• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Learning Japanese |OT| ..honor and shame are huge parts of it. Let's!

I

I'm an expert

Formerly worldrevolution. The only reason I am nice to anyone else is to avoid being banned.
As someone who has a few.. more advanced.. certifications/licenses than the JLPT, I can confidently say there are times where the breadth of the exam contents are so large that you simply get lucky with the current version's selection of questions. There are certain tests where there's literally 50 hours worth of study on one topic and not a single question on the topic can appear. Of course, most people still put in the 50 hours because you can't know.

There's no reason to doubt your performance or thank luck, you should feel confident if you put the time in. It's important to realize that this test doesn't really affirm language skill, it affirms effort. No one passes JLPT1 and gets offered a 6 figure completely in Japanese job (you know what I mean). JLPT1 is basically just the pass that finally gets you in the door of beginning your actual journey with Japanese. It starts, not ends, from here.
 
A

Alanae

Member
you can avoid slowly losing your japanese ability due to lack of use if you just keep reading things. its not like you need to be in japan to read japanese, either import books or read things on kindle or online in places like www.aozora.gr.jp . if reading in some form is your hobby you should be able to replace what you read normally with japanese equivalents to some degree (eg. replacing your trips to ign/polygon/etc with sites like http://gamestalk.net/ and http://inside-games.jp/ ).
Having to constantly keep up doing reviews like that seems like a pain when you could be reading for enjoyment instead.

As for being unable to read a newspaper, a good way to overcome that would be by actually just picking up (or googling one) a newspaper and having a go at it regularly while making sure you look up words you don't know. By doing this enough you will remember them and your newspaper reading experience will improve a lot.

with the exception of writing them (you actually need to write in order to improve this), reading, and the memorization of the words you encounter while reading will naturally also lead to the learning of the kanji the word consists out of. through pattern recognition and seeing the same kanji in different words, sometimes with it having different readings, you'll come to remember which readings go with a particular kanji and get a sense of which reading its likely to be when you encounter the kanji in a word you don't know yet (making it easier to memorize that word) without having to put in much external effort.

Reading is pretty great.
 
O

Oare

Member
I'm an expert said:
JLPT1 is basically just the pass that finally gets you in the door of beginning your actual journey with Japanese. It starts, not ends, from here.
Click to expand...

Amen to that.
Anyone who passes JLPT 1 has to know they're still basically at best early middle school level in terms of general ability to understand and express themselves.
And even reaching that point takes a huge amount of dedication.

Harsh? maybe. Hey, sorry for your efforts. But still, it's true.

Sure, in some domains, they'll be way above that due to the fact plenty of "difficult" words are simply words that cover concepts requiring a certain amount of background and maturity to grasp - which is largely a process that's digested in the learner's native tongue.
(And luckily, those words are often +/- direct kanji translations of greek/latin roots, or retain the same concept, so if you speak English/French/Italian/Spanish, it's going to be decently easy).

But still. Once everything is said and done, they're still below middle school level.

Take basically any famous book.
Not press articles. Those are easy and won't allow you to gauge accurately where you really stand.

Take a famous book, and read the first 10 pages. See how many times you stumble before you can be 100% sure you understood every single word you read.
Talk to older drunk people. See how you fare. Talk to those same people with 14 years old around you, and see how your understanding of the conversation compares to theirs.
It's going to be brutal.
 
S

Skinpop

Member
kindle is a great tool for reading and learning. every time I tap a word in a text I'm reading the dictionary pops up and the word gets added to the vocabulary builder which you then can export as an anki deck using Kindle Mate. It streamlines the process of looking up words and expanding your vocabulary without any of the annoyance and frustration of having to search in dictionaries and write down stuff while reading. After each reading session I simply add the new vocabulary to my deck and then each night spend 20 minutes or so to do my reviews. It's hard to think of a more efficient and fun way to build vocabulary.
Only issue is that most japanese content on amazon is locked to japanese accounts.

Not sure how this works with manga since I don't read them.
 
Porcile

Porcile

Member
Skinpop said:
It streamlines the process of looking up words and expanding your vocabulary without any of the annoyance and frustration of having to look up words and write down stuff while reading.
Click to expand...

This is the best way to learn to remember words though! If i can't remember a reading for a kanji, I write that shit in the IME pad manually and look it up on jisho or wherever. Takes time but in the end saves time 'cause you don't have to go through all the anki stuff. Helps with the whiteboard method that I learned stroke order though so its a quick process. Being able to visualise kanji in your head really helps you remember things.
 
