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| sheetz Senior Member United States Joined 6386 days ago 270 posts - 356 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, French, Mandarin | Message 1 of 197 13 June 2007 at 9:02pm | IP Logged |
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I've only been studying Japanese for less than a month, so hopefully participating in this challenging will give me a huge kickstart to learning this notoriously difficult language. I don't know if I will be able to continue for the entire 3 month period, but I'm committed to participating for at least 2 months.
So far I've been using the Power Japanese software from Transparent Language along with Pimsleur I, which I've been using passively. I've also just started watching the Let's Learn Japanese series and listening to the beginner's lessons at Japanesepod101.com. I've ordered the Assimil Japanese books and when they arrive they will form the backbone of my study along with the Let's Learn Japanese programs. I also have a few other learning materials that I may use from time to time. Other ways I incorporate Japanese into my life are by watching subtitled anime and trying to read manga in their original language. I'm also an avid cook and I've found a couple of bilingual websites with recipes written in both Japanese and English. As for goals, I think I'd like to finish watching all 52 episodes of Let's Learn Japanese, finish up Power Japanese and Pimsleur I, and hopefully get through the entire passive wave of at least the first Assimil volume. ----------------LIST OF FREE JAPANESE AUDIOBOOKS W/ TRANSCRIPTS------------------ SHORT STORIES O Henry "Gift of the Magi" (25 min)Transcript Audio Parallel Text O Henry "The Last Leaf" (25 min)Audio Parallel Text Sir Arthur Conan Doyle "The Adventure of the Norwood Builder" (63 min)Transcript Audio Parallel Text Sir Arthur Conan Doyle "The Red Headed League" (79 min) Audio (HQ) Parallel Text Sir Arthur Conan Doyle "The Adventure of the Dancing Men" (Incomplete) (69 min)Transcript Audio (HQ) Parallel Text Sir Arthur Conan Doyle "Captain of the Polestar" (27 min)Transcript Audio (HQ) Sir Arthur Conan Doyle "The Gloria Scott" (79 min)Transcript Audio Parallel Text Sir Arthur Conan Doyle "The Stock Broker's Clerk" (67 min)Transcript Audio (HQ) Parallel Text Sir Arthur Conan Doyle "A Scandal in Bohemia" (70 min)Transcript Audio (HQ) Parallel Text Sir Arthur Conan Doyle "The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle" (Incomplete) Transcript Audio (HQ) Sir Arthur Conan Doyle "Silver Blaze" Transcript Audio (HQ) Parallel Text Sir Arthur Conan Doyle "Adventure of the Six Napoleons" (Complete) Transcript Audio Sir Arthur Conan Doyle "The Priory School" (Complete) Transcript Audio (HQ) Edgar Allan Poe "The Black Cat" (44 min)Transcript Audio Parallel Text Edgar Allan Poe "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" (100 min) Transcript Audio (HQ) Parallel Text Brothers Grimm "Hansel and Gretal" (28 min)Transcript Audio Brothers Grimm "Rapunzel" (11 min)Transcript Audio Brothers Grimm "Little Red Riding Hood" (9 min)Transcript Audio (HQ) Brothers Grimm "The Bremen Town Musicians"(14 min)Transcript Audio (HQ) Brothers Grimm "The Wolf and the Seven Little Goats" (13 min) Transcript Audio (HQ) Brothers Grimm "The Frog Prince" (17 min) Transcript Audio 1 2 3 Hans Christian Andersen "The Red Shoes" (26 min) Transcript Audio Hans Christian Andersen "The Little Nightingale" (38 min)Transcript Audio Hans Christian Andersen "The Little Match Girl" (9 min) Transcript Audio Parallel Text Hans Christian Andersen "The Emperor's New Clothes" (21 min)Transcript Audio (HQ) Parallel Text Hans Christian Andersen "The Fir Tree" (42 min)Transcript Audio Hans Christian Andersen "The Snow Queen" (115 min)Transcript Audio Hans Christian Andersen "Picture Book Without Picture" Transcript Audio Oscar Wilde "The Happy Prince" (32 min)Transcript Audio Parallel Text Oscar Wilde "The Selfish Giant" (16 min)Transcript Audio Parallel Text Charles Perrault "Puss in Boots" (17 min)Transcript Audio (HQ) Charles Perrault "Blue Beard" (17 min)Transcript Audio Charles Perrault "Sleeping Beauty" (25 min)Transcript Audio Charles Perrault "Cinderella" (27 min)Transcript