Studying Japanese on a Kindle
Jun. 6th, 2013 11:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
flonnebonneFor the past month or so I've been reading fanfics in Japanese for 30 minutes or so before bedtime. This makes me sound all kinds of studious, but I actually only do it because reading in Japanese helps put me to sleep, ha. (Whereas reading in English keeps me awake.) Instead of counting sheep, I review vocab in my head. Zzzzz.
I usually read on my dad's Kindle, partly because it's easier on the eyes (again, the point is to fall asleep!) and partly because it has decent word lookup capabilities. It comes with one free Japanese dictionary and one free Japanese-English dictionary (very easy to download). You just press on a word to look it up. The Japanese dictionary is a little wonky on some definitions, especially when you look up a single character for the kun-yomi, but there's also a button to look things up in Wikipedia, so I use that when I suspect the dictionary is being weird. Using a Japanese-only dictionary is extremely helpful - I find that if I look at an English translation for a word, the English gets stuck in my head and I can't remember what I read in Japanese. I do cheat and look at the English definition on a few words here and there, however.
Oh, and another nice thing about the Kindle is that it's easy to highlight words. So if I want to learn a word/phrase, I highlight it so I can review it later. After I read a section (and I can separate sections with bookmarks, yay), I usually review the words in it right away and then never bother to review again, ha. But usually I see the important words again later while I'm reading, so the review happens naturally. I can also write notes, though I rarely do.
The reason I went for the Kindle instead of other e-readers, by the way, is the fact that you can email documents to the device and don't have to bother plugging the thing in or loading up a special program. Also, when you send the email you can also choose to have Amazon convert the document to a decent format by typing "convert" into the subject line. Very easy. This is really important to me because I mainly want to use the Kindle to read in Japanese, and it can be hard to get Japanese content outside of Japan by conventional methods, so emailing things while I web browse is the easiest way.
I should probably read actual newspaper articles instead of fanfiction though. Last night I learned how to say "impeller" in Japanese. I didn't even know what an impeller was in English before that. Not the most useful word in the world. I'm also learning a lot of fairly useless old-fashioned words because I've mainly been reading fanfiction for Final Fantasy 4, which takes place in a medieval-ish fantasy world (with a hovercraft and airships and a spaceship). But if that's what I'm interested in, that's what I'm interested in.
So far I've just been getting all my fanfics from pixiv.net, and I've got to say, pixiv is a horribly designed site. Too bad it seems to be the major platform for Japanese fanart AND fanfic. Regarding the quality of the fanfic on pixiv...well, my Japanese level isn't really high enough to comment - I think I actually prefer reading bad stuff because it has fewer difficult words - but I can definitely see that there's a lot of variability. Not that I can tell the difference between good writing and bad writing style at this point, but I can at least tell when the content is drivel.
Right now I'm reading a novelization of Final Fantasy 4 that's pretty cool. Fills in lots of backstory and changes certain plot points. The fic seems to be quite well-written, although I'm afraid to trust my judgement on that.
TLDR version:
-The Kindle has decent Japanese dictionary support.
-The Kindle is good for highlighting, bookmarking, and writing notes - all useful for studying.
-It's easy to email documents to the Kindle, which makes it easier to put Japanese content on there.
-Reading Japanese fanfiction instead of, say, newspaper articles, means you learn useless vocabulary and have to deal with pixiv, which is a horribly designed site.
I usually read on my dad's Kindle, partly because it's easier on the eyes (again, the point is to fall asleep!) and partly because it has decent word lookup capabilities. It comes with one free Japanese dictionary and one free Japanese-English dictionary (very easy to download). You just press on a word to look it up. The Japanese dictionary is a little wonky on some definitions, especially when you look up a single character for the kun-yomi, but there's also a button to look things up in Wikipedia, so I use that when I suspect the dictionary is being weird. Using a Japanese-only dictionary is extremely helpful - I find that if I look at an English translation for a word, the English gets stuck in my head and I can't remember what I read in Japanese. I do cheat and look at the English definition on a few words here and there, however.
Oh, and another nice thing about the Kindle is that it's easy to highlight words. So if I want to learn a word/phrase, I highlight it so I can review it later. After I read a section (and I can separate sections with bookmarks, yay), I usually review the words in it right away and then never bother to review again, ha. But usually I see the important words again later while I'm reading, so the review happens naturally. I can also write notes, though I rarely do.
The reason I went for the Kindle instead of other e-readers, by the way, is the fact that you can email documents to the device and don't have to bother plugging the thing in or loading up a special program. Also, when you send the email you can also choose to have Amazon convert the document to a decent format by typing "convert" into the subject line. Very easy. This is really important to me because I mainly want to use the Kindle to read in Japanese, and it can be hard to get Japanese content outside of Japan by conventional methods, so emailing things while I web browse is the easiest way.
I should probably read actual newspaper articles instead of fanfiction though. Last night I learned how to say "impeller" in Japanese. I didn't even know what an impeller was in English before that. Not the most useful word in the world. I'm also learning a lot of fairly useless old-fashioned words because I've mainly been reading fanfiction for Final Fantasy 4, which takes place in a medieval-ish fantasy world (with a hovercraft and airships and a spaceship). But if that's what I'm interested in, that's what I'm interested in.
So far I've just been getting all my fanfics from pixiv.net, and I've got to say, pixiv is a horribly designed site. Too bad it seems to be the major platform for Japanese fanart AND fanfic. Regarding the quality of the fanfic on pixiv...well, my Japanese level isn't really high enough to comment - I think I actually prefer reading bad stuff because it has fewer difficult words - but I can definitely see that there's a lot of variability. Not that I can tell the difference between good writing and bad writing style at this point, but I can at least tell when the content is drivel.
Right now I'm reading a novelization of Final Fantasy 4 that's pretty cool. Fills in lots of backstory and changes certain plot points. The fic seems to be quite well-written, although I'm afraid to trust my judgement on that.
TLDR version:
-The Kindle has decent Japanese dictionary support.
-The Kindle is good for highlighting, bookmarking, and writing notes - all useful for studying.
-It's easy to email documents to the Kindle, which makes it easier to put Japanese content on there.
-Reading Japanese fanfiction instead of, say, newspaper articles, means you learn useless vocabulary and have to deal with pixiv, which is a horribly designed site.
no subject
Date: 2013-06-07 07:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-06-07 05:55 pm (UTC)Off-topic, but do you know any English translations of the Three Kingdoms (or parts of it)? It seems like there ought to be some but no one I've asked seems able to recommend anything.
no subject
Date: 2013-06-07 05:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-06-08 06:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-06-07 08:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-06-07 06:05 pm (UTC)Off-topic, but do you know any English translations of the Three Kingdoms (or parts of it)? It seems like there ought to be some but no one I've asked seems able to recommend anything.
no subject
Date: 2013-06-08 11:33 pm (UTC)Chinese displays pretty well, but sadly the dictionary my kindle comes with only has simplified Chinese entries. Darn. I wonder where I can get a traditional Chinese dictionary. That's free, haha. Guess I'll just have to treat this as practice for my simplified Chinese.
Aw, sorry, I don't know of any English translations of the Three Kingdoms. It does feel like there should be some around!
no subject
Date: 2013-06-09 04:51 am (UTC)That's okay! I will keep looking. :D