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Time to read Japanese decently? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Heavyweight Diglot Newbie Sweden Joined 4566 days ago 12 posts - 19 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: Japanese | Message 9 of 17 27 May 2012 at 8:38am | IP Logged | |||||
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My problem when reading Japanese is that when I hit a kanji I don't know I sometimes freeze. If I miss a few kanjis in a short text then the whole meaning of what I'm reading is lost on me.
I would say that it takes a hell of a dedication and years of practice to be able to read Japanese as well I can read English. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5767 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes  Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 10 of 17 27 May 2012 at 5:24pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Heavyweight, what do you do when you encounter an English word that you don't recognize? Do you look it up, and do you look up its pronunciation? When reading extensively, I don't - unless I see the word repeatedly, or it's the key element to understanding a sentence (or paragraph).
But usually I just guess (and remember I guessed), at both meaning and pronunciation. With Japanese it's the same, though the phonetic element of Sinojapanese words is even less reliable than English spelling. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| IronFist Senior Member United States Joined 6438 days ago 663 posts - 941 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Korean | Message 11 of 17 27 May 2012 at 7:42pm | IP Logged | |||||
You'll change your mind in a few months. When you no longer have to read the parts and you just see the cluster and know what it is, you'll think Korean is much easier to read. I can read a new Korean word as soon as I learn what the word is. But in Japanese, even when I know what the word is, I still don't recognize it when I see it, and sometimes not even after I've read it. I'll see a word and read it like "a-tsu-i... oh! 'atsui' hot!". 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| blackbrich Newbie United States Joined 5230 days ago 13 posts - 30 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Korean | Message 12 of 17 28 May 2012 at 6:51am | IP Logged | |||||
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Yeh I'm definitely hoping I start to recognize the clusters quicker. I usually always recognize a word when I see it nowadays because of kanji. Lack of kanji may make it harder depending on how well I know the word. But readining in katakana usually trips me up.
Part of the problem in Korean(most) is the lack of known words and grammar. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| baskerville Trilingual Triglot Newbie Singapore scribeorigins.com Joined 4247 days ago 39 posts - 43 votes Speaks: English*, Tagalog* Studies: German*, Japanese Studies: Hungarian | Message 13 of 17 12 June 2013 at 3:09pm | IP Logged | |||||
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When I was studying Japanese for the first time, I also had a very difficult time reading
Katakana after learning Hiragana. What my sensei did was to use word pictures to associate the readings. For example, the hiragana の is superimposed on a "NO Parking" sign. the Katakana ロ looks like the head of a RO-bot. Something like that. We also did the same with learning the first few Kanji. :) 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Lakeseayesno Tetraglot Senior Member Mexico thepolyglotist.com Joined 4335 days ago 280 posts - 488 votes Speaks: English, Spanish*, Japanese, Italian Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 14 of 17 12 June 2013 at 7:46pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I don't know hangul so I'm afraid I can add nothing to the 'hangul vs kana' discussion, but as a slow learner who was battered and mistreated by kana for at least six months before I finally got them all, I'd like to add my 円1銭91 (or, at today's rate exchange, 2 cents) to the conversation.
As many have commented, it takes years before one builds up any sort of decent speed at reading when all three writing systems are involved (in my case, it took me almost five years to get to the point where I could read a novel, with a dictionary at hand, of course). However, I want to highlight what baskerville said, because it is the key to mechanization (which in turn is the key to building speed): correlation of each kana or kanji to a familiar symbol helps retain it. When you've retained the kanji and kana and read it over enough times, it gets to the point where you no longer need to track back to separate the words and convert them into a reasonable sentence inside your head. At that point, your memory will have systematized each symbol into its proper meaning or sound, and will have retained enough vocabulary to allow you to descipher the sentence on an as-you-go basis. So how long does it take to read at a decent speed? As much time as you're willing to spend reading in order to build vocabulary and phonetic familiarity. You recognize yourself as a slow reader (that's winning a battle), but if you keep reading and reading and reading, at some point you'll realize you no longer need to track-back, and you will have built up tons of vocabulary as well (and that's winning the war). Also, allow me to pick at something (but I'm neurotic like that, so feel free to disregard this):
In the roman alphabet, everything is its own letter as well, and yet at some point we all managed to differentiate b and p (even thought phonetically speaking, they both end in '-ee', and are both bilabial consonants), didn't we? がんばれー Edited by Lakeseayesno on 12 June 2013 at 7:47pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| IronFist Senior Member United States Joined 6438 days ago 663 posts - 941 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Korean | Message 15 of 17 13 June 2013 at 3:52am | IP Logged | |||||
I was talking phonetics, not the names of letters (which happen to be the same in Japanese). "ka" and "ki" in English both begin with a K so you can be reasonably confident that they will start with a "k" sound. If you see a "k", regardless of if the next letter is A or E or I or O or U or L, you can bet that word will probably start with a "k" sound. The exceptions are words like "knight" or "knife" or "knit," and they're all "kn." In Japanese there is no such luxury. "ka" and "ki" look nothing alike, yet they are both "k" sounds. Also, I totally agree with baskerville who said to associate them with a shape or picture to help you remember them. I have a book called "Hiragana Gambatte" that does just that and helped me learn them. Edited by IronFist on 13 June 2013 at 3:53am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| baskerville Trilingual Triglot Newbie Singapore scribeorigins.com Joined 4247 days ago 39 posts - 43 votes Speaks: English*, Tagalog* Studies: German*, Japanese Studies: Hungarian | Message 16 of 17 13 June 2013 at 2:32pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Also, reading something that you enjoy will help with speed reading. For example, if you
loved a particular manga that was scanlated in English (or another language), maybe you can also try reading the same in Japanese. I bought Harry Potter in Japanese specifically to help me with reading. Not speed reading, though, because the script is written vertically and tategaki always trips me up. :-/ 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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