Comments on: My textbook introduction and first dialogue http://www.guidetojapanese.org/blog/2008/07/23/my-textbook-introduction-and-first-dialogue/ Japanese, Chinese, and a dash of Korean Tue, 07 Feb 2012 06:42:59 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Blondie http://www.guidetojapanese.org/blog/2008/07/23/my-textbook-introduction-and-first-dialogue/comment-page-1/#comment-10585 Blondie Sun, 10 Jul 2011 01:33:10 +0000 http://www.guidetojapanese.org/blog/?p=277#comment-10585 This makes eevrtynhig so completely painless. This makes eevrtynhig so completely painless.

]]> By: Jonadab the Unsightly One http://www.guidetojapanese.org/blog/2008/07/23/my-textbook-introduction-and-first-dialogue/comment-page-1/#comment-1328 Jonadab the Unsightly One Sun, 16 Nov 2008 03:52:46 +0000 http://www.guidetojapanese.org/blog/?p=277#comment-1328 I agree about the kana. The student is just going to have to learn those, period, and the sooner the better. As for kanji, I think the readings should be given (in kana) for every kanji used, for the first chapters at least, and in later chapters it's probably still a good idea to give the readings for kanji that have only recently been introduced. If the student has to look up every other character in a dictionary just to be able to pronounce it, the lessons will take aeons to read through, and it's boring, and the point will be missed. Speaking of dictionaries: some good information on how to use them to look up kanji would be really nice, if that's even realistically possible for a beginner in the language. Personally I find that prospect somewhat daunting; even if I knew all three hundred and however many dictionary radicals, *and* what order they come in (holy cow, do Japanese kids have to learn that just to look up words they don't know?), I find that the relationship between a given kanji and its component radicals is not always entirely obvious to a non-Asian. Take 会 for instance: according to the Show Elements feature of WWWJDICT, it's made out of 二, 厶, and something that looks like an extra-large caret and apparently doesn't have a unicode representation, because it's an image. I can see 厶 in there now that it's pointed out, but I am not sure I would have been able to figure it out without knowing to separate it from the horizontal line, and I definitely don't see how I could have seen 二 in there without knowing... And don't even get me started on stroke count. Is 厶 two strokes or three? Or maybe just one? Who can tell, especially if you happen to see it in a sans-serif font (or, with han unification in unicode, a font that happens to draw it in the Chinese or Taiwanese fashion, which can be a bit different in some cases...) Knowing based on how you write it may be all well and good for kanji you've already learned, but for new ones that doesn't fly. All of that to say, any helpful information you can include on this subject would be very useful for beginning students. qklilx: The third person is obligatory only in extremely formal contexts, mostly involving the esoterica of upper-eschelon academia (e.g., dissertations, research papers), but it's just plain silly to expect that level of formality in a textbook for an introductory course, intended to be read by hoi polloi. That would be as awkward and inappropriate as speaking Japanese using only the honorific forms all the time. I agree about the kana. The student is just going to have to learn those, period, and the sooner the better. As for kanji, I think the readings should be given (in kana) for every kanji used, for the first chapters at least, and in later chapters it’s probably still a good idea to give the readings for kanji that have only recently been introduced. If the student has to look up every other character in a dictionary just to be able to pronounce it, the lessons will take aeons to read through, and it’s boring, and the point will be missed.

Speaking of dictionaries: some good information on how to use them to look up kanji would be really nice, if that’s even realistically possible for a beginner in the language. Personally I find that prospect somewhat daunting; even if I knew all three hundred and however many dictionary radicals, *and* what order they come in (holy cow, do Japanese kids have to learn that just to look up words they don’t know?), I find that the relationship between a given kanji and its component radicals is not always entirely obvious to a non-Asian. Take 会 for instance: according to the Show Elements feature of WWWJDICT, it’s made out of 二, 厶, and something that looks like an extra-large caret and apparently doesn’t have a unicode representation, because it’s an image. I can see 厶 in there now that it’s pointed out, but I am not sure I would have been able to figure it out without knowing to separate it from the horizontal line, and I definitely don’t see how I could have seen 二 in there without knowing…

And don’t even get me started on stroke count. Is 厶 two strokes or three? Or maybe just one? Who can tell, especially if you happen to see it in a sans-serif font (or, with han unification in unicode, a font that happens to draw it in the Chinese or Taiwanese fashion, which can be a bit different in some cases…) Knowing based on how you write it may be all well and good for kanji you’ve already learned, but for new ones that doesn’t fly. All of that to say, any helpful information you can include on this subject would be very useful for beginning students.

qklilx: The third person is obligatory only in extremely formal contexts, mostly involving the esoterica of upper-eschelon academia (e.g., dissertations, research papers), but it’s just plain silly to expect that level of formality in a textbook for an introductory course, intended to be read by hoi polloi. That would be as awkward and inappropriate as speaking Japanese using only the honorific forms all the time.