B

Beckx

Member
Is it still the case with the Japanese kindle store that you can only buy a set number of books outside the country before having to sync it inside in the country?

I've been using ebooksjapan instead since there are no restrictions like that.
 
S

Skinpop

Member
Porcile said:
This is the best way to learn to remember words though! If i can't remember a reading for a kanji, I write that shit in the IME pad manually and look it up on jisho or wherever. Takes time but in the end saves time 'cause you don't have to go through all the anki stuff. Helps with the whiteboard method that I learned stroke order though so its a quick process. Being able to visualise kanji in your head really helps you remember things.
Click to expand...
I think you misunderstand me. You can still write down kanjis when reviews ;).
there is no way the traditional way is faster in any way. getting it into anki is like 1 minute of work for all your new vocabulary.

Beckx said:
Is it still the case with the Japanese kindle store that you can only buy a set number of books outside the country before having to sync it inside in the country?

I've been using ebooksjapan instead since there are no restrictions like that.
Click to expand...
not sure. I use a legit japanese account. there's tons of free stuff on the web though.

http://www.aozora.gr.jp/ is a nice place for finding reading material.
 
X

xk0sm0sx

Member
I'm currently interviewing with Japanese companies with the objective of getting to go to Japan to work, as a programmer!
Applying and interviewing for the jobs through Skype from overseas, I have no work visa yet, no JLPT cert, no long term stays in Japan as a Ryuugakusei.

I'm fairly confident in my Japanese speaking, having Japanese friends helps and 10 years of self studying by watching shows, reading news everyday, I managed to carry myself through 4 Japanese Skype interviews.
But I am really picky about which company I apply to.
I don't speak fluent Japanese, and I use mostly normal talk with some keigo when I remember it. These are stuff I picked up from daily internet exposure.

I will offer some advice for people looking to do that once I land that job, especially for people who are programmers, I have found really good resources since the past one month. As long as you are comfortable with your Japanese, you can do it.
 
A

AnotherDayAnotherDollar

Banned
Any westerner who already knew mandarin had a harder or easier time learning japanese? I am an intermediate mandarin learner who is going back to it and studying the traditional characters too. I took a quick glance for japanese and kanji are the same characters as mandarin (based on what I have seen so far). However, my brain keeps telling me a difference sound.

Quick example are the numbers 1-10, I keep thinking, yi1, er4, san3, etc instead of ichi, ni, san. Is that normal and how long does it take to wire your brain to connect the sound to the correct language?
 
I

I'm an expert

Formerly worldrevolution. The only reason I am nice to anyone else is to avoid being banned.
xk0sm0sx said:
I'm currently interviewing with Japanese companies with the objective of getting to go to Japan to work, as a programmer!
Applying and interviewing for the jobs through Skype from overseas, I have no work visa yet, no JLPT cert, no long term stays in Japan as a Ryuugakusei.

I'm fairly confident in my Japanese speaking, having Japanese friends helps and 10 years of self studying by watching shows, reading news everyday, I managed to carry myself through 4 Japanese Skype interviews.
But I am really picky about which company I apply to.
I don't speak fluent Japanese, and I use mostly normal talk with some keigo when I remember it. These are stuff I picked up from daily internet exposure.

I will offer some advice for people looking to do that once I land that job, especially for people who are programmers, I have found really good resources since the past one month. As long as you are comfortable with your Japanese, you can do it.
Click to expand...

I've seen a weird uptick in posts like these all over the internet. People start with like "I'm really good at Japanese" and then later add something like "But I'm not fluent, can only talk about certain topics, can't use keigo, can't read/write, etc." It's like the self-assessed meme strangely created itself in the last 2-3 years. It's a pretty strange trend to watch grow on the internet. Not a knock at you, I think it's great more people are at least confident enough to throw themselves into the arena.

Anyway, the computer science field is probably the second most popular way foreigners come to work in Japan after English teaching. Most entry to mid level places actually don't require much Japanese, if any, from my experience with the people I met. Rakuten is like the Interac of programming jobs lol. I'm sure from mid to upper, or project management, is where they start looking for it as more of an asset than convenience.

