were somewhat neglected in university studies for many years. Some of the first modern teachers of Japanese were WWII occupation-era soldiers, they picked it up the spoken language while in Japan, and after their discharge at the end of the war, many of them studied at universities on the GI Bill. Eventually they became tenured professors, even department heads. Teaching of the language for fluency in communication was secondary, these professors were part of the "publish or perish" world and most of them focused on translations, particularly Classical Japanese texts. After the VietNam War era, there was another large group of GI Bill students who had been through Japan and picked up the spoken language. As the Japanese economy flourished, students wanted instruction in modern communication skills. Some of the first "modern" Japanese instruction methods date from the late 60s through the mid 1970s. These methods were something of a reaction against the old school method. The WWII crew's goal was classical Japanese scholarship, the post-VietNam crew's goal was modern functional literacy. So the moderns rejected the old school and their translation-oriented pedagogy. It's interesting to see the old WWII crew retiring, their influence waning, and now even the VietNam crew is coming up on retirement. Now the next generation is coming up for tenure and will rule academia for the next generation. And they're mostly nihonjin, native speakers, who never have any doubts that the goal of Japanese instruction is full functional fluency in modern Japanese, both written and spoken. Durf got me thinking, and I might know why translation and writing were somewhat neglected in university studies for many years.
Some of the first modern teachers of Japanese were WWII occupation-era soldiers, they picked it up the spoken language while in Japan, and after their discharge at the end of the war, many of them studied at universities on the GI Bill. Eventually they became tenured professors, even department heads. Teaching of the language for fluency in communication was secondary, these professors were part of the “publish or perish” world and most of them focused on translations, particularly Classical Japanese texts.
After the VietNam War era, there was another large group of GI Bill students who had been through Japan and picked up the spoken language. As the Japanese economy flourished, students wanted instruction in modern communication skills. Some of the first “modern” Japanese instruction methods date from the late 60s through the mid 1970s. These methods were something of a reaction against the old school method. The WWII crew’s goal was classical Japanese scholarship, the post-VietNam crew’s goal was modern functional literacy. So the moderns rejected the old school and their translation-oriented pedagogy.
It’s interesting to see the old WWII crew retiring, their influence waning, and now even the VietNam crew is coming up on retirement. Now the next generation is coming up for tenure and will rule academia for the next generation. And they’re mostly nihonjin, native speakers, who never have any doubts that the goal of Japanese instruction is full functional fluency in modern Japanese, both written and spoken.

]]> By: Durf http://www.mutantfrog.com/2006/07/08/why-japanese-reading-comprehension-matters/comment-page-1/#comment-54737 Durf Mon, 10 Jul 2006 01:15:49 +0000 http://www.mutantfrog.com/2006/07/08/why-japanese-reading-comprehension-matters/#comment-54737 @ Joe: Translation figured heavily in my studies at university. Our classes basically consisted of the teacher grabbing a few interesting-looking articles from the satellite edition of the Asahi and assigning those as homework. We didn't study grammar or kanji lists. (This was in the third- and fourth-year classes, though; I skipped out of the earlier years on the strength of what I'd learned at an international school in Tokyo.) Reading comprehension does matter, though. For example, I'm at a small publishing company now and I regularly get resumes from English editors with zero Japanese skill. They might be fantastic with the blue pencil, but if they can't communicate with the Japanese staff here, or peek at the original text for guidance on how to edit its English translation, they're useless to us. If you're an editor, and you want to be attractive to employers over here, learn your Japanese. (If you're a J-E translator, you should learn your English, but that's a whole 'nother post, probably.) @ Joe: Translation figured heavily in my studies at university. Our classes basically consisted of the teacher grabbing a few interesting-looking articles from the satellite edition of the Asahi and assigning those as homework. We didn’t study grammar or kanji lists. (This was in the third- and fourth-year classes, though; I skipped out of the earlier years on the strength of what I’d learned at an international school in Tokyo.)