]]> By: taekk http://www.guidetojapanese.org/blog/2008/07/23/my-textbook-introduction-and-first-dialogue/comment-page-1/#comment-1327 taekk Mon, 28 Jul 2008 19:04:58 +0000 http://www.guidetojapanese.org/blog/?p=277#comment-1327 Kind of. Depends on how you say it but the Smith character I had in mind here is female so no problem. Kind of. Depends on how you say it but the Smith character I had in mind here is female so no problem.

]]> By: Alex http://www.guidetojapanese.org/blog/2008/07/23/my-textbook-introduction-and-first-dialogue/comment-page-1/#comment-1326 Alex Mon, 28 Jul 2008 18:57:46 +0000 http://www.guidetojapanese.org/blog/?p=277#comment-1326 「私は、まだ難しいよ」 This sounds feminine (but I could be wrong). 「私は、まだ難しいよ」
This sounds feminine (but I could be wrong).

]]> By: nacest http://www.guidetojapanese.org/blog/2008/07/23/my-textbook-introduction-and-first-dialogue/comment-page-1/#comment-1325 nacest Fri, 25 Jul 2008 07:49:05 +0000 http://www.guidetojapanese.org/blog/?p=277#comment-1325 John, I might be wrong, but you may have misunderstood part of the dialogue (sorry if this is not the case). The 「特別な」 carries a necessary meaning of "homework prepared appositely for Kim". Removing it cancels this meaning, and most of the humor of the dialogue. Furthermore, 「時別な」 is an adjective, and adjectives are free to be applied to any noun. The fact that this has rarely be done on a particular noun before doesn't make it wrong or unnatural. John,
I might be wrong, but you may have misunderstood part of the dialogue (sorry if this is not the case). The 「特別な」 carries a necessary meaning of “homework prepared appositely for Kim”. Removing it cancels this meaning, and most of the humor of the dialogue.
Furthermore, 「時別な」 is an adjective, and adjectives are free to be applied to any noun. The fact that this has rarely be done on a particular noun before doesn’t make it wrong or unnatural.

]]> By: taekk http://www.guidetojapanese.org/blog/2008/07/23/my-textbook-introduction-and-first-dialogue/comment-page-1/#comment-1324 taekk Fri, 25 Jul 2008 05:25:44 +0000 http://www.guidetojapanese.org/blog/?p=277#comment-1324 @John I was trying to make the dialogue interesting and was not particularly trying to fit in a certain type of grammar. I admit the last few lines have a bit of awkwardness which I might have to rethink. Like I mentioned in the blog, I had to cut out a lot of what I really wanted to maintain simplicity. For me, this page is already #3 with 1,370 instances but there's plenty of other perfectly reasonable usages such as: 夏休みに特別な宿題がでたりするのです。 教室の子どもたちには，特別な宿題を用意しました。 For comparison, "special homework" returns only 6,070 results. Having said that, nothing in the dialogue is set in stone and I will probably change some things depending on how the rest of the lesson is laid out. @John

I was trying to make the dialogue interesting and was not particularly trying to fit in a certain type of grammar. I admit the last few lines have a bit of awkwardness which I might have to rethink. Like I mentioned in the blog, I had to cut out a lot of what I really wanted to maintain simplicity.

For me, this page is already #3 with 1,370 instances but there’s plenty of other perfectly reasonable usages such as:

夏休みに特別な宿題がでたりするのです。
教室の子どもたちには，特別な宿題を用意しました。

For comparison, “special homework” returns only 6,070 results.

Having said that, nothing in the dialogue is set in stone and I will probably change some things depending on how the rest of the lesson is laid out.