I'm not directly in the industry but two sites I'd recommend to people to get a feel of penetrating it are disruptingjapan.com and doorkeeperhq.com. Full disclosure, these are run by old, personal friends but I think their reputation in the community after this long speaks for itself.
 
K

Kilrogg

paid requisite penance
I'm an expert said:
I've seen a weird uptick in posts like these all over the internet. People start with like "I'm really good at Japanese" and then later add something like "But I'm not fluent, can only talk about certain topics, can't use keigo, can't read/write, etc." It's like the self-assessed meme strangely created itself in the last 2-3 years. It's a pretty strange trend to watch grow on the internet. Not a knock at you, I think it's great more people are at least confident enough to throw themselves into the arena.
Click to expand...

People tend to have very different definitions for the words "fluent" and "bilingual". To some, "fluent" means "I can handle pretty much any topic". To others, it simply means "I get by. I know words and my grammar isn't atrocious."
To some, "bilingual" means, again, "I can handle pretty much any topic". To others, it means "I speak like a native speaker".

Me personally, I tend to be on the more demanding end of the spectrum when it comes to fluency and bilingualism... Which is why I don't think of myself as bilingual in English or fluent in Japanese. Others would call me that, but that's because we have different frames of reference, because they don't know those languages as well as I do (if at all), and/or because my country sucks at foreign languages. So people like me sound like supermen in my home country when, really, there's nothing that special about my abilities. If anything, I feel like I should be much more proficient than I am given my experience.

That said, I haven't noticed this uptick you speak of. It's always been like that to me.
 
I

I'm an expert

Formerly worldrevolution. The only reason I am nice to anyone else is to avoid being banned.
It's probably because I'm old and slower to getting to internet trends. I only started reading reddit like a year ago lol. I wasn't directly targeting the use of the word fluent though. I think we've had that convo plenty of times here.
 
X

xk0sm0sx

Member
I'm an expert said:
I've seen a weird uptick in posts like these all over the internet. People start with like "I'm really good at Japanese" and then later add something like "But I'm not fluent, can only talk about certain topics, can't use keigo, can't read/write, etc." It's like the self-assessed meme strangely created itself in the last 2-3 years. It's a pretty strange trend to watch grow on the internet. Not a knock at you, I think it's great more people are at least confident enough to throw themselves into the arena.

Anyway, the computer science field is probably the second most popular way foreigners come to work in Japan after English teaching. Most entry to mid level places actually don't require much Japanese, if any, from my experience with the people I met. Rakuten is like the Interac of programming jobs lol. I'm sure from mid to upper, or project management, is where they start looking for it as more of an asset than convenience.

I'm not directly in the industry but two sites I'd recommend to people to get a feel of penetrating it are disruptingjapan.com and doorkeeperhq.com. Full disclosure, these are run by old, personal friends but I think their reputation in the community after this long speaks for itself.
Click to expand...

Haha by fluent I mean I'm not qualified for talking with japanese business clients, but I can hold my own in a normal conversation, which I'm pretty proud of :p, it's been a long effort getting to this stage.
I guess I can see what you are talking about, that's a pretty common pattern haha! Partly because people want to encourage others, that you do not need to speak completely like a Japanese to achieve things.

Yeah computer science is convenient, and everyone knows engineers are disadvantaged if they don't speak english (all documentations are in english), so companies tend to be more open about english speaking. But definitely a minimum level of Japanese to read documentations and conversation with others are required.

I have saw the two websites you listed! Yeah those are pretty good and well known, though what I'm using now is really good for programmers looking to get a job:
It's called Paiza.

Now I know it's not related to this thread's premise, and I plan to do a full write up once I got a job, but a short summary about Paiza:

It's a coding challenge website with questions, in Japanese only, sorted by skill levels, from D to S. You can use most major languages with the website's built-in compiler. If you complete the questions within the time limit, and it produces the correct results, you get ranked up to the next rank.
Now, the reason why you want to rise up in rank is because Paiza is also a job-search website. Employers can specify the minimum rank required for a job posting. That means you are essentially unlocking jobs as you go up in rank. When you apply to a job through Paiza, employers already know you have the coding capability. Interviews are extremely easy to come by through Paiza, most of the time you are guaranteed to get an interview by the next week.
Paiza turned out to be way more useful than I expected, I wouldn't have done 5 interviews in two weeks had it not been for this.
 
