I want to know where my Japanese reading level is at

I think I have been confusing myself... I want to do a reading exercise. When I see thread topics and I know the subject and people reply in Japanese I can't understand the replies word by word but things I do "seem" to understand relate to the subject which is a good thing because that means I am mostly understanding it right, but I don't know how well exactly.

For this exercise give me a subject word or even a picture of something and write very short and easy Japanese sentences about it. Then I will try the best to translate what is being written in English. Please don't spell out Japanese words in hiragana yet, but you can use hiragana words commonly found in the beginning of sentences and sentence endings. Like: ここ, この, これ, です, ます or で, は, を etc. Also right now don't try and "trick" me on things and if I get something wrong DO NOT flat out and give me the correct answer. Give me a clue how well I translated it, perfect, good, bad, terrible, so I can try again.

Thank you.

So, are you asking for someone to write a sentence here so that you could translate it?

If so, I would love to. But for the sake of time, let me refer you to a link.

Hiragana Blog | Hiragana Times

In that link, you have a subject word (title), picture and short Japanese sentences in kana + kanji.

Well, let me post one for you here.



日本は「原発ゼロ」へ向かう?

政府は40年以上使用した原子炉は廃炉にするとしていますが、一方では建設中の原発は完成させる決定をしました。




Or you could visit this JREF link and translate Japanese words, phrases and sentence to English.

Your reading level is beginner, because, from your posts in other threads, we know you haven't studied any Japanese grammar.
What you do know is some vocabulary, or meanings of individual kanji. While that may help you understand the very general gist of a text, you're not going to understand much more of what's going on because you don't get the grammar.

For example, lets look at the English headline:

Romney beaten by Obama.

Someone who knows no English will know that its about the US elections because he recognises the names Romney and Obama. He might know, recognise, or look up the infinitive of the word verb "beat" in a bilingual dictionary to get the meaning in his language.

But because he doesn't know English grammar he won't know who has actually won i.e. 'who beat who', because he doesn't understand the English passive construction. He won't know what that "-en" suffix on the verb means, and what the preposition 'by' is for.

So you are not going to be able to translate sentences from Japanese into English, unless you: guess a lot of the meaning from the context, look up almost every word in a dictionary and then guess who these individual words fit together, or use an online translator.

For example, if I see Tree blah blah blah man blah blah dead. I can make an educated guess the sentence is "A tree fell on a man and now he's dead." Although I couldn't be sure.

Move over, Pontius Pilate. I want to use the sink.

Why not try something like:
WEB版「エリンが挑戦！にほんごできます。」サイト閉鎖と新サイトのご案内 | WEB版 エリンが挑戦！にほんごできます。

chldudghks0517 said:

So, are you asking for someone to write a sentence here so that you could translate it?

If so, I would love to. But for the sake of time, let me refer you to a link.

Hiragana Blog | Hiragana Times

In that link, you have a subject word (title), picture and short Japanese sentences in kana + kanji.

Well, let me post one for you here.



日本は「原発ゼロ」へ向かう?

政府は40年以上使用した原子炉は廃炉にするとしていますが、一方では建設中の原発は完成させる決定をしました。

View attachment 11945


Or you could visit this JREF link and translate Japanese words, phrases and sentence to English.

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日本は「原発ゼロ」へ向かう? I believe it's saying that Japan is nuclear free and it is a quote but I think the rest says they might change their minds or headed in a different direction.

政府は40年以上使用した原子炉は廃炉にするとしていますが - I don't recognize some of the characters or combinations but what I got from it is, for over 40 years used and did -something- to this very day.

一方では建設中の原発は完成させる決定をしま した。 I believe it says something like, There has been a plan set to build a set of nuclear power plants.

Well that's me without a translator, also I was hoping for something a bit easier because this was a bit hard.

How close was I without flat out telling me?

That's about what I could do with French, German, Portuguese or Spanish....none of which I know the first damned thing about. My ability to recognize a few words (due to similarity with English words, in this case) has NOTHING to do with "my reading comprehension" in those languages, and EVERYTHING to do with "my ability to pull something out of my a$$".

I know you so very desperately want this to be like Chinese and the use of kanji has led you to believe that you're going to be able to figure things out to a satisfactory degree by recognizing a few characters here and there. And I have come to realize that it is an exercise in futility to try to tell you anything to the contrary. I've never seen anybody so doggedly determined to ignore everything everybody tries to tell him and so apparently equally determined that NO MATTER WHAT he just absolutely is NOT going to sit down and study a few basic beginner's level Japanese lessons...no, he's Mister Freakin' Super Genius and he's just going to intuit all this stuff.

I feel like Charlie Brown trying to kick the football. In fifteen years of trying to help people learn Japanese online never have I ever encountered anyone so apparently intelligent and yet so utterly incapable of listening to ANYTHING that is said to him and so sadly incapable of being helped. You're a real piece of work and I regret that I ever tried....total and absolute waste of time and energy all around any way you look at it.

