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From: breuel@h-sc1.UUCP (thomas breuel)
Newsgroups: net.nlang
Subject: Re: Request for Beginning Japanese Text ('Do you know...')
Message-ID: <839@h-sc1.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 16-Dec-85 00:02:39 EST
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Posted: Mon Dec 16 00:02:39 1985
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Organization: Harvard Univ. Science Center
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[bibliography at the end]

> Best advice is quit while your ahead! I took the last 2 1/2 years 
> [of Japanese] 
> here. The work is equal to any of my senior level computer science 
> classes ( Compilers, Operating Systems ....). [...]

No, that is not good advice. Learning any foreign language is a
rewarding experience, and it is likely to give you a new perspective on
your own language and culture.

I also disagree that Japanese is in any sense more 'difficult' than,
say, French or German. Certainly, you can learn how to 'get by' in
Germanic or Romanic languages much more easily than in Japanese. This
is (presumably) because you can reason about 'sound shifts' and
'grammatical similarities'.

To learn to express yourself fluently in a foreign language and to use
it correctly in different social contexts is an entirely different
matter. This takes years of study, instruction by native speakers, and
familiarity with the foreign culture and society, regardless of what
language your native language is and what language you are studying. If
the previous poster were studying German instead of Japanese, the same
comments would apply. After four years, I would say to him: you have
got a good start, don't give up now, you may soon be able to appreciate
some of the classical German literature.  And even after many more
years, he could probably still be spotted easily as a foreigner in even
the simplest dialogue, and he would probably still not be able to
understand the meaning and relevance of, for example, a German fairy 
tale fully.

The grammar of colloquial Japanese is certainly not responsible for its
reputation as a 'difficult' language. It is, in fact, simpler than the
grammar of most European languages. Many classes of words don't change
at all, and those that do, change in a very regular manner.  Compare this
to the grammar of, say, German. You must match gender, case, and
number in well formed sentences. The German verb has a large number of
forms, representing different persons, modi, and times. Often, the
pronounciation of a word changes significantly when the word is used in
a different grammatical context. There are different levels of
formality in German, but they are distinguished mostly by the choice of
vocabulary and alternative grammatical constructions, not by fixed,
regular verb derivatives as in the case of Japanese. And there are lots
of other examples why the German language can be a nightmare for
foreigners. Nevertheless, German also has many features that make up
for this grammatical complexity, and, altogether, German is probably not
any more difficult to learn than any other foreign language.

Likewise, there are, of course, features of the Japanese language with
which foreigners have considerable problems. Most of these problems
probably relate to the phonetic structure of the language. The number
of syllables used in spoken Japanese is very small. This has
(presumably) led to the introduction of a large number of multisyllabic
words and, on the other hand, to the presence of a large number of
homophones.  Perhaps to make up for the length of the words, Japanese
is spoken very rapidly, and, in addition, a number of euphonic
changes are made. For the beginner, spoken Japanese is therefore
difficult to follow and difficult to pronounce at the 'correct' speed.

The frequent complaint that the use of Chinese characters in the
Japanese written language makes it 'impossible' to learn is, on the
other hand, not correct in my opinion. Chinese characters (Kanji) are
composed from a relatively small number of constituents (radicals) with
semantic and phonetic content. From the radicals present in a Chinese
character, one can often not only derive its meaning, but also its
pronounciation.  Admittedly, the formation of Chinese characters is
irregular, but probably not more so than the spelling and composition
from roots of English words.

Altogether, I would say: YES, go ahead an learn Japanese. If you can,
enroll in a good language course taught by native speakers. If you
can't, then try to learn the pronounciation from tapes and records.
Get some good books on grammar and writing (there are some listed at
the end of this article). Make notes in Japanese, try to read Japanese
newspapers, &c. When you talk to people in English, think about how you
would have expressed yourself in Japanese.

But be warned. Unless you will live in Japan for several years, you
will probably not master the language. This is true for any language
and should not discourage you, just be aware of it.

Let me just say a few words about my personal experience with learning
foreign languages. My native language is German. Like any German
high-school student, I began studying English in 5th grade. Later I
took several years of Latin, French, and Russian. Currently, I am
taking Japanese (incidentally, we are using Beginning Japanese by
Jorden). I am now a fluent speaker of English. I began to acquire
fluency only when I began using the language outside the classroom.
Fortunatly, there are many opportunities to read English documents and
to listen to English broadcasts in Germany. But most important for my
ability to speak and write English were several visits to America, and
my time as an undergraduate at Harvard.  I found it to be a very
rewarding experience to learn a foreign language.  It has not only
allowed me to communicate with more people, to read technical documents
and fiction in the original, but also to begin to understand the
cultural and social structures in a foreign country.

						Thomas.

Well, this is also my first year of Japanese. The following is a list
of books that I found interesting and/or useful.  As a beginner, I
cannot tell you much about the quality and style of the language used
in the textbooks (our teacher says that even Jorden makes occasional
lapses in style).

Dictionaries:  
Takahashi: Romanized English-Japanese, Japanese-English Dictionary.
	Very useful dictionaries. Entries are entirely in Romanized
	form, but Japanese Kana and Kanji spellings are listed.
Kawamoto: English-Japanese, Japanese-English Dictionary.
	More comprehensive than Takahashi, but less convenient to use
	for the foreigner.  
Schwarz, Ezawa: Everyday Japanese.
	Not really a dictionary. It orders Japanese words by social
	context and also gives some cultural background.

Kanji dictionaries:  
Nelson.
	This is the standard Kanji dictionary.  
Rose-Innes: Beginners' Dictionary of Chinese-Japanese Characters. (Dover)
	This is a classic, but slightly out of date. I like it, though,
	and it is very cheap.  If you are lucky, you can get the old
	edition which contains the written forms of the characters.
Pye: The Study of Kanji. (Hokuseido)
	A very helpful book. It points out phonetic relationships
	between Kanji.  
Wieger: Chinese Characters. (Dover)
	A classic, but applicable only to a limited extent to the
	modern forms of the Japanese Kanji. This book deals mostly with
	semantic relationships.  
Karlgren: Analytic Dictionary of Chinese and Sino Japanese.
	Good if you know Chinese or are interested in the
	phonetic relationships between Kanji and Chinese, but otherwise
	not very useful.

Courses and Readers:  
Jorden: Beginning Japanese.  Jorden: Reading Japanese.
	Good and intensive course of colloquial Japanese.
	Unfortunately, the textbook uses Romanization, and the books
	are very verbose.  
Ogawa: New Intensive Japanese.
	I like this reader. Unfortunately, there seem to be no
	cassettes to go with it.  
Ono: Japanese Grammar.
	A useful book, but more advanced than the others.  
Lewin, Yokota, Fujiwara: Einfuehrung in die Japanische Sprache.
	Good introduction, mostly to the standard written language.
	You have to know German, though :-).