I

I'm an expert

Formerly worldrevolution. The only reason I am nice to anyone else is to avoid being banned.
yeah, I mean, if you want to discuss the japanese language aspect of it that's cool. otherwise it might get too off topic. there's a living in japan thread that's probably a better fit. though to be fair in the op i did plan to have a semi-relevant section. so go for it either way.
 
X

xk0sm0sx

Member
I'm an expert said:
yeah, I mean, if you want to discuss the japanese language aspect of it that's cool. otherwise it might get too off topic. there's a living in japan thread that's probably a better fit. though to be fair in the op i did plan to have a semi-relevant section. so go for it either way.
Click to expand...

Ah thanks for the suggestion, that would probably be more suitable for the write-up!
 
D

Deleted member 17706

Unconfirmed Member
Beckx said:
Is it still the case with the Japanese kindle store that you can only buy a set number of books outside the country before having to sync it inside in the country?

I've been using ebooksjapan instead since there are no restrictions like that.
Click to expand...

Can't say I have ever had that issue. I have encountered books that are only purchasable from a Japanese IP address, though.

On another note, seeing the JLPT talk made me realize it's already been a year since I took the N1... Feels like just a couple of weeks ago or something. Don't like how quickly the passage of time starts to feel as you get older.
 
B

Beckx

Member
Zefah said:
Can't say I have ever had that issue. I have encountered books that are only purchasable from a Japanese IP address, though.

On another note, seeing the JLPT talk made me realize it's already been a year since I took the N1... Feels like just a couple of weeks ago or something. Don't like how quickly the passage of time starts to feel as you get older.
Click to expand...


Hmm. Here is the article that originally scared me off using the amazon.jp kindle store (see the update at the bottom). http://chic-pixel.com/2015/07/how-to-purchase-manga-from-the-japanese-kindle-store/ (you can find a lot of google results about how to access the store, but few about anything else - this article is the only one i found that addressed limitations)

I wonder if they changed it or the limits are really high.
 
D

Deleted member 17706

Unconfirmed Member
Beckx said:
Hmm. Here is the article that scared me off using the amazon.jp kindle store (see the update at the bottom). http://chic-pixel.com/2015/07/how-to-purchase-manga-from-the-japanese-kindle-store/

I wonder if they changed it or the limits are really high.
Click to expand...

I admit, I don't buy a ton of books. If there is a limit, I could see how someone could easily encounter it buying a manga series.

Personally, I don't like reading manga on Kindle, so I've never been in that situation.

I'll also usually visit Japan once every 3 ~ 6 months or so, so maybe just accessing my Amazon.co.jp using a Japanese IP periodically hasn't set off any flags for me?
 
B

Beckx

Member
i think i'd go blind trying to read manga on an actual kindle. even using my surface 3 i sometimes have to zoom in to read the kanji in a particularly cramped bubble or if there's a stylized font. :/
 
T

TheSporkWithin

Member
More than the size, the image quality of the manga on the Kindle store leaves a lot to be desired. Sideloading your own high resolution files might be fine, but the samples that I've downloaded have always been quite fuzzy, often to the point where kanji assigned as ruby (not furigana, but when there are kanji over another word) are illegible, even when zoomed in.
 
B

Beckx

Member
i've been pretty happy with the quality from ebooksjapan. maybe it's the same files but they are really crisp and zoom in well when necessary. Plus for regular magazines the files are huge but reading 報知高校野球 (my fav of the many high school baseball mags) is fantastic because the photos quality is great.

i wish Newtype did ebooks, even if they did like Hochi does with their magazines and released them for ebook a few weeks after print date. i miss when i lived near a Kinokuniya for easy magazine access.
 
L

leecming

Neo Member
I passed JLPT 1 8 years ago and haven't done much with the language till recently when I started reading Japanese bunkobon. I don't have trouble reading them but I've forgotten a lot of the grammar so I end up sussing them out through context. Is there a good way to get up to speed with grammar? I thought about just going through the JLPT grammar but am wondering if there's a more efficient way.

Also is there a good way to get Japanese ebooks from abroad?
 
B

Beckx

Member
i hate idioms. :/ or maybe that's the wrong word, but i feel like a dunce struggling with 時間の問題 when it's simply "a matter of time." i treat things too literally.

leecming said:
I passed JLPT 1 8 years ago and haven't done much with the language till recently when I started reading Japanese bunkobon. I don't have trouble reading them but I've forgotten a lot of the grammar so I end up sussing them out through context. Is there a good way to get up to speed with grammar? I thought about just going through the JLPT grammar but am wondering if there's a more efficient way.