Go work your way through at least SOME of this and THEN maybe you'll finally get a clue what we're trying to tell you.

Don't ruin this thread Mike .\/.

Err... you do realize that I am just some random guy that lives halfway across the world from a place you probably NEVER heard, where we will never meet in person that signed up for this fourm to HOPEFULLY learn some things right? Things I do(for a random person) seem to bother you so much... that's unhealthy for you Mike, just saying and helping you.

Quit saying you're hopeful of learning something when all you have done since you've been here is ignore all advice about learning something.

No wonder you caught hell on other forums. Have you given any thought to the idea it might be you?

Mike Cash said:

Quit saying you're hopeful of learning something when all you have done since you've been here is ignore all advice about learning something.

No wonder you caught hell on other forums. Have you given any thought to the idea it might be you?

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You know what? Next week I'll be asking my college Psychology teacher this question; How come people on the internet feel being "ignored" means you have to attack the person you are trying to teach and force them like a dictator to do what they want and of course if they do a mistake it means that you have to shoot them in the leg for them to learn.

There has GOT to be reason why people on the internet do this. I'll have the answer next week.

By the way Mike I do look over things you link me to and tell me even if my "posts" don't seem like it...

I think, and correct me if I'm wrong here Mike, that you're angry because even if Speedy HAS indeed looked at the things you've recommended, there is absolutely no evidence of it.

Speedy, you're here (presumably) to get help learning Japanese. Well Mike isn't getting angry for no reason; he's here of his own volition to help people like yourself. I've not seen all of his posts, but it seems to me that he only "yells" at people when they're being obtuse. I can't recall a time when he's responded to my posts in any sort of negative way.

The point that Mike keeps trying to make is that you need the basics. You need to stop thinking that Chinese = Japanese because it doesn't; the languages are incredibly dissimilar. The Japanese only started using Kanji because they had no writing system of their own and at the time, China was the height of civilization. Even in the early days, when the Japanese had no kana, you'd be hard pressed to simply read a sentence by knowing the Chinese meaning of the characters. And it's been centuries since then and both Chines and Japanese have changed significantly.

For example: 手紙 is "letter (correspondence)" in Japanese while it is "toilet paper" in Chinese. Sure, both of these interpretations make sense based on the kanji, but 私はあの人に手紙を上げた takes on a completely different meaning depending on whether you're using the Chinese or Japanese meaning.

We are here to help you, but you very much seem to be a beginner in Japanese and yet you insist on asking for material that is simply above your level and going at it as if it was Chinese.

Take the first sentence you tried to translate:
日本は「原発ゼロ」へ向かう?
This isn't a difficult sentence, and your translation is made more sad by the fact that the English translation was right under it to begin with.
"Is Japan Heading Towards a No-Nuclear Policy?"

I'm not saying that I'm completely sure what those other sentences are saying word-for-word, but I'm sure I've got a decent idea. The gist of the article from what I can tell is that the administration is attempting to decommission nuclear power plants over 40 years old, but plan to complete plants that are currently under construction. I'm more confident in my translation of the last sentence.

And yes, I used a dictionary to look up a few of the words I didn't know, but I know enough of the grammar to be able to determine how the parts of the sentence fit together.

We want you to succeed, but it's obvious that you need to take a step back and say, "Okay, no more Chinese in my Japanese study!" and then start from the beginning with no shortcuts and no preconceptions.

At the moment, it kinda feels like someone has come asking, "how can I avoid getting a concussion?" and we keep saying "stop hitting your head against the wall," and then they go on smacking their head on a car or something instead.

The reason that we keep harping on you is that you're HERE...on a LEARNING forum; would you expect a (good) teacher to stop trying to teach one of their students just because the student didn't like them or kept making the same mistakes over and over? No. And only the most saintly of them would be able to completely keep their cool if it went on long enough. The reason that it seems like we've lost our patience so quickly is because from the very beginning you've been looking for a shortcut that we keep telling you doesn't exist.

I don't like arguing with people; every time that I reply to one of your threads, it's after a great deal of deliberation. Trying to decide if I want someone that I will never meet to dislike me (because I'm stupid and care about crap like that), or worried that I'll end up making a factual error in something that I say, or worried that I'm just making things worse. Seriously, some of my posts take 30 minutes to an HOUR to write because I want my posts to be as good as they can be and to get the information across that I want, and need, to get across.

A great summation, except that I'm not angry. Exasperated? Yes. Angry? No.

Mike Cash said:

A great summation, except that I'm not angry. Exasperated? Yes. Angry? No.

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Yeah, I probably should have said "upset" which I feel could encapsulate exasperation. I think I was just going for how it could seem you were feeling; sorry.

No apologies necessary.

Angel Valis said:

Take the first sentence you tried to translate:
日本は「原発ゼロ」へ向かう?
This isn't a difficult sentence, and your translation is made more sad by the fact that the English translation was right under it to begin with.
"Is Japan Heading Towards a No-Nuclear Policy?"

