Japanese Literature discussion

こんにちわ。私は日本語を便器蔵します。あなたは日本語を便器増島すか。

OK, anybody besides me learning Japanese? I would really like to get to know some other aspiring Japanese students to share the agony (or the joy) of learning kanji and other incredibly hard stuff Japanese language has to offer. :)

Oh, I forgot, this is an interesting link to help you install hiragana, katakana and kanji to your computer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kh8nl5...

:)

I'm learning Japanese. Taking a new class this Fall!

Zala wrote: "こんにちわ。私は日本語を便器蔵します。あなたは日本語を便器増島すか。

OK, anybody besides me learning Japanese? I would really like to get to know some other aspiring Japanese students to share the agony (or the joy) of learning ..."

i am...b watching Anime.....

Not that many people learning Japanese eh?
I studied it in college. But learning the kanji is a solitary burden. Make it a creative process with Heisig: Remembering the Kanji I A Complete Course on How Not to Forget the Meaning and Writing of Japanese Characters Vol. 1 4th Edition
For beginners, I suggest a show called ヤンさんと日本の人々・yan san to nihon no hitobito. You can find it on torrents. A taster: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t58Hbl...
I also liked the Erin show on NHK- link - however Yan was more annoying, or so quirky that it was very efficient for me.
Just talking about learning Japanese takes quite a while, so I suggest you take a look around the All Japanese All The Time website. Great tips for alternative language learning, based on having fun and holding back on the boring yourself to death via textbook. Speaking of entertainment.
I basically hate anime but I like an occasional dorama, and those you can find over at mysoju.com. I watch them while perusing the scripts (http://www.dramanote.com/).
Japanese is doable. I had my highs and my lows in speaking production- now is definitely a low - because you have to practice it, like any other language. But I can understand what people are saying, and my kanji recognition rate is fine, so I don't feel illiterate thanks to Heisig. よろしくね

These links are very helpful, thanks Lindu!! I want to major in Foreign language, specializing in Japanese so I am very appreciative of any and all resources that can help me along the way.

Hey Misti,
You're probably going to be expected to learn the hiragana and katakana in one week, so may I also suggest Remembering the Kana Hiragana and Katakana. Also, there's a pdf sample of Remembering the kanji, if you google it it's among the first results.
Like I said, you can start learning kanji now, before they start befuddling you at uni - I got very little out of the higher education experience. They'll expect you to learn kanji by rote, i.e. the quickest way to forget anything. The online community for RTK is here: http://kanji.koohii.com/main.php.
And another very valuable resource, as the system incorporates sound, visuals and reading comprehension: http://smart.fm/

Thanks for the links, Lindu!

I'm probably happy to have a personal tutor - I'm not old enough to learn Japanese at a university and there aren't really any classes around here, so that was my only option and it really turned out great. I just find it super fun learning the language. Plus I had a month to memorize katakana and hiragana. :)
I am still planing on taking Japanese when I enter university, though. And maybe another Asian language like Chinese or Korean. I'm a little scared of Chinese, though, since I knew someone who studied Japanese and Chinese at the same time and ended up hating Chinese and leaving the University. :(

thanks Lindu!

Well I taught myself hiragana and katakana a few months ago (gotta stay ahead of the game, you know) and had my Japanese tutor perfect me...I know maybe 20 kanji...we'll cover only 40, I think in this first semester...Although not completely knowledgeable...I am aware of the grade 1 80 Kanji list....

I will definitely chk on these links...Anymore? keep 'em coming?

私は日本語を便器蔵します。あなたは日本語を便器増島すか。

= I am storing Japanese in the toilet. Are you toilet increase island Japanese?

:-)

→　わたしは日本語を勉強しています。あなたは日本語を勉強していますか。ｗ

I'm glad to see some people here are studying the language. Does anyone have plans to read any of the books in the original?

I'd be more than willing to help struggling readers out.

- Marc

Marc- hey.
ただいまその例を読んだけど。フフフ^_^）日本語でだいたいやさしい言い方を使った方がいいだと思うんです。っていうか、シンプルのほう！今村上春樹さんのねじまき鳥クロニクルを読んでいる最中だ。Marcさんの気に入りの本は？
I'm currently reading ねじまき鳥クロニクル〈第1部〉泥棒かささぎ編. I'm not a big Murakami Haruki fan but I loved this one in English. Any favourite reads in Japanese?

リンドゥさん、はじめまして。

僕のお気に入りの小説ですか。。。本好きだから話せば長くなりますけど（ホントに）、最近読んだのは井上靖の「氷結」（面白くなかった）と谷崎潤一郎の「痴人の愛」と「卍」です。大変よかったです！次はおなじく谷崎の「細雪」という長編を読もうと思っていますけど、なぜか谷崎線からすこし脱線しちゃって、トルストイの「戦争と平和」を読み始めてしまって、「細雪」はだいぶ先になりそうです。

「ねじまき鳥クロニクル」はというと、実は発売まもなく読みました。（そのときは書き下ろしだとは知らなかったのですが。）もう何年前になるかな。１４年前ぐらいかな。（おそろしい。。。）とにかく、当時は日本語をそれほど話せなくて、分からない部分が多かったですけど、そのままになってしまって、あれから読んでいません。もう１回、今度はちゃんと読もうとは思いつつ、「再読」というのが贅沢のように感じて、「ねじまき」はなかなか読みたい本のリストにあがってこないんですよね。

