How good do you want to become at Japanese?

[Namisuke]

Step 1 - become good enough to not have to throw in an English word here and there in conversation.
Step 2 - be able to read manga (or anything, really)
Step 3 - be able to eavesdrop on people

Unfortunately those are pretty much my goals...

I have recently been studying my bum off now that there is some downtime after graduation. My goal now is to know at least 25 new kanji and 5 new verbs per week. I made a chart and everything to track my own progress...lol

[irishjoe]

The main texts I read in Japanese are manga because I can progress through those while understanding enough to actually care about the story, and I say that as someone who had next to zero interest in manga before coming to Japan.

What mangas do you read? I had and still have no interest in manga, but it seems like an accesible way of reading japanese, and so many people say it is good reading practice. At the moment I am reading a 2nd year elt school book called イッキによめる！which has short stories from miyazawa kenji, hoshi shinichi, murakami haruki and others. Which is quite good but it would be cool to read something longer than a couple of pages, for some more continuity.

Given the assumptions that 1) that the JLPT is an accurate measure of language ability, and 2) Harry Potter is a children's book, that would indeed be strange.

As for harry potter, it is not really a children's book, more for young adults, and also there must be a whole load of magical terms and weird phrases which would get translated, probably easy to understand in english but really difficult in japanese. But I would have thought if you had JLPT1 or thereabouts you'd have enough kanji and deifnitely enough grammar to cover it?

Maybe the JLPT 1 isn't that hard after all?!

[Gizmotech]

The main texts I read in Japanese are manga because I can progress through those while understanding enough to actually care about the story, and I say that as someone who had next to zero interest in manga before coming to Japan.

What mangas do you read? I had and still have no interest in manga, but it seems like an accesible way of reading japanese, and so many people say it is good reading practice. At the moment I am reading a 2nd year elt school book called イッキによめる！which has short stories from miyazawa kenji, hoshi shinichi, murakami haruki and others. Which is quite good but it would be cool to read something longer than a couple of pages, for some more continuity.

Children's manga are good for this. Stuff like One Piece for instance, which is aimed at the middle school bracket, is good for working through with limited Japanese while expanding vocabulary. The other nice thing about a lot of young shonen (or shojo) manga is that if a SHS kanji is used, like from the 1000-2000 set, there is furigana below it so you can look it up quite easily rather than doing a radical search.

Given the assumptions that 1) that the JLPT is an accurate measure of language ability, and 2) Harry Potter is a children's book, that would indeed be strange.

As for harry potter, it is not really a children's book, more for young adults, and also there must be a whole load of magical terms and weird phrases which would get translated, probably easy to understand in english but really difficult in japanese. But I would have thought if you had JLPT1 or thereabouts you'd have enough kanji and deifnitely enough grammar to cover it?

Maybe the JLPT 1 isn't that hard after all?!

The JLPT isn't really a good measure of your Japanese ability, but it does say that you aren't completely useless. With JLPT 1 you likely have enough basic grammar, however Japanese is highly idiomatic in its constructions to accomplish what other languages would use rather simple grammar to do. Meaning you need to learn a lot of "phrase sets" as my teacher called them as they aren't really basic grammar. Ohh, and just because you know 2000 kanji doesn't mean you know how they ALL can interact together...

Things like fantasy however are very difficult for a second language learner in any language as there are A LOT of made up words in it. I would actually argue that reading it in Japanese would be insanely difficult given how randomly Japanese switches between katakana English and obscure kanji compounds to translate abstract things. Something more based on reality, like crime or history youth novels would likely be far easier to read. Books like a Japanese equivalent to "The Hardy Boys" series.... (Wait... most of you are probably WAY to young to remember those....) would be simpler, and less likely to use many made up words.

[trout501]

The main texts I read in Japanese are manga because I can progress through those while understanding enough to actually care about the story, and I say that as someone who had next to zero interest in manga before coming to Japan.

What mangas do you read? I had and still have no interest in manga, but it seems like an accesible way of reading japanese, and so many people say it is good reading practice. At the moment I am reading a 2nd year elt school book called イッキによめる！which has short stories from miyazawa kenji, hoshi shinichi, murakami haruki and others. Which is quite good but it would be cool to read something longer than a couple of pages, for some more continuity.

Just go into a Book Off, open any manga, and see if it has furigana written over the kanji. That's typically a good indicator that the reading level is pretty low.

[irishjoe]

Just go into a Book Off, open any manga, and see if it has furigana written over the kanji. That's typically a good indicator that the reading level is pretty low.

Ok, I'll try this. Again. I have tried it before and that was when I picked up that short story book, which has proved to be a success. But when I pick up a manga, between not being able to read it well, and it having pictures, I usually put it down fairly quickly. I guess I need to spend a while looking at them to find one that I might actually find interesting.