Also is there a good way to get Japanese ebooks from abroad?
Click to expand...

see discussion above. you can configure an amazon account w/ a japanese address (get an address through tenso, etc.) and have access to kindle books, with the warning i mentioned above that there may be a cap. i use ebookjapan.jp and am happy with it, they have everything on amazon (at least that i've wanted to buy) plus they have magazines that amazon does not seem to have. the PC reader looks like it a win2000 program but the reading window is really nice.
 
D

Deleted member 17706

Unconfirmed Member
leecming said:
I passed JLPT 1 8 years ago and haven't done much with the language till recently when I started reading Japanese bunkobon. I don't have trouble reading them but I've forgotten a lot of the grammar so I end up sussing them out through context. Is there a good way to get up to speed with grammar? I thought about just going through the JLPT grammar but am wondering if there's a more efficient way.

Also is there a good way to get Japanese ebooks from abroad?
Click to expand...

If you've already passed JLPT 1 and are more or less at that level, I think you would be better served just reading books and looking up words/phrases you don't understand (in Japanese).
 
I

I'm an expert

Formerly worldrevolution. The only reason I am nice to anyone else is to avoid being banned.
I figured I'd revisit this topic of reading just to get out why I think I read this blurb so quickly. After running through it a few times I wanted to write a few comments within just to describe where I get the speed from I guess.

中国で高速鉄道車両の製造を独占する国有メーカー「中国中車」が、科学技術省の委託を受けて研究・開発に乗り出す。リニア車両を２０年までに開発、２１年にはリ ニアの交通システムを備えることを目指す。研究開発費は約３２・２億元（約４９０億円）。うち政府財政からは約４・３億元が支援されると報じられた 。
Click to expand...

中国で高速鉄道車両の製造を独占する国有メーカー
- up to this point I feel like this is all just insanely easy kanji/words and I fly through it.

「中国中車」が、
- this is a name title so while I read it, I don't exactly pay much attention, essentially as if it was something like "Acme"

科学技術省の委託を受けて研究・開発に乗り出す。
- again like JLPT 3-4 level kanji/words here

リニア車両を２０年までに開発、２１年にはリ ニアの交通システムを備えることを目指す。
- I'd assume katakana slows people down here. Daily practice would speed up reading, otherwise again words like kaihatsu or mezasu.. low level words.

研究開発費は約３２・２億元（約４９０億円）。うち政府財政からは約４・３億元が支援される
- this is probably the most difficult portion but as I know from the context I'm about see amounts, I just fly by them. Like if I see a number like 1 oku or 10 oku 32 oku I just know what it is instantly from experience so I don't really spend time "reading" the numbers here. Again, will come with extensive practice.

と報じられた 。
- once I see the と報 I already know what's coming so I've basically just stopped reading at this point. Again, decade plus of daily newspaper reading gets you to these type of shortcuts.

So I guess that's how I processed that blurb if anyone was interested. I agree that I shouldn't expect anything under 10 for someone who is basically just studying this stuff for the first time like the original poster this was targeted at lol.

I'm assuming he didn't do so well on the test if he even did take it haha.
 
U

urfe

Member
This may be a lack of experience, but I was taken back by 20年. No 平成, so 西暦? Newspapers wouldn't write out 2020年？Or is it a way of saying years without 間？ Context would say no, so it's 2020年? I don't read much outside of for work and video games/recently novels, so again, just lack of experience.

Also, while a word I use at work, so not a stumbling block for me, I would bet 委託 is N1. Furthermore, lots of 和語 with N4-N5 kanji isn't gone over and is really N1 or above IMO.

And the passage was different enough from what I usually read that I was pronouncing everything in my head, reading slowish.
 
I

I'm an expert

Formerly worldrevolution. The only reason I am nice to anyone else is to avoid being banned.
Hm, I definitely wrote in an earlier post that there's no way I actually remember what words/kanji were divided into what levels after this many years. In this case I just genuinely don't see any kanji/words that you wouldn't come across by N2. I could be totally wrong, and I suppose with how I studied you guys know that I would go through a lot of related words once I was introduced to a kanji. So even if I just first learned an N4 kanji I may have looked at N1 words that contained it and been practicing them immediately.