村上というと最近読んだのは１Ｑ８４です。とてもがっかりしました。昔の村上はよかったのに、「海辺のカフカ」あたりから、ぜんぜん面白くなくなってきています。昔はあんなによかったのに。。。「羊をめぐる冒険」や「世界の終わりとハードボイルドワンダーランド」はすごくいいですよね。あ、あと最近読んだもう１つの小説は村上訳のレイモンド・チャンドラーの「ロング・グッドバイ」。これはけっこういいです。村上が手がけた「グレートギャツビー」の和訳も買ってあって、そのうち読むつもりです。

ほら長くなっちゃった。（●―●メ）

では！

Marcさんはすごいよ！第一言語とする人のような日本語ができるのこと。日本に勉強しましたのかな。うらやましいよ^^

この前いいポッドキャストを見つかったんです。例えば「表現よみ作品集」というブログ　http://www.voiceblog.jp/kotoba/　知ってるん...。

確か１Q８４に興味があるけどね、ねじまき鳥のときの村上は最高だったと思うわ。作家として本物の目的が見つかったと感じです。一方「ノルウェイの森」の村上は余りすきじゃなくて、素人みたいだから。村上が手がけた「グレートギャツビー」翻訳！ぜひ読みたい。ありがとうね。

いえいえ、リンドゥさんもとても上手ですね。大学で勉強したんですか。僕は６年間日本に住んでいました。

すごい迫力！本当にクールだ。ここで日本に行くのですか？

OK, OK, that's too much Japanese for me by far. :)
I'd like to read some books in the original, but it will probably take me a few additional years to learn enough to be able to do it.

use google translator

Zala wrote: "Oh, I forgot, this is an interesting link to help you install hiragana, katakana and kanji to your computer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kh8nl5...

:)"

thanks for the link, i will take a look. Wanting to learn japanese so i can read and write a bit. Anything would be useful at the moment.

はじめまして！

ベンと申します。今大学で日本語を勉強しているんですが、クラスメートは日本の文学にぜんぜん興味がありません。悲しいですよ・・・今、日本語で短編小説しかのろのろ読めませんが、将来もっと長い小説を読んでみたいです。もしかしたら、宮沢賢治から始めるかもしれません。誰か、彼の小説を読みましたか。

最近、来月の日本語能力試験（世界１つまらないこと・・・）２級に備えて勉強していますから、あまり日本語で文学を読む時間がありませんが、試験の後、たくさん読むつもりです！

リンデゥさんとマークがすごくうらやましいですよね。いつか、そんなふうに上手に書きたいですよ。不自然な日本語で本当にすみません！間違いがあったら、知らせてください。

なぜか僕だけ呼び捨て。。。　　　（悲

試験が終わったら、ベンさんの参加を歓迎します！勉強、がんばってください。

本当にすみません！　間違いましたよ・・・　＾＾

は、[OK:]を....すべてのアニメのようなuのですか？

??

??

ミッシェルと申します。アメリカ人です。ベトナム人でもあります。私は大学で日本語を勉強します。昨秋の学期、JA3を終わりました。今学期は中級の日本語会話のクラスを受けます。えーと、GENKIの教科書を使うのが好きです。

上記の投稿(ポスト？メッセージ？)をさっと見ましたが、ゆっくり読む暇がない．
It's fun but initially discouraging to read Japanese. However, if you have an author you like, pick up a copy and start in. The first 10 pages will be excruciating, particularly as it will include descriptions of appearance, clothing, places, plants ... and the author's idiosyncratic and habitual vocabularly. The second 10 page will be merely very painful. But by the 30th page, if you can persist ("gaman") you'll start to find you already know more of the vocabulary. It's even better if you can find an old edition (1950s or before!) or youth edition with the readings of most characters written in. Or I suppose a digital version -- but print out and re-read with glosses in the page margins where you can cover them up.
Until I started in on novels, my progress was slow -- newspapers and short essays and short stories are conducive to frustration, not repetition and learning. But hey, 100+ million Japanese have learned to read, so you know it can be done! With a novel, if you skip a word or sentence, you don't normally lose much. With a short story, the role of the individual word and phrase looms large; ditto with space-constrained journalism. But there are authors who are very opaque...
マイク
頑張って下さい．小説を読もうとすると、ついになんとか出来るようになると思います。

日本語のトピックがある！すげえ。僕は大学で日本語を勉強している。このトピックは面白いだと思う。

意見は漫画が一番はやい練習（読みために）。少年漫画は普通、言葉とか文保は簡単と、話はおもしろいんです。

僕はもう日本語が下手だから、日本語で連絡のは楽しいんだね。

Jeff makes a good point: read what you like, because if you don't like it, reading in a foreign language becomes a matter of sheer torture. but read a lot. any individual manga has limited vocabulary. but there are all sorts of manga, food, business stories ... you can expand across the genre and expand your skills.
obviously, most manga are replete with slang and many are decided informal. that should be self-evident, but keep it in mind! mike

Mike wrote: "Jeff makes a good point: read what you like, because if you don't like it, reading in a foreign language becomes a matter of sheer torture. but read a lot. any individual manga has limited vocabula..."

English this time.

True, there is a lot of slang in most manga, along with a lot of things that you don't generally learn in lessons or classes. However, when I went to Japan, I noticed that a lot of people were using more of those words than those that I learned in classes. So I guess that things like that are written in a more colloquial style.

Of course I was in the Osaka area, so that could have changed things, too.

Bah, I've taken a year of Japanese and can only partially read what all of you guys are saying.

Luckily since I took a year's worth of Kanji as well as the usual Japanese class I can actually read a good amount of kanji... shockingly.

But I'm jealous of you that say you can read novels.

I have begun to read Silence too, Tuyoshi. Of course in Japanese.:P I am not a christian but it is quite interesiting. His Japanese is so nice and a bit hard for me. The narrator isn't a Japanese, which is also interesting!