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Suggestions for Self-Study After Completing JPN 113
Keep a record
Keep a notebook in which you write down interesting words and kanji and ways of saying things in Japanese. Don't try to learn all the words or kanji you encounter. Instead, read and listen for comprehension. If the words are important enough, you will keep encountering them and fully absorb them in the process. With kanji -- as you know all too well -- you do have make a special effort. But, use your notebook to write down the interesting stuff. You'll enjoy looking back on what you found the previous week and the previous month.
Dictionaries
Online dictionary
A standard, easy-to-use and very good online dictionary available at the Monash University Japanese site. There are many other good ones.
Pop-up dictionaries
Once installed in your browser, these dictionaries allow you to look up words merely by moving your cursor over them. Two good ones are:
- Rikaichan (a plugin for the Firefox browser)
- Popjisyo (gives definitions in English, Chinese, or Korean)
Do you know of any others? How do they compare?
Casual, Rapid Reading
Japanese folktales
The Digital E-hon site has a great number of Japanese folktales you should be familiar with. The stories come with English translations (which you will not really need) and audio re-tellings. Try these steps to maximize your learning: First, just listen to the audio retelling until you have a good sense of the story. Then, read through the text looking up unknown words with one of the pop-up dictionaries recommended above. Only after completing these two steps should you look at the translation to confirm your comprehension. As a next step, try to write a short summary in Japanese of the main events in the tale and then write (also in Japanese, if you can) what you think is the message of the tale. Recommended stories:
- 浦島太郎
- かぐや姫
- 花咲かじいさん
- 鶴の恩返し
- 桃太郎
Mangarama
This internet site offers 4-cell manga as video and includes audio recordings of the manga characters speaking their lines. These short, funny exchanges are perfect for listening practice -- and for kanji practice, too. Just listen to the audio without looking at the manga and try to write down what you hear. Write in hiragana and then go back and fill in the kanji. Listen as many times as you need to write the complete conversation before looking at the manga and seeing how it is written there. English translation below the video allow you to check your comprehension after you have finished this process. Practice with one or two manga a day and soon your listening skills and kanji recall will astonish you.
More Careful, Deliberate Reading
芥川龍之介「蜘蛛の糸」
Try reading a very short Akutagawa story in its original form. The text of this and many other Akutagawa writings is available for download from the 青空文庫, where you can find digital versions of many works of Japanese literature whose copyright has expired.
Use one of the pop-up dictionaries mentioned above to read through the story to get a quick sense of it. The, go through it again, paragraph by paragraph, translating it into English. Once you are sure you have the translation just as good as you can possibly make it -- accurate and not leaving out anything in the original Japanese -- check your work again a good translation. We recommend the translation of Jay Rubin in the recently published Rashomon and 17 Other Stories (Penguin, 2006), which you can find in any good library or order online from amazon.com. Continue on with your translation paragraph by paragraph until you finish the story.
芥川龍之介「杜子春」
After you have completed the very short 蜘蛛の糸, you are ready for the much more ambitious challenge of Akutagawa's 杜子春 in the original. Get the text from 青空文庫.
This story is a bit long to try to translate, but you should read it carefully. As you work on the story, listen to the audio recording available at http://hayamimi.net/~hayamimi/roudoku/english/edlb/tosisyun_d.html. See how much of the language you understand as you listen.
Newspapers
Newspapers are the last thing you learn to read well in Japanese -- at least, this is the experience of most people. One way to get started with newspapers is to read a regular column in one of the several children's newspaper in Japan. We recommend the science column for kids in the こども朝日, published by the 朝日新聞 national daily. Click on the 理科 link on the main page and read the current articles or click on バックナンバー to get previous articles. These articles have very good illustrations, so you should always be able to figure out what is being said.
Grammar Review and Discovery
- Wayne Lammers, Japanese the Manga Way
This book uses cells from manga to illustrate points about Japanese grammar and usage. It is especially good with speech styles and levels. You can get it at a good discount from amazon,com, if not from your local bookstore. - Wikipedia
Wikipedia has extensive information about grammar and other aspects of Japanese.
Kanji Study
- Kanji Clinic
This site houses an regular, ongoing column from the Japan Times newspaper with excellent information about kanji and how to learn them. - Kanji Drills
Various kanji practice tools, including flashcards.