I mean, a word like 委託.. I don't know. I'm pretty sure someone by like..10 years old would probably know these two kanji. The word itself, not particularly sure.

As for the year, you're right, I took a blurb from the middle of an article so the fact it was 2020 was already mentioned earlier in the actual article. But your comment on this actually kind of surprised me because when I read it all these times I of course had totally forgotten I took it from an article that mentioned 2020, and as such I had no issue just knowing from context that they were talking about 2020. I mean you were obviously able to come to the same conclusion, but I don't know, I guess I just don't register any other way to read it at all considering what's around it. Especially with the 2021 right after.

And yeah, this is just straight out of a newspaper/news site article. I would certainly recommend reading the news daily to anyone, it's invaluable reading practice for anyone serious about Japanese literacy.
 
D

Deleted member 17706

Unconfirmed Member
urfe said:
This may be a lack of experience, but I was taken back by 20年. No 平成, so 西暦? Newspapers wouldn't write out 2020年？Or is it a way of saying years without 間？ Context would say no, so it's 2020年? I don't read much outside of for work and video games/recently novels, so again, just lack of experience.

Also, while a word I use at work, so not a stumbling block for me, I would bet 委託 is N1. Furthermore, lots of 和語 with N4-N5 kanji isn't gone over and is really N1 or above IMO.

And the passage was different enough from what I usually read that I was pronouncing everything in my head, reading slowish.
Click to expand...

I hadn't thought of it much before, but I think that, in general, you're going to see the western calendar used more often than not in stories that aren't specifically about Japanese domestic affairs.
 
K

Kilrogg

paid requisite penance
I'd say 委託 is definitely the most advanced word in that whole blurb. Why? Because:
1) the N2/N1 exam are still fairly fresh in my memory, all things considered, and 託 in particular feels like something I didn't learn before N2 or even N1... But then I took them right before the test was reformed, so maybe it's less advanced, now?
2) To my shame, I wasn't able to read 託 or understand the word, because I'm too rusty - and I never did prepare N1 properly, so I almost failed it. Everything else was easy to read and understand, though my reading speed is ridiculously slow.
 
I

I'm an expert

Formerly worldrevolution. The only reason I am nice to anyone else is to avoid being banned.
Yeah but the point is moot either way, he's right that the article doesn't just start throwing 20nen out there for no reason.

Anyway, I really want to clean the OP up, specifically the profession related stuff I brought up earlier with the computer science guy. So if anyone is bored and wants to write some stuff about the process about how they got their job and what role their Japanese studies played, you can feel free to post here or just pm me. Since we have an entire thread about English teaching, we don't need those experiences (but you're welcome to post them of course).
 
I

I'm an expert

Formerly worldrevolution. The only reason I am nice to anyone else is to avoid being banned.
Actually study-abroad experiences count too since I'm sure plenty of young people are thinking about schools there too.
 
T

TheSporkWithin

Member
So there's this thing called LocJam running until Christmas. There's a cute retro-style Japanese puzzle/RPG and you have to localize it into English. It's really short and simple (first pass took me maybe two hours last night, swapping back and forth between the spreadsheet and the game, now I'm polishing and tweaking), and the challenge is less from translating the simple Japanese into English and more of trying to evoke an interesting tone once translated (as is likely the case in all localization) and working with the very different levels of information density of the two languages (sometimes it's a struggle to fit everything in one line, other times you're trying to pad stuff out over three without sounding awkward). There's a thread for it already, but I figure that there are probably a lot of people subscribed here who may not have seen it.

Anyway, give it a shot. There's no entry fee and it's very low-stakes (winner gets a Famicom Mini), but it shouldn't eat up that much time and ought to be an interesting experience.
 
L

lupin23rd

Member
I'm an expert, you mentioned "Rakuten is like the Interac of programming jobs" - do you know people who are working / have worked there? I'm actually in QA and they always seems to have positions, and never really sure how much Japanese they actually need / use as I thought I read on their career pages that the rule is that all day-to-day communication is in English in all their offices?

Back to language stuff, anyone still using an electronic dictionary? Dug out my old WordTank 4600 from a pile of stuff I haven't touched in a while and wondering whether it's worth hanging onto given the rise of Japanese language dictionary apps, or whether it might actually be worth something on craigslist / eBay.
 
