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Chinese based Japanese language materials | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| hombre gordo Triglot Senior Member Japan Joined 5582 days ago 184 posts - 247 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish, Japanese Studies: Portuguese, Korean | Message 1 of 6 15 December 2009 at 4:03pm | IP Logged | ||
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Today my Chinese friend showed me her Chinese based Japanese language learning textbook which she used when she was still at an early level.
It looked so awesome in quality. It looked so useful. It looked way better, much more interesting, and more importantly much more efficient than the English based Japanese textbooks I was using when I was a just starting Japanese. The methods in the book were so straight to the point. No fancy crap you have to pay more money for like the comercialised products in the west. Just the real deal. I wondered why. Maybe it is because Chinese people can learn Japanese Kanji really quickly and easy (assuming they dont neglect the differences), so the Chinese based textbook just throw Chinese people in straight at the deep end. Straight into real Japanese. No pussy-footing around the supposed difficulties like Kanji. Just straight into real Japanese. Could this perhaps be the reason why the Chinese students textbooks seem much better then the ones back in the west? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| YoshiYoshi Senior Member China Joined 5530 days ago 143 posts - 205 votes Speaks: Mandarin* | Message 2 of 6 16 December 2009 at 4:35am | IP Logged | ||
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Yes, I think at least this could be one of the reasons why the Chinese-based Japanese coursebooks (never printed with Romaji) seem much better than those published in the West. Personally, I would recommend using the following coursebook (perhaps one of the most famous series in the mainland). 「新版.中日交流.标准日本语.初级（上/下）& 中级（上/下）」.
Please note that, the learners should choose the New Edition (新版). 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| parasitius Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5997 days ago 220 posts - 323 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin Studies: Cantonese, Polish, Spanish, French | Message 3 of 6 16 December 2009 at 4:32pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'm very weary of any books that come out of the People's Republic these days. You might find some that are esthetically pleasing or nicely organized, but be sure to have a thorough look at the accuracy of the content before buying :)
(1) I once bought a Cantonese primer with CD -- only to have my initially attempts just to get a conception of the tones down totally crippled by confusion. I finally realized there was an absurd unacceptable number of typos in the tones and syllable spellings in the section for learning to pronounce the language. Unacceptable! I finally incinerated that book... cursing it the whole while. (2) Numerous Chinese folks have told me Chinese books (especially computer books) translated from English to Chinese can only be understood by those who have learned English because they're written in very unnatural Chinese. (Doesn't inspire much confidence in the things you'll find in a book store, eh?) (3) Don't get me started on the 100s of mistakes I found in a very over-priced HSK preparation book (I think the price was inflated because there was a bit of English in it and they knew foreigners would gladly pay.) I know it's not nice but I seriously got so angry at one point I was drafting a death threat to the author for having the audacity to release such rubbish. (Never sent it hehe) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Yukamina Senior Member Canada Joined 6263 days ago 281 posts - 332 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Korean, French | Message 4 of 6 16 December 2009 at 9:53pm | IP Logged | ||
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In what way was that textbook different? What was the content like?
One of my fears of learning Chinese is that the translated material like manga and books will be of poor quality. English subtitles on DVDs from Chinatown are really bad, but I don't know if the Chinese subtitles are better or not. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| OneEye Diglot Senior Member Japan Joined 6849 days ago 518 posts - 784 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin Studies: Japanese, Taiwanese, German, French | Message 5 of 6 17 December 2009 at 8:18am | IP Logged | ||
If you buy your stuff from legitimate sources (books.com.tw is my favorite), you don't have to worry about that. When you buy $1 bootleg DVDs from the street vendor in Chinatown, you get what you pay for. ;) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| parasitius Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5997 days ago 220 posts - 323 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin Studies: Cantonese, Polish, Spanish, French | Message 6 of 6 17 December 2009 at 10:00am | IP Logged | ||
I seriously doubt it! Perhaps Taiwan does things better, I have no idea. But, I had a copy of Mongolian Ping-pong released by one of the major hollywood studios (maybe Universal?) which had some terrible translation gaffs in the English subtitles. Apparently they were dumb enough to trust their Chinese partners/branch to actually get it checked before pressing the DVD's. (I expect better than "Hong Kong"-style wonky subtitles when hollywood rereleases a movie originating from China.) Anyone who saw the Microsoft China copied source code story in the past few days knows trusting a Chinese branch too much is a HUGE dangerous liability! Don't get me started on the Lu Xun book I got with numerous typos in the Chinese, including use of the wrong DE 的. Edited by parasitius on 17 December 2009 at 10:01am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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