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Book Recommendations please

Posted: Fri Jul 29, 2005 16:54
by Gaseous Snake
Don't know if I really want to learn Jap as I'm Chinese and we're genetically encoded to hate the Japanese (and do mad kung fu), but on the other hand they do make cool comics and games, so it might be useful. And I hear Jap girls are even looser than Christina Aguilera! I once caught herpes off her after she signed my hand.

Aaaaaanyway, as far as language study goes I like to chat to people and stuff of course, but I also spend a lot of time studying by myself, buried in good books and arming myself with grammar and vocab. Ergo, I ask for your recommendations on books you've found useful. I'd say I'd need books that fall broadly into these categories:
1. Grammar - good, concise grammar book in plain English, hopefully not filled with words like "ellipsis" and "antecedant"
2. Characters book(s) - there's three alphabets or summink right? Well, I have NO idea how they work together and how people decide to use what characters when writing, so any suggestions here would be ace.
3. Dictionary - goes without saying really. Need a good english-jap, jap-english dictionary that has pronunciations and 'compound words', if you know what I mean. Bonus if it weighs less than my head.
4. Reading material - I dunno, just stuff that would be well graded for a beginner up to intermediate student to read, whether it be a textbook or other material, and is relevant. For example, baby books could be read by a beginner, but that'd be pretty retarded.

Ya, that's all I can think of for now. Any help you can give would be grand. And even if I decide I can't be arsed to learn the language, think about all the others who might read this post and your recommendations afterwards!

Posted: Fri Jul 29, 2005 17:46
by Perfect Stranger
For the dictionary, I highly reccomend Kodansha's Romanized Japanese-English Dictionary
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/de ... 3?v=glance

Relatively compact, good explainatory entries and indexes. It's only romanized though, so if you need an English-Japanese dictionary as well, you might want to try the other Kodansha dictionaries.

Online dictionaries are pretty good too. The one I use most often is Jim Breen:

http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/cgi-bin/c ... wwwjdic?1C

I also used to depend on Jeffrey's dictionary quite a bit before I found Jim Breen:

http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/cgi-bin/c ... /sjis/dict

As for textbooks and stuff - er, don't really have any recommendations...

Posted: Mon Oct 10, 2005 07:33
by SonicTempest
late_reply++;

As far as textbooks go, I use <i>Yookoso!</i> for my college courses. It's not bad, but it has a ton of supplementary material like CDs and workbooks and crap which might be a little on the pricey side.

Posted: Wed Jan 11, 2006 07:32
by Demon_Mexican
For character books that I found very effective were the "Jimi's book of Japanese" These book are designed to appeal to a wide age range, but from the looks of it the books appeal more for a younger audience. But dont let the looks fool you, I mean I didnt know anything about japanese characters like hiragana/katakana. So I decided since I didnt know anything I should start from the bottom.

http://www.pbjomnimedia.com/

There are two books Hiragana and Katakana.

Here are the features of the Hiragana Book

1. Master the 46 most important Hiragana
2. Learn to read, write and pronounce kana from A to WO
3. Learn to count from ichi to gojuuni

PLUS:
1. More than 250 full-color illustrations
2. More than 125 up-to-date vocabulary, simple definitions
3. Quick-reference visual library
4. Ready-to-use culture tips, greetings and MORE!

hahaha thats funny how it all sounds....oh well I hope these features make you take interest in these books. The Katakana book also has the same features as the Hiragana book but a few different features that compliment the Katakana strategies.

Oh yeah I forgot the most important information ish the price. The books cost $16.95 each.

Hope this information was able to help you reach your goals a step closer. In the great words of Rick James "Its a celebration Bitches, ahahahhaah enjoy yourself"

PS: Sorry for the late ass post :P

Re: Book Recommendations please

Posted: Sun Feb 05, 2006 15:29
by Josh
Gaseous Snake wrote:Don't know if I really want to learn Jap as I'm Chinese and we're genetically encoded to hate the Japanese (and do mad kung fu), but on the other hand they do make cool comics and games, so it might be useful. And I hear Jap girls are even looser than Christina Aguilera! I once caught herpes off her after she signed my hand.

Aaaaaanyway, as far as language study goes I like to chat to people and stuff of course, but I also spend a lot of time studying by myself, buried in good books and arming myself with grammar and vocab. Ergo, I ask for your recommendations on books you've found useful. I'd say I'd need books that fall broadly into these categories:
1. Grammar - good, concise grammar book in plain English, hopefully not filled with words like "ellipsis" and "antecedant"
2. Characters book(s) - there's three alphabets or summink right? Well, I have NO idea how they work together and how people decide to use what characters when writing, so any suggestions here would be ace.
3. Dictionary - goes without saying really. Need a good english-jap, jap-english dictionary that has pronunciations and 'compound words', if you know what I mean. Bonus if it weighs less than my head.
4. Reading material - I dunno, just stuff that would be well graded for a beginner up to intermediate student to read, whether it be a textbook or other material, and is relevant. For example, baby books could be read by a beginner, but that'd be pretty retarded.

Ya, that's all I can think of for now. Any help you can give would be grand. And even if I decide I can't be arsed to learn the language, think about all the others who might read this post and your recommendations afterwards!

You fucking madman!!!


Try kof paradise that has translated hentai

Posted: Mon Feb 06, 2006 07:22
by Perfect Stranger
....WTF?

The guy is asking for books that will aid in learning Japanese, not to be called a fucking madman, or to be pointed to translated hentai.

Consider this your first warning. I doubt there'll be a second.