Reading comprehension does matter, though. For example, I’m at a small publishing company now and I regularly get resumes from English editors with zero Japanese skill. They might be fantastic with the blue pencil, but if they can’t communicate with the Japanese staff here, or peek at the original text for guidance on how to edit its English translation, they’re useless to us. If you’re an editor, and you want to be attractive to employers over here, learn your Japanese. (If you’re a J-E translator, you should learn your English, but that’s a whole ‘nother post, probably.)

]]> By: Darin http://www.mutantfrog.com/2006/07/08/why-japanese-reading-comprehension-matters/comment-page-1/#comment-54583 Darin Sun, 09 Jul 2006 05:23:07 +0000 http://www.mutantfrog.com/2006/07/08/why-japanese-reading-comprehension-matters/#comment-54583 Adamu, I guess that means we're obsolete! I did a two month intensive course in America, then did a two year intensive course in Japan with the last year also including Chinese as well as history. Then I went back to America and read lots of books and newspaper articles, then started translating. Then to Okinawa to hang out on the beach, and now back to Tokyo at school again. I guess what I failed to mention the first time is you can't just go to Japan and expect to learn the language like that. You do need to have a good base to build from. For me it was the two month course which was supposedly equivalent to two semesters of college level Japanese. Adamu, I guess that means we’re obsolete!

I did a two month intensive course in America, then did a two year intensive course in Japan with the last year also including Chinese as well as history.

Then I went back to America and read lots of books and newspaper articles, then started translating. Then to Okinawa to hang out on the beach, and now back to Tokyo at school again.

I guess what I failed to mention the first time is you can’t just go to Japan and expect to learn the language like that. You do need to have a good base to build from. For me it was the two month course which was supposedly equivalent to two semesters of college level Japanese.

]]> By: Joe http://www.mutantfrog.com/2006/07/08/why-japanese-reading-comprehension-matters/comment-page-1/#comment-54582 Joe Sun, 09 Jul 2006 05:12:40 +0000 http://www.mutantfrog.com/2006/07/08/why-japanese-reading-comprehension-matters/#comment-54582 I personally find translating to be much more effective than reading, because translating requires you to figure out every word of the material. I can skim through a Japanese book and get the gist of it (which is more or less what I do in English anyway), but if I have to translate part of it I really have to buckle down and understand it word for word. Probably the two things that contributed most to my current knowledge of Japanese were (1) translating articles from Japanese Wikipedia for edification, and (2) translating legal documents at work. Sure, translating is much more strenuous than passive reading, but nobody ever said this would be easy! I personally find translating to be much more effective than reading, because translating requires you to figure out every word of the material. I can skim through a Japanese book and get the gist of it (which is more or less what I do in English anyway), but if I have to translate part of it I really have to buckle down and understand it word for word. Probably the two things that contributed most to my current knowledge of Japanese were (1) translating articles from Japanese Wikipedia for edification, and (2) translating legal documents at work.

Sure, translating is much more strenuous than passive reading, but nobody ever said this would be easy!

]]> By: Adamu http://www.mutantfrog.com/2006/07/08/why-japanese-reading-comprehension-matters/comment-page-1/#comment-54579 Adamu Sun, 09 Jul 2006 04:46:03 +0000 http://www.mutantfrog.com/2006/07/08/why-japanese-reading-comprehension-matters/#comment-54579 Oh and in terms of overall strategy, I basically agree with what Darin is saying since I took a similar route. I pretty much only got somewhat good at speaking during my first year in the country and then concentrated more on reading after I came back. But I don't think that is by any means a catch-all. I have met people whose strategies are far different but who have nevertheless gotten far. Oh and in terms of overall strategy, I basically agree with what Darin is saying since I took a similar route. I pretty much only got somewhat good at speaking during my first year in the country and then concentrated more on reading after I came back. But I don’t think that is by any means a catch-all. I have met people whose strategies are far different but who have nevertheless gotten far.

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