February 26, 2008...8:30 pm
Novel Japanese study method
I thought I’d share with all of you other Japanese language learners out there a(nother) novel way of studying, this time with the Japanese version of Wikiquote.
It couldn’t be more straightforward, really. You just look up the name of one of your favorite writers, and there you have some of their best works translated into Japanese with the original English right underneath.
Here are some from my personal favorite, Oscar Wilde.
どんな愚者でも歴史を作れる、しかし歴史を書くには天才が必要である。
“Any fool can make history, but it takes a genius to write it.”つねに敵を許せ。それ以上に奴らを嫌がらせることはない。
“Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.”私はすべてを知っていられるほど若くない。
“I am not young enough to know everything.”
Unfortunately, the Wilde quotes are scarce, and there was no Shaw at all translated into Japanese. Einstein had a couple translated into Japanese but, again, the pickings were few. When I’m feeling a little bit more confident, maybe I’ll try adding some of my own translations.
9 Comments
February 27, 2008 at 12:21 am
Study Japanese With Wikiquote « Victory Manual
Japanese wikiquote is a great place to mine sentences to study. You can find quotes by your favorite English-language authors translated into Japanese. Great find by Victory Manual!
February 27, 2008 at 2:10 am
Wow, I stumbled upon your blog by accident, looking for some Japanese learning material. I’m so happy I found this, it’s great extra tool to learn some more Japanese! Thanks a lot!
February 27, 2008 at 10:21 am
Glad to have you around, Corre!
February 27, 2008 at 11:10 am
Hey Alex,
interesting post. I didn’t realize that Wikiquotes has English translations in there as well.
I’ve found the Japanese Wikipedia to be invaluable for tracking down pop-culture references. The best thing about wikipedia is that usually the first sentence gives a big enough overview of the topic to make things understandable. (Oh! IKKO is a make-up artist and talent. Actually, that is a bad example because that really doesn’t clear things up, but anyway.)
Always enjoy the Japanese tips.
February 27, 2008 at 12:13 pm
Another excellent point, Fugu.
Also, I use wikipedia when I don’t know how to spell a word in katakana. For example, I’ll go to the English Wikipedia site and look up “George Bernard Shaw”, then click on the link in the left sidebar to go to the Japanese version of the article, and low and behold, “ジョージ・バーナード・ショー”.
February 27, 2008 at 8:02 pm
Uh, that trick only works if you have the greasemonkey script that allows it, mind you! google wikipedia polyglot for it.
February 27, 2008 at 8:04 pm
huh nevermind. was it always like that? Anyways the script gives you the title.
February 28, 2008 at 10:19 am
So, now people not only trust Wikipedia as the source of knowledge, but we trust the people writing Wikipedia to understand the English quotes and translate them well. Hmmm… could be a fun study tool, but I might not trust that knowledge in a discussion with university professors.
February 28, 2008 at 10:38 am
Well, it might actually be a fun topic to discuss with a university professor, especially one whose academics revolve around Japanese linguistics, and can pinpoint where the translator misinterpreted the source quote.
That’s just my opinion, though.
Definitely, students shouldn’t take everything they get from a wiki at full face-value, but it still provides us with a mnemonic device to remember vocabulary words. (「愚者」？なんか聞いたことがある感じがするけど、どこだっけ…あっ、そうだ！オスカーワイルド！。記憶術だ！) Maybe I’m making this too optimistically ideal?
Anyway, I’m not suggesting people use this method to produce a thesis paper for their Japanese pedagogy class or anything.
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