I

I'm an expert

Formerly worldrevolution. The only reason I am nice to anyone else is to avoid being banned.
Rakuten just has that reputation here/on the internet. They've been doing the whole English thing for a few years now and it definitely brought a ton of people over, but their turnover rate also seems very high. I'm not in the industry so it's all just hearsay and anecdotes from me.

It's one of those things where if you meet a coder who isn't that..I don't know..acclimated to Japan? ..they probably have Rakuten or some other well-known places in their history.

..without trying to sound like I'm judging them, the English teaching equivalent of a coder. They essentially try to recreate their lives back home, but in Japan. Don't need Japanese language, don't need Japanese friends, don't need to network or improve skills.. just sort of float around one small gig/start up to another. Those kind of guys usually have Rakuten somewhere in their history. That kind of thing. A lot of those people I've met actually try to go out of coding into like..office IT? You know, setting up/maintaining networks and servers and shit. Because again, that industry needs more "technical" knowledge than being able to converse or express ideas in Japanese and so they can get by without ever giving a fuck about the language but the bare minimum.

PreyingShark said:
I've encountered 委託 in my children JRPG adventures. I don't think it's a particularly hard word.
Click to expand...

I mean this just goes back to why I always ask people "can you read a newspaper" because that's just the basic daily life literacy test of living in a country. Even if someone passes JLPT1, it doesn't really give a clear indication of their overall level (obviously there is zero testing on expression) because there is only so much content that can fit on the test. I fuckin passed JLPT1 at 19 in 3 months of study. Didn't mean shit. Anyone who thinks that I was good at Japanese or something is an idiot. Like..it's just a memorization test..

It's about using the tools that something like a JLPT gives you to then actually enrich your life with the language and improve naturally - not through some textbook or rote repetition.

My point being that as NON-native learners of this language, we can't just say "oh, I didn't know that word because it was in section 45 of the JLPT1 kanji and so it's not something I encountered until 8 months into my study and I didn't see it on my practice test so I never REALLY learned it and.." blah fuckin blah.

A 9 year Japanese boy playing his game will come across the word, learn it, and that's it. That is what we must do, but much more proactively. And we do that by being proactive and diligent about consuming content that is practical and relevant.
 
U

urfe

Member
PreyingShark said:
I've encountered 委託 in my children JRPG adventures. I don't think it's a particularly hard word.
Click to expand...

託 is 漢字検定3級(中卒), so that's pretty advanced for a childish game.

Difficulty of words seems hard as it's you either know the word or not.

Either way, those who didn't know it have now looked it up (if not, it's いたく), and it's easy for all of us.
 
scotcheggz

scotcheggz

Member
Does anyone use JPHD on here to stream Japanese live TV? I'm not sure how much can be said about it on gaf, it's streaming live TV plus the last 7 days catchup, I mean, I don't think it's exactly "legit" but I may or may not have tried the trial and found it pretty pretty good.

Wonder if anyone has subbed and your longer term experiences?
 
I

I'm an expert

Formerly worldrevolution. The only reason I am nice to anyone else is to avoid being banned.
i don't remember but i think i made a post a while ago about taking advantage of streaming sites as a tool we werent lucky to have a decade or more ago. when i was overseas i had the japanese channel package from whatever cable provider i had and then on top random services like skytv365 for normal tv needs.
 
scotcheggz

scotcheggz

Member
I'm an expert said:
i don't remember but i think i made a post a while ago about taking advantage of streaming sites as a tool we werent lucky to have a decade or more ago. when i was overseas i had the japanese channel package from whatever cable provider i had and then on top random services like skytv365 for normal tv needs.
Click to expand...

Too right, it's so useful to stream it and leave it on in the background I find. Going back about 10-15 years I remember I used to be able to stream shonen beach FM, they must've been a fairly early adopter of internet radio and streaming. On a similar note, I bought a dictionary app the other day for £1.99 and had a little moment of reflection where I remembered buying a wordtank electronic dictionary imported from Japan for about £500... those were the days eh.
 
I

I'm an expert

Formerly worldrevolution. The only reason I am nice to anyone else is to avoid being banned.
ive actually never owned an electronic dictionary in my life. i used jbreen/alc/a book dictionary for late 90s/early 00s and then a few years after the kanji DS games came out and we all had that for our kanji recognition. and then since then i've never need anything more than japanese dictionaries/websites. the electronic dictionary is such a cultural item here but some how i have no connection to it.
 