Audio (HQ) Ryunosuke Akutagawa "Spider's Thread" (10 min)Transcript Audio (HQ) Translation Ryunosuke Akutagawa "The Truck" (17 min)Transcript Audio (HQ) Translation Ryunosuke Akutagawa "Rashomon" (18 min)Transcript Audio (HQ) Translation Ryunosuke Akutagawa "The Three Treasures" (26 min) Transcript Audio 1 2 3 Translation Ryunosuke Akutagawa "Kappa" (120 min)Transcript Audio* Ryunosuke Akutagawa "The Dog, Shiro" (28 min)Transcript Audio (HQ) Translation Ryunosuke Akutagawa "In a Grove" (30 min)Transcript Audio Translation Ryunosuke Akutagawa "The Christ of Nanking" (40 min) Transcript Audio Translation Ryunosuke Akutagawa "Oshino" (19 min) Transcript Audio1 2 Translation Kido Okamoto "The Stone Lantern" (65 min)Transcript Audio# Kido Okamoto "The Mystery of the Fire Bell" (69 min)Transcript Audio# Kido Okamoto "Hiroshige and the River Otter" (59 min)Transcript Audio# Kido Okamoto "The Mansion of Morning Glories" (48 min)Transcript Audio# Kido Okamoto "Cacophony of Cats" (52 min) Transcript Audio# Kido Okamoto "Benten's Daughter" (65 min)Transcript Audio# Kido Okamoto "The Room Over the Bathhouse" (49 min)Transcript Audio# Kido Okamoto "The Death of Ofumi" (58 min)Transcript Audio 1 2# Kido Okamoto "The Death of Kampei" (49 min)Transcript Audio# Kido Okamoto "The Dancer's Curse" (61 min)Transcript Audio# Basho Matsuo "Oku No Hosomichi" (66 min) Transcript Audio (5 parts) Audio (45 parts) Translation Antoine de Saint-Exupery "Le Petit Prince"(165 min) Transcript Audio (HQ) Parallel Text Leo Tolstoy "Ivan the Fool" (95 min) Transcript Audio (HQ) Kenji Miyazawa "The Restaurant of Many Orders" (17 min)Transcript Audio (HQ) Translation Video@ Kenji Miyazawa "The Nighthawk's Star" (21 min)Transcript Audio Translation Kenji Miyazawa "The Acorns and the Wildcat" (20 min)Transcript Audio (HQ) Translation Video@ Kenji Miyazawa "The Poison Powder Police Chief" (12 min)Transcript Audio (HQ) Translation@ Kenji Miyazawa "The Dragon and the Poet" (12 min)Transcript Audio Translation Kenji Miyazawa "Night on the Milky Way Train" (134 min)Transcript Audio Translation Kenji Miyazawa "Gorsch the Cellist" (44 min)Transcript Audio (HQ) 1 2@ Kenji Miyazawa "The Earthgod and the Fox" (41 min) Transcript Audio (HQ)@ Kenji Miyazawa "Ozbel and the Elephant" (22 min)Transcript Audio (HQ)@ Kenji Miyazawa "The First Deer Dance" (20 min)Transcript Audio@ Kenji Miyazawa "Night of the Festival" (17 min)Transcript Audio 1 2 3@ Kenji Miyazawa "The Great Bear of the Crows" (20 min) Transcript Audio 1 2 3 Translation Ogai Mori "Down the Takase River" (36 min)Transcript Audio Translation Maurice LeBlanc "Edith Au Cou De Cygne" (52 min) Transcript Audio (HQ) Lyman Frank Baum"A Kidnapped Santa Claus" (22 min)Transcript Audio Madame de Villeneuve "Beauty and the Beast" (36 min)Transcript Audio Soseki Natsume "Ten Nights of Dreams" (66 min)Transcript Audio (HQ) Translation Osamu Dazai "Memories/思い出" (114 min) Transcript Audio$ Osamu Dazai "Monkey Island" (19 min)Transcript Audio$ Osamu Dazai "Melos, Run" (35 min)Transcript Audio (HQ)$ Osamu Dazai "A Poor Man's Got His Pride/貧の意地" (27 min) Transcript (Scroll past table of contents) Audio (Halfway down the page)$ Osamu Dazai "The Monkey's Mound/猿塚" (13 min) Transcript (Scroll 1/4 of the way down the page) Audio$ Osamu Dazai "Crackling Mountain/カチカチ山" (44 min) Transcript (A little past halfway down the page) Audio 1 2$ Osamu Dazai "The Sound of Hammering" (47 min) Transcript Audio$ Osamu Dazai "Undine" (27 min) Transcript Audio v1 Audio v2 1 2 3 4$ Osamu Dazai "Heed My Plea" (40 min) Transcript Audio 1 2 3 4$ Osamu Dazai "Taking the Wen Away/瘤取り" (17 min) Transcript (Begins just after intro paragraph) Audio$ Niimi Nankichi "The Fox Boy" (31 min) Transcript Audio Translation Beatrix Potter "The Tale of Peter Rabbit" Transcript Audio Original Text Beatrix Potter "The Tale of Two Bad Mice" Transcript Audio Original Text Gilbert K Chesterton "The Sins of Prince Saradine" (61 min) Transcript Audio Parallel Text Fumiko Hayashi "Hiroki" Transcript Audio% Lewis Carroll "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" (Complete) Transcript Audio Parallel Text FULL LENGTH NOVELS Murasaki Shikibu "Tale of Genji" (24 Chapters--one audio link is dead)(1594 min)Transcript Audio Translation