I love Japanese philosophy, poetry, and religion. I would like to read more stuff that hasn’t been translated to English. Is this a feasible goal and how should I go about doing it?
Note: this idea was sparked from learning one of the best Chinese translators of the 20th century didn’t know how to speak any Chinese but knew the language very well.
(I know it’s a cheesy post but I couldn’t find one like it when I was looking through this sub-reddit)
12 comments
I don’t see why not.
technically yes but if you have to ask… probably not. someone with enough language experience to do it wouldnt need to ask
Are you saying you want to be able to read out loud without comprehension?
If it were just hiragana and katakana then yes it would be fairly easy. They are both phonetic systems. You wouldn’t be able to get the tone correct without understanding though.
Unfortunately, real Japanese is written with a combination of those systems plus kanji and it would not be practical or worthwhile without understanding the meanings.
Yeah I have been learning for over a year and starting to feel comfortable with reading. My listening is shit because I almost do not and I also don’t practice speaking. So basically I’m in the same boat.
Edit: speaking not reading
Of course, I can understand a lot more than speak, both in English and Japnese. But the best example would be the dialect of my grandparents (which is totally different from my mother tounge): I understand everything, but cant speak shit in it.
You’d definitely need a full-breadth knowledge of the language, since kanji rely on non-phonetic readings. But it’s possible to read very well while neglecting your speaking & listening skills. That described my situation for years and years
Listening, writing and speaking are skills that have to be practiced, just like reading. If you never practice output, then you wont be good at it. So if you concentrate on reading, then thats what youll be good at. Good luck~!
It’s entirely possible, and probably in some regards easier, since you won’t have to worry about listening comprehension or generative speech. It’d probably be like learning Latin; most people who do so will never speak it conversationally or need to listen to it, only read it.
It’s a very significant journey, though, and will likely take several years at the least, so at least be aware of that. I saw you mentioned that you’re bilingual in Spanish; I am as well, but Japanese is very, very different from English and Spanish. Spanish is considered at Tier 1 difficulty language to learn for native English speakers, while Japanese is one of very few 5s (technically the only 5^+ one). Part of the difficulty is that while the hiragana/katakana are very regular and can be learned relatively quickly, actual writing is done with Kanji, which are much harder to learn, as you have to just learn each one’s meaning and each one has at least two readings—often more, depending on context or usage.
sorry if it’s not an answer to your question but i’m really curious about the chinese translator you mentioned, could you please tell me his name?
Learning to read and understand the written language but have extremely limited speaking ability ?
You just described most of the academic world. A lot of people in the field only use Japanese to read sources and write in their native language.
It’s definitely achievable. You just need to learn Japanese as it if were Latin or some other dead language.
I’d consider it doable, as long as you don’t limit yourself to just the material you’re interested in, especially early on. If you go straight for philosophical or religious texts written in older forms of Japanese you’ll just end up banging your head against a wall.
I think you can and is probably easier. I’m a native Spanish speaker and my skill in English is nearly 0 when I have to talk face to face, but I can read comics, understand your post and write this (?)