M

marimorimo

Member
scotcheggz said:
On a similar note, I bought a dictionary app the other day for £1.99 and had a little moment of reflection where I remembered buying a wordtank electronic dictionary imported from Japan for about £500... those were the days eh.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I remember those electronic dictionaries, still have a couple in the house actually, never used. They were great until the advent of smartphones and ubiquitous internet.

I now have half a dozen dictionary apps on my phone but none or them are for Japanese. If I need to look up something the online dictionaries work fine.
 
Porcile

Porcile

Member
These days you can just buy a super cheap graphics tablet and use the built in Windows IME pad with an online dictionary like jisho.org for convenient vocabulary lookup. Writing with the mouse or touchpad is a little shitty, but the IME pad is really forgiving haha.
 
F

Forkball

Member
I'm an expert said:
A 9 year Japanese boy playing his game will come across the word, learn it, and that's it. That is what we must do, but much more proactively. And we do that by being proactive and diligent about consuming content that is practical and relevant.
Click to expand...

When I review my vocabulary I wonder how I came across certain words. I must've seen them somewhere. I will use 組んず解れつ and 砥石 one day. Maybe even in the same sentence.
 
K

Kilrogg

paid requisite penance
About 委託 : I agree with I'm an expert 100%, even though that makes me look like a fool. I was simply saying that that particular word is "officially" the most advanced word in the whole blurb in terms of JLPT.

I'm an expert said:
ive actually never owned an electronic dictionary in my life. i used jbreen/alc/a book dictionary for late 90s/early 00s and then a few years after the kanji DS games came out and we all had that for our kanji recognition. and then since then i've never need anything more than japanese dictionaries/websites. the electronic dictionary is such a cultural item here but some how i have no connection to it.
Click to expand...

I've had one for a really long time but I've always found them to be way too clunky and overfeatured. "In my day" at least they had way too many dictionaries, quizzes, guides and other useless crap packed in, the touchscreens were shitty - kind of a giant issue for kanji recognition, the keyboards were spongy and the key layouts sucked. They were also too bulky to be convenient on the go, yet too small to really be comfortable to use.

Give me a well-designed denshijisho with the Daijisen and Koujien for meaning, NHK dictionary for pitch accent, Progressive dictionary for JP-to-EN - lightyears ahead of every other bilingual dictionary, and really the only one worth a damn from my experience - and maybe a yojijukugo/idioms dictionary and a thesaurus and I'm set.
 
K

Kurita

Member
Forkball said:
When I review my vocabulary I wonder how I came across certain words. I must've seen them somewhere. I will use 組んず解れつ and 砥石 one day. Maybe even in the same sentence.
Click to expand...

組んず解れつ if you watch/read about pro wrestling in Japanese, yeah
 
H

Hypron

Member
Oh, I was still banned for a week after the JLPT exam so forgot to give an update.

I sat N5 and it went all right. Everything written was easy. I might have made a couple of silly mistakes here and there but I'm confident about that part. I found listening pretty hard though. The sentences are very short so you can't really afford to miss anything. I still think I'll pass this part (you only need, what, 30% to pass?), but I obviously haven't practiced that aspect of the language enough.

I'll start practicing shadowing since that's apparently a good way to improve your listening comprehension (and your ability to talk).

I think I will only go for N4 next time, instead of N3 like I was intending to. By then my kanji/vocab should be way above what's required if I can keep up with my current goals (should have gone through words using all the jouyou kanji and all grammatical stuctures up to N1)... But I'm just not sure about my listening capabilities. Depending on how easy/hard it feels I'll choose whether to go for N2 or N3 next.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Stellar Blade Will Feature 22 Languages and 9 Voiceover Dubs — Japanese Dub Exclusive to Japan
News 2
81
6K
Filben replied
Hideki Kamiya thinks Japan should be proud of ‘JRPG’ and wants to use ‘J-Action’
News 2
93
5K
Klosshufvud replied
Interview with Shuji Utsumi (SEGA Co-COO) by Japanese media outlet Seizo-Trend
Business Game Dev
1
1K
Unknown? replied
Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth dev surprised by unprecedented speed of sales and big change in sales pattern
NSFW
13
1K
Moriah20 replied
[Famitsu] Interview with Jim Ryan: Importance of Japanese market and games, Spider-Man 2 on PS5, PSVR2
News Business
43
2K
SirTerry-T replied
Top Bottom