Soseki Natsume "Botchan" (Complete)(366 min)Transcript Audio Translation Parallel Text Soseki Natsume "Sanshiro"(Complete)(583 min)Transcript Audio* Soseki Natsume "Three Cornered World" (Complete)(275 min)Transcript Audio* Soseki Natsume "Kokoro"(Complete)(over 9 hr)Transcript Incomplete Audio (HQ) Complete Audio 1 2 3 Translation Soseki Natsume "I am a Cat" (Complete)(22 hr) Transcript Audio 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11* Osamu Dazai "The Setting Sun"(Complete)(392 min)Transcript Audio* Osamu Dazai "No Longer Human"(Complete)(248 min)Transcript Audio* Robert Louis Stevenson "The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde" (Complete)(224 min)Transcript Audio (HQ) E.C. Tubb "The Winds of Gath" (Incomplete) (5 hr) Audio Sir Henry Ryder Haggard "King Solomon's Mines" (Incomplete) Transcript Audio (HQ) * - Couldn't find a translation online, but commercial translations are available. # - Found in the collection of short stories, "The Curious Casebook of Inspector Hanshichi : Detective Stories of Old Edo," translated by Ian MacDonald. HQ - Audio labeled 'HQ' usually have clearer sound, better voice acting, and sound effects. @ - Found in the bilingual text "The Tales of Miyazawa Kenji," translated by John Bester. $ - Found in "Crackling Mountain and Other Short Stories," translated by James O'Brien. % - Found in "Be a Woman: Hayashi Fumiko and Modern Japanese Women's Literature," by Joan Ericson. Updates 7/20 Added Natsume's "Three Cornered World," known as "Grass Pillow," in English. 7/22 Added "Oku No Hosomichi." Included 2 different audio links--one has the audio split into 5 parts and the other into each of the 45 short chapters. 7/27 After some research I advise against using "Tale of Genji" until one has reached a fairly advanced stage of learning, since it appears that both the Japanese text and the translation are modern interpretations of the original text written 1000 years ago. Hence it is likely that both works will differ significantly from one another in certain parts. 8/11 Added downloadable audio links for "Undine." 10/12 Added J/E parallel text I made for "Le Petit Prince." (Open Office format) 10/14 Added the SciFi classic, "Winds of Gath." Since this is a relatively recent book, I suspect there may be copyright infringements involved with this audio, so download it ASAP if you're at all interested in using it. Japanese version of book available at AmazonJP or YesAsia. 11/24 Added Two stories by Beatrix Potter. Added parallel text I created for "A Scandal in Bohemia." (MS Word) 11/25 Added better audio versions for "Kokoro," "Three Cornered World," and "Down the Takase River." Added video versions of "Acorns and the Wildcat" and "Restaurant of Many Orders." 12/2 Added "Sins of Prince Saradine," and "Picture Book Without Pictures." Added better audio for "Gift of the Maji." 12/22 Added "The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle." 2/26 Added "Silver Blaze" and "Hiroki." 7/1 Fixed some audio links. Added "Alice in Wonderland" and "Adventure of the Six Napoleons." 9/26 Added "The Priory School" and "King Solomon's Mines." LINKS http://storytellerbook.cocolog-nifty.com/blog/ (Audio) http://www.koetaba.net/3book/index.html (Audio) http://novel.blogmura.com/novel_reading/ (Audio) http://speaking-japanese.com/breaking/index.html(Audio) http://portal.podcastjuice.jp/dirretrieval/category_sort.cgi ?categoryid=17 (List of Audio Podcasts) http://www.alz.jp/221b/sound.html (List of Audio Podcasts) http://www.aozora.gr.jp/index_pages/index_top.html (Japanese Transcripts) http://www.bauddha.net/ (Parallel Texts) http://homepage2.nifty.com/to-saga/roudoku2.htm Extensive list of online resources. http://www13.ocn.ne.jp/~k-net/ Japanese Literature in Romaji Hint for Googling Japanese audiobooks: Type in both author's name and title of work in Japanese, along with "朗読" Edited by sheetz on 16 February 2009 at 2:28am 44 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6448 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 2 of 197 14 June 2007 at 1:17pm | IP Logged |
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Good luck! How are you using the bilingual websites? I'm especially curious about how you're handling the Kanji.