[trout501]

Just go into a Book Off, open any manga, and see if it has furigana written over the kanji. That's typically a good indicator that the reading level is pretty low.

Ok, I'll try this. Again. I have tried it before and that was when I picked up that short story book, which has proved to be a success. But when I pick up a manga, between not being able to read it well, and it having pictures, I usually put it down fairly quickly. I guess I need to spend a while looking at them to find one that I might actually find interesting.

For bonus points, ask your students what they recommend/are reading. This is a great opportunity to reach out and talk about their interests.

[Lianwen]

Speaking of books....I was in a book store and I saw they had toiec versions of classic English books with their toiec level of difficulty on the spine. They had a dictionary of vocab words in the back and a few grammar points.

Does anyone know if there`s something like this for Japanese learners, maybe based on the vocab/kanji/grammar for the JLPT?

I always like using a story to learn something new, whether it be a science topic or in this case, a Japanese grammar point.

[trout501]

Do a search on Amazon.com for "Japanese reader." I have a number of parallel text books I bought a couple years ago. All novels of various vintage that are broken down just like you describe. One even has an audio CD. I have yet to get very far with any of them, though, because they're still novels, many with a high art style and pre-war kanji that I can only imagine would be difficult for native Japanese speakers as well.

[Siyris]

Speaking of books....I was in a book store and I saw they had toiec versions of classic English books with their toiec level of difficulty on the spine. They had a dictionary of vocab words in the back and a few grammar points.

Does anyone know if there`s something like this for Japanese learners, maybe based on the vocab/kanji/grammar for the JLPT?

I always like using a story to learn something new, whether it be a science topic or in this case, a Japanese grammar point.

I don't know if you'd be able to find it here, but a book that I picked up in the states that I've enjoyed is called 'read real Japanese' and has a number of 10-15 page short stories, vignettes, and essays written in Japanese by Japanese writers. It also has explanations of the idioms used and the complex grammar, but does not translate the passages for you anywhere. It's been fun to read.

[EhimeDave]

Well I don't know anything about this person's Japanese ability but I do know that the JLPT is not an accurate measure of everyone's Japanese ability.
It in no way tests someones communicative ability. Though I find it kind of shocking that the those who pass N1 are supposed to be fluent and work in an office but would be unable to read a children's book. I'm not sure whether the problem is with the test or not in this case.

Hmm, most companies hiring foreigners consider N1 to be a minimum baseline before they even bother to consider you for working in their office. Not necessarily a gauge of your actual abilities, they'll need to sit down with you for a bit to get that. Think of them as seeing a tiny ray of hope in someone with N1 certification versus seeing someone with N2 and below as completely useless.

[AVN]

Well I don't know anything about this person's Japanese ability but I do know that the JLPT is not an accurate measure of everyone's Japanese ability.
It in no way tests someones communicative ability. Though I find it kind of shocking that the those who pass N1 are supposed to be fluent and work in an office but would be unable to read a children's book. I'm not sure whether the problem is with the test or not in this case.

Hmm, most companies hiring foreigners consider N1 to be a minimum baseline before they even bother to consider you for working in their office. Not necessarily a gauge of your actual abilities, they'll need to sit down with you for a bit to get that. Think of them as seeing a tiny ray of hope in someone with N1 certification versus seeing someone with N2 and below as completely useless.

I think you were agreeing with me? N1 seems to be the standard for getting a job that doesn't require an English speaker.
I think it depends on the company and the job though. I know some people who have been hired from outside Japan who arrived with no Japanese whatsoever. I know another guy with maybe N4 or N3, but he never actually took the test, and he works for a company in Tokyo, not as a teacher.

[EhimeDave]

Sorry, I mean most companies hiring foreigners to work "in Japanese". As opposed to doing work that doesn't require Japanese ability like IT or CS type of jobs which commonly import talent without Japanese language ability.

[EhimeDave]

But anyway, N1 doesn't mean you are fluent. It means you're pretty good but to be able to sit down and read away at a novel like Harry Potter without a dictionary requires a whole new level of Japanese beyond the JLPT.

[AVN]

But anyway, N1 doesn't mean you are fluent. It means you're pretty good but to be able to sit down and read away at a novel like Harry Potter without a dictionary requires a whole new level of Japanese beyond the JLPT.

Which is why I stand by my statement that the test is not a good level indicator.

If you pass the N1 this is what it's supposed to mean for your reading skills.

・One is able to read writings with logical complexity and/or abstract writings on a variety of topics, such as newspaper editorials and critiques, and comprehend both their structures and contents.
・One is also able to read written materials with profound contents on various topics and follow their narratives as well as understand the intent of the writers comprehensively.

Doesn't that sounds like it would mean those who pass N1 should be able to read books?

[Mark_KyotoPA]