]]> By: Homebound http://www.guidetojapanese.org/blog/2008/07/23/my-textbook-introduction-and-first-dialogue/comment-page-1/#comment-1323 Homebound Fri, 25 Jul 2008 01:23:26 +0000 http://www.guidetojapanese.org/blog/?p=277#comment-1323 With all due respect to qklilx, please ignore everything they said about using 3rd person in your textbook. Using 3rd person throughout the book is almost certain to disengage readers with your material. Some research suggests (...I have the link somewhere...) that using first person and 'you' in informative prose (ie textbooks) engaged readers more effectively by subconsciously tricking the brain into thinking it was in a conversation. Therefore, they pay more attention and remember more. Thirds person would be fine, of course, if you were writing a technical manual; eg A Dictionary of Grammar, but for something designed to actually teach people: your focus should be on their understanding. The best way, in my opinion based on my reading, is to use conversational-style prose. With all due respect to qklilx, please ignore everything they said about using 3rd person in your textbook.

Using 3rd person throughout the book is almost certain to disengage readers with your material. Some research suggests (…I have the link somewhere…) that using first person and ‘you’ in informative prose (ie textbooks) engaged readers more effectively by subconsciously tricking the brain into thinking it was in a conversation. Therefore, they pay more attention and remember more.

Thirds person would be fine, of course, if you were writing a technical manual; eg A Dictionary of Grammar, but for something designed to actually teach people: your focus should be on their understanding. The best way, in my opinion based on my reading, is to use conversational-style prose.

]]> By: qklilx http://www.guidetojapanese.org/blog/2008/07/23/my-textbook-introduction-and-first-dialogue/comment-page-1/#comment-1322 qklilx Fri, 25 Jul 2008 01:05:58 +0000 http://www.guidetojapanese.org/blog/?p=277#comment-1322 I was never told to never write in the 1st person. I was told that for essays and any informative texts (among other things that I don't feel like looking up) that writing in the 1st person is looked down upon by editors and certain audiences, writers being one of them. By 3rd person I mean never mention yourself or the author of the book. Anyway, after rereading your introduction I realized that I misread your blog entry to have more than one instance of 1st person, of which it really only has one. "It is my opinion..." In addition, this is your introduction, so perhaps I'm talking without thinking. So I'll just say to carry on and I'll be quiet about this. Strike two for me. :D I was never told to never write in the 1st person. I was told that for essays and any informative texts (among other things that I don’t feel like looking up) that writing in the 1st person is looked down upon by editors and certain audiences, writers being one of them. By 3rd person I mean never mention yourself or the author of the book. Anyway, after rereading your introduction I realized that I misread your blog entry to have more than one instance of 1st person, of which it really only has one.

“It is my opinion…”

In addition, this is your introduction, so perhaps I’m talking without thinking. So I’ll just say to carry on and I’ll be quiet about this. Strike two for me. :D

]]> By: John http://www.guidetojapanese.org/blog/2008/07/23/my-textbook-introduction-and-first-dialogue/comment-page-1/#comment-1321 John Fri, 25 Jul 2008 00:19:57 +0000 http://www.guidetojapanese.org/blog/?p=277#comment-1321 Question: Why 特別な宿題 instead of just 宿題? Is it just to work in a な-adjective? Granted, my exposure to Japanese is much more limited than yours, but I've never heard the phrase 特別な宿題 uttered, and it sure seems like at the entrance level you should be sticking to high-frequency words and phrases. Your usage of the phrase is already #5 in Google's mere 137 instances of it. (What is 特別な宿題, really??) I also think that trying to cram as much grammar into one dialogue as possible is the primary reason that there are so many weird or unnatural textbook dialogues out there. Don't fall for it! な-adjectives can wait... Question:

Why 特別な宿題 instead of just 宿題? Is it just to work in a な-adjective? Granted, my exposure to Japanese is much more limited than yours, but I’ve never heard the phrase 特別な宿題 uttered, and it sure seems like at the entrance level you should be sticking to high-frequency words and phrases. Your usage of the phrase is already #5 in Google’s mere 137 instances of it. (What is 特別な宿題, really??)

I also think that trying to cram as much grammar into one dialogue as possible is the primary reason that there are so many weird or unnatural textbook dialogues out there. Don’t fall for it! な-adjectives can wait…

]]> By: taekk http://www.guidetojapanese.org/blog/2008/07/23/my-textbook-introduction-and-first-dialogue/comment-page-1/#comment-1320 taekk Thu, 24 Jul 2008 22:54:36 +0000 http://www.guidetojapanese.org/blog/?p=277#comment-1320 I don't know about songs or poems but I definitely plan to have some form of written works. I don’t know about songs or poems but I definitely plan to have some form of written works.

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