Pronunciation of a sentence in Japanese. (Questions About Your Target Languages) Language Learning Forum

Pronunciation of a sentence in Japanese.
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Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages

28 messages over 4 pages: 1 2 3 4 Next >>

RiderofNesme
Diglot
Newbie
United States
Joined 6030 days ago
12 posts - 12 votes
Speaks: English*, Spanish
Studies: Japanese

Message 17 of 28

02 December 2007 at 12:15am | IP Logged

My book called Berlitz Essential Japanese says that "Ga" means "but" and it that not mention that it was a particle.
1 person has voted this message useful

furyou_gaijin
Senior Member
Japan
Joined 6167 days ago
540 posts - 631 votes

Speaks: Latin*

Message 18 of 28

02 December 2007 at 6:05am | IP Logged

RiderofNesme wrote:

My book called Berlitz Essential Japanese says that "Ga" means "but" and it that not
mention that it was a particle.

Time to throw it away, maybe?
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furyou_gaijin
Senior Member
Japan
Joined 6167 days ago
540 posts - 631 votes

Speaks: Latin*

Message 20 of 28

02 December 2007 at 1:41pm | IP Logged

leserables wrote:

furyou_gaijin wrote:

RiderofNesme wrote:

My book called Berlitz Essential Japanese
says that "Ga" means "but" and it that not
mention that it was a particle.

Time to throw it away, maybe?

A very helpful caustic suggestion by the delinquent foreigner, reminiscent of her who goes bearing salt. Are
you sure you are not her other, male self?

Ha-ha, God knows siomotteikiru and I rarely agreed on anything but I grew fond of her contributions so I am
very honoured by the comparison. :-)

Back to the particles, I can only wish someone had told me to throw out some of the books that I used when I
started to learn Japanese, many years ago... That would have saved me quite literally years of time.
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Volte
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Switzerland
Joined 6220 days ago
4474 posts - 6726 votes

Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian
Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese

Message 22 of 28

03 December 2007 at 10:32am | IP Logged

leserables wrote:

furyou_gaijin wrote:

I can only wish someone had told me to throw out some of the books that I used when I
started to learn Japanese, many years ago... That would have saved me quite literally years of time.

Fine, but would you have taken their advice?
I know I wouldn't!
Besides, when I first got into Japanese 30 years ago there just wasn't much choice. So: either a book that wasn't very friendly (Teach Yourself Japanese, published 1957, was anything but user-friendly) or forget about the language and do something else instead. But I wanted to learn some Japanese, so I made do with what I'd got and devised ways of learning what at first seemed unlearnable: pages of grammar, long lists of words and boring exercises of lose sentences to be translated J-E and E-J. I hate translating, so I draw, make up questions (and answers), (dis)agree with whatever I read and end up learning quite a lot even with basically unsatisfactory material. Provided it is not riddled with mistakes of course.

Besides, I never throw books away, some I keep as uplifting examples of "How not to ....." When I feel a little low, I look at Mr. Horowitz's appalling initiation into the intricacies of Hebrew and tell him what I think of his idiotic method. Or another perfectly hideous book called "Greek" (I won't give any details, the poor man is still alive.). And feel immediately much better. There are all sorts of ways of enjoying learning. But I do want decent audio. Rubbishy audio goes straight into the dustbin. Even if I paid a lot of money for it, e.g. Assimil Ancient Greek CD's.

Whether or not you choose to take the advice, it's a good idea - especially if other resources are available. Keeping a shelf of "how not to" books is essentially the same as throwing the book out, in my opinion. The point isn't whether you burn the book, toss it in the trash, sell it, or keep it: the point is to stop actively using it as a source of actual study material for the topic it is on [as opposed to "how not to write/present a book"].

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Volte
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Switzerland
Joined 6220 days ago
4474 posts - 6726 votes

Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian
Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese

Message 24 of 28

03 December 2007 at 1:52pm | IP Logged

leserables wrote:

Okay,
(1) I don't buy anything that doesn't look or sound promising. If it looks promising it's usually because there is at least something of value in it. I can always discard all the rest and just use bits. The Hebrew book is useless, full stop. The Greek one is worse than useless, to my mind, as a primer. But it does have certain advantages for the intermediate learner who wants, for one reason or another, to have a more solid knowledge of theoretical grammar. I don't as a rule, but in this case I had to.

I also don't buy things that don't look or sound promising; but I make mistakes from time to time, especially when I can't physically leaf through the book before buying it, which is usually the case.

There are books which are useless for specific purposes (ie, as primers), and there are ones that are just flat-out useless, due to not being particularly good for any purpose and containing a lot of mistakes. There are many books that are by people who have no idea what they're talking about. As you pointed out, the first category can still be good for something else.

leserables wrote:

(2) How can one judge a book without actually having seen it. It might be a very good book for all I know. Because as I've said, I'd be very surprised if it didn't mention particles. And it might suit someone's purpose very well indeed. Do you blindly follow other people's advice? Or do you decide for yourself? I didn't give anybody any advice, I just said I personally didn't throw books away. Everybody should do as they please, but check first whether the advice given by a third party is valid. Before doing something rash.
Amen.

Sure - I don't recommend blindly following advice, and clearly, no one should follow advice based on someone's reaction to him or her incorrectly describing the contents of a book. That said, if the description given (that 'ga' is not mentioned as a particle, but only as a word meaning 'but') is true, I'm extremely skeptical of the book. My Japanese is poor, but I can't imagine a decent book having that property.

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