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| sheetz Senior Member United States Joined 6386 days ago 270 posts - 356 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, French, Mandarin | Message 3 of 197 14 June 2007 at 2:06pm | IP Logged |
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Thanks! For browsing websites I use PeraPera-kun for Firefox. When using it all I have to do is place the cursor over the unknown Japanese words and the meanings and pronunciations are displayed.
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| sheetz Senior Member United States Joined 6386 days ago 270 posts - 356 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, French, Mandarin | Message 4 of 197 16 June 2007 at 1:51am | IP Logged |
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Today is the official start of the challenge, but I'm still awaiting my copy of Assimil Japanese with Ease. Until then, my daily studies consist of
1. Listening to one lesson of Pimsleur 2. Watching one episode of Let's Learn Japanese, plus going over the exercises in the accompanying textbook. 3. Listening to one podcast from Japanesepod101.com 4. 30 minutes of using the Power Japanese software 5. Any other Japanese language related activities, including watching anime, reading manga, and studying grammar and vocabulary from other sources. Currently I'm still trying to get a handle on all the different verb inflections and the subtle differences in meanings for each one. I think it may be a good idea for me to obtain a good book devoted entirely to grammar so that all that material can be compiled neatly together in one place. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| sheetz Senior Member United States Joined 6386 days ago 270 posts - 356 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, French, Mandarin | Message 5 of 197 19 June 2007 at 11:14am | IP Logged |
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I found a great grammar book called "Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar," by Seiichi Makano and Michio Tsutsui. It contains lots of example sentences to illustrate each grammatical point, and every one of them is written first in native Japanese, then romaji, and finally, the English translation. What's especially good about it is that it covers some of the less formal expressions normally left out of most textbooks, which makes it a valuable tool for reading manga.
I'm still waiting for Japanese with Ease to arrive from Amazon, but still marching through the other materials in my possession. Pimsleur is starting to drag a bit, though, so I'm glad I'm nearly finished with level one. Once I'm done with that I'll set it aside to work on other things. Edited by sheetz on 19 June 2007 at 11:16am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| sheetz Senior Member United States Joined 6386 days ago 270 posts - 356 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, French, Mandarin | Message 6 of 197 21 June 2007 at 11:48am | IP Logged |
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I finally received my Assimil Japanese with Ease from Amazon and I think I like what I see. It seems this course is perfectly suited to the Sentence Method as described at alljapaneseallthetime.com and, in fact, I think I will try incorporating that method into my study routine during the passive phase. What I plan on doing is completing the passive phase as instructed, but then as I complete each lesson I would enter all the dialog sentences into Mnemosyne and review those every day. I haven't yet studied Heisig as was recommended by that website, but I'd still like to see how well this method works even with skipping that step. Edited by sheetz on 21 June 2007 at 11:50am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| sheetz Senior Member United States Joined 6386 days ago 270 posts - 356 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, French, Mandarin | Message 7 of 197 24 June 2007 at 2:02pm | IP Logged |
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I've finally made it all the way through Pimsleur I and feel like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders. It was definitely starting to bore me, and I'm glad that I can set it aside for now.
I've also just started Assimil Japanese with Ease and it feels great to actually be looking at "real" Japanese text for a change instead of dealing with only kana and/or romaji along with the aural work. After each lesson I'm entering the dialog sentences into an SRS and currently I'm testing out both Mnemosyne and Lingopronto.com to see which one I like best. Anki looked promising and has lots of nice features for learners of Japanese, but I think I prefer the simplicity of the other two. I'm nearly finished with the Power Japanese software so I'll be wanting to add something else to take its place once I'm done. I thought about doing Heisig, but I like the idea of using the KanjiCan software from kanjisoft.com instead. Unfortunately, the author of that program has suspended sales for now until he has reworked the stories. Until then I might just listen to more lessons from Japanesepod101.com, which I find really entertaining and look forward to each day. Or else I might look into learning Kanji in other ways like through Reading Japanese by Jordan or the Basic Kanji Book, both of which come highly recommended. Edited by sheetz on 24 June 2007 at 2:05pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| sheetz Senior Member United States Joined 6386 days ago 270 posts - 356 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, French, Mandarin | Message 8 of 197 29 June 2007 at 1:58pm | IP Logged |
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UPDATE
I'm more or less finished with Power Japanese, as I don't think I can gain much more out of it at this point. So I guess that leaves me with some extra space in my studies for something else. After a week of using Assimil I definitely think I should start studying kanji, as the number of kanji to be memorized will begin to pile up very soon. To that end, I intend to begin reading Heisig today and using the Reviewing the Kanji website for study.I don't know how many kanji I should attempt to learn per day, but for now I'll make it a goal to get through the entire book by the end of the summer. We'll see if that's reasonable or not, but it's always good to aim high, right? 1 person has voted this message useful |
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