A Lingua Latina for Japanese

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blueSkyred
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A Lingua Latina for Japanese

Postby blueSkyred » Wed Aug 25, 2021 4:14 pm

*** This post was approved by the Moderation Team. ***

Hi

I have been working for 2 years on website which is a sort Lingua Latina Per Se Illustrata for Japanese. You can find it here :

https://drdru.github.io/stories/intro.html

I have created the resource I wish existed when I started learning Japanese : some genuinely enjoyable content that introduces words gradually and reuses them a lot such that it acts as a natural spaced repetition system.

It is still a work in progress. The Japanese contains a lot of errors and the amount of content is still limited but I am currently working with a Japanese proofreader to make the pages I have currently written error free and I keep adding new pages on a regular basis.

For those of you who do not speak Japanese there are a few pages in English here :
https://drdru.github.io/stories_english/1_01_food.html

and one in French there :

https://drdru.github.io/stories_french/1_01_food.html

I hope you enjoy it !
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feleslucis
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Re: A Lingua Latina for Japanese

Postby feleslucis » Sat Nov 27, 2021 5:46 pm

Heya, are you still working on this? I'm also working on a nature method guide for other languages. Would you like to team up? I studied the nature method system, so I could help with a book version of your project.
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Remarkablemusician25
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Re: A Lingua Latina for Japanese

Postby Remarkablemusician25 » Thu Dec 09, 2021 1:11 pm

Hi feleslucis

Thanks for your comment!
Sorry for the late reply, I have been banned in the past (after talking to the mods we agreed it was more or less by mistake) and since then I have some trouble signing in. It's the reason I have had to create a new account...

I am still working on this project. I am happy to talk about teaming up. I had been looking for a partner for a long time without success but I am now happy to work on my own. I like seeing the project evolve even if it has no audience lol.

Regarding the possibility of making it into a book, I don't know. As a printed book it would be very expensive since it contains images and colours and I want it to be free to use for everyone.
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MorkTheFiddle
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Languages: English (N). Read (only) French and Spanish. Studying Ancient Greek. Studying a bit of Latin. Once studied Old Norse. Dabbled in Catalan, Provençal and Italian.
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Re: A Lingua Latina for Japanese

Postby MorkTheFiddle » Thu Dec 09, 2021 6:18 pm

How will your projects differ from the tadoku "method"?
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Remarkablemusician25
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Re: A Lingua Latina for Japanese

Postby Remarkablemusician25 » Thu Dec 09, 2021 8:34 pm

It is the same philosophy but it comes in a different flavour.

The main difference are :

- my project is self contained. In theory you can start from page 1 and keep reading. You should understand everything and build up your vocab as you go. Tadoku Graded readers reinforce what you've learnt but you need to acquire some knowledge of the language beforehand.

- Tadoku graded readers follow the JLPT levels and hence at the vocabulary they use is limited to the most common words. There is no reason not to use the word 'dragon' or 'pirate' in a beginner story because the word is not part of the N most common word of the language.

- I try to make my stories genuinely entertaining. The graded reader I have read are decent but I can only think of one that I found funny. I have had people telling me that they had a laugh in front of their screen reading my stories :-)

- the goal of this project is to show how I would try to solve the problem of how to speed up the acquisition of the Japanese language. It is free and it is one of its key feature. If you want to speed up everyone's learning process, making your product paid contradicts the objective.
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Remarkablemusician25
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Re: A Lingua Latina for Japanese

Postby Remarkablemusician25 » Thu Dec 09, 2021 8:41 pm

@feleslucis : since this account is new I can't reply to private messages.
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locro117
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Re: A Lingua Latina for Japanese

Postby locro117 » Thu Feb 17, 2022 12:26 pm

Great post and great work!! Since I loved doing Latin using that textbook I'm highly tempted to start with Japanese using your creation but I am a bit alarmed that you mentioned it might contain mistakes. How far has the proofreading gone? Otherwise I was on the verge of settling for Minna no Nihongo and perhaps I might just use both your work and the textbook. Any thoughts on Minna no Nihongo? If one were to couple your method with a published textbook, which textbook would you recommend? Or maybe I wanna ask which textbook you think is your main competitor in terms of your aims?
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Remarkablemusician25
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Re: A Lingua Latina for Japanese

Postby Remarkablemusician25 » Fri Feb 18, 2022 9:42 am

@locro117 : thanks for the kind word. The first three parts (60 pages) or so have been proofread and the fourth should be done in the next few months. Bear in mind that this is a hobby project from a non native spearker. I am not a Japanese teacher either. I would not really recommend to use it as a main source of study as it is now ! However I don't think it would hurt to start reading even at the beginner level (just don't take it as the definitive source of truth about the language ).

I have heard a lot of good about Minna no Nihongo so definitely go for it.

If you ever decide to read it I'd be very interested to get some feedback from someone who is still at the early stage of their learning journey. I have had good feedback about the quality of the content in terms of how entertaining it is but I have no clue how much it can help learning Japanese.
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locro117
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Re: A Lingua Latina for Japanese

Postby locro117 » Fri Feb 18, 2022 2:53 pm

I will let you know how it goes! I think what's especially good is that you've created what you yourself wish you had at your disposal at the beginning. Perhaps most textbooks that try to appeal to a wide range of people end up being stale and lacking in liveliness. In the end you are your best critic.

Thanks for sharing your opinion on Minna no Nihongo, it's definitely encouraging! I am in fact preparing for a bit of a challenge - 30 days of 10h per day of Japanese, starting from scratch. I did a similar thing with Ancient Greek and it was a success in that I didn't run out of steam given the intensity. There I used the Reading Greek course, perhaps the closest available equivalent to LLPSI. Right now I am vaguely familiar with maybe 50% of Hiragana and I've listened to a lot of Japanese without making sense of it as I'd read the English subtitles. Ten uninterrupted hours of Japanese every day invite (even necessitate) the need for multiple activities within the language so as to keep it interesting. Therefore one can be the two volumes of Minna no Nihongo, another this journey of yours you've so generously provided.

I wonder might you have any words of wisdom regarding my challenge? N1 only a savant can achieve within 30 days and I am very much not one. New vocabulary at the rate of 100-200 per day is something I can manage though. I find that learning a new language is a bit like trying to swallow a large sphere - it's steepest at the beginning when there are no connections between the individual threads of the language as it's initially presented to you but once you can memorise whole sentences the knowledge of grammar and the variety of your lexicon reinforce each other, hence the 'network' that's being built in your mind starts working its connections and drawing you into its "way of seeing the world" if you like, to the point where you can imagine and hear a real voice in that language. For that reason I always try to get through the first 1000-1500 words as quickly as possible and then I have a lot of momentum to connect the dots in order to hear a voice in that language and it's smooth sailing thereafter. The way I see it, if I can't make it to N3 I will consider it a failure whereas reaching N2 would be beyond my expectations - that's the gold I'll be chasing. Kanji will be alright but the grammar is the worrying bit. Greek presented its own level of complexity but Japanese is a totally different animal I am sure, what with registers of speech, particles, counters etc.
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Remarkablemusician25
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Re: A Lingua Latina for Japanese

Postby Remarkablemusician25 » Fri Feb 18, 2022 5:40 pm

30 days at 10 hours is 100 hours of study. That is less than a year at 1 hour per day. Reaching N3 in 100 hours seems optimisitic to me.

Have you thought of creating a log on this forum to share your progress?
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