I'm not saying that I'm completely sure what those other sentences are saying word-for-word, but I'm sure I've got a decent idea. The gist of the article from what I can tell is that the administration is attempting to decommission nuclear power plants over 40 years old, but plan to complete plants that are currently under construction. I'm more confident in my translation of the last sentence.

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err... thanks for giving me clues and not flat out telling me what it translates too. >_>

You're never going to get the answer just by looking at the kanji; when you're at the point where your guesses are almost opposite of the meaning, hints aren't going to help that much. All your problems are with kana bits/grammar - you didn't get what へ was doing, and how it connected 原発ゼロ and 向かう, so you're not going to understand things that have noun-modifying clauses (40年以上使用した modifies/describes 原子炉) and that sort of grammar.

Sometimes you just have to accept that a thing is too difficult for you, at least right now.

The site I linked earlier is aimed at beginners. You can see the scripts in Japanese (with kanji) and then see the English translations. It also explains the grammar/sentence patterns used. Why don't you start working through that, and then ask here if there are any places where you don't understand why the translation is what it is.

Mike Cash said:

I feel like Charlie Brown trying to kick the football. In fifteen years of trying to help people learn Japanese online never have I ever encountered anyone so apparently intelligent and yet so utterly incapable of listening to ANYTHING that is said to him and so sadly incapable of being helped. You're a real piece of work and I regret that I ever tried....total and absolute waste of time and energy all around any way you look at it.

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In this post don't read this in a negative way but Mike have you have been an actual teacher or tutor in real life than just teaching people on the internet? If you have, do you verbally abuse people that have a hard time learning in real life? I would really like to know how things turned out if you taught people this way. I myself is a tutor in real life at my college. I don't know if your allowed to do that in Japan but in America I would be fired right away if I talked to the people I tutor like how you post.

And btw, I knew what へ was from reading a hiragana book. It shows that something is moving or headed somewhere.

Mike Cash said:

Move over, Pontius Pilate. I want to use the sink.

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Just have to say that this post made me laugh. Really hard. Thank you for such a good laugh.

Mike Cash said:

In fifteen years of trying to help people learn Japanese online never have I ever encountered anyone so apparently intelligent and yet so utterly incapable of listening to ANYTHING that is said to him and so sadly incapable of being helped.

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Also about this "fifteen" year thing YOU ARE LYING I know for a FACT you are. Anyone, including me, who tutors or teaches people things about anything WILL come across people that are difficult, have trouble to learn, not interested in learning etc and you will meet them immediately when you start tutoring.

Mike please be truthful, seriously.

Speedy9199 said:

Also about this "fifteen" year thing YOU ARE LYING I know for a FACT you are. Anyone, including me, who tutors or teaches people things about anything WILL come across people that are difficult, have trouble to learn, not interested in learning etc and you will meet them immediately when you start tutoring.
Mike please be truthful, seriously.

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You want to know the difference between tutoring someone as a job and helping people out online? Money. None of us are getting paid to help you, so if you're going to be this difficult, why should we pull out our hair to help you?

You're disrespectful towards the language, you show no desire to take the advice that you're given, and you completely miss the point of most of our posts to you. I will not be surprised if you quote something from this post that has no bearing on what I'm actually trying to tell you.

I've group-tutored beginning Japanese at my University before, and here's the difference between someone who is having difficulty and someone like yourself; the person who is just having difficulty doesn't usually ***** and moan to their tutor about how they're a bad tutor. I had a student that had trouble, but he was respectful, listened to what I was telling him, and I could see that he was trying.

I sincerely believe that you are just a troll. You're just trying to rile up anyone that will listen. At this point, I just wish you would leave the forum and go bother someone else.

Some interesting links given in the first couple of posts. I think Hiragana times is a great way to learn.

Speedy9199 said:

err... thanks for giving me clues and not flat out telling me what it translates too. >_>

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Please have a look at the amount Angel Valis wrote, and all you can say is this? You might want to edit it or add something to it in my opinion.

"fifteen" year thing YOU ARE LYING I know for a FACT you are.

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Well he has been here for 10 years so why should he be lying about that?

How about we get back on topic?

Angel Valis said:

You want to know the difference between tutoring someone as a job and helping people out online? Money. None of us are getting paid to help you, so if you're going to be this difficult, why should we pull out our hair to help you?

You're disrespectful towards the language, you show no desire to take the advice that you're given, and you completely miss the point of most of our posts to you. I will not be surprised if you quote something from this post that has no bearing on what I'm actually trying to tell you.

I've group-tutored beginning Japanese at my University before, and here's the difference between someone who is having difficulty and someone like yourself; the person who is just having difficulty doesn't usually ***** and moan to their tutor about how they're a bad tutor. I had a student that had trouble, but he was respectful, listened to what I was telling him, and I could see that he was trying.

I sincerely believe that you are just a troll. You're just trying to rile up anyone that will listen. At this point, I just wish you would leave the forum and go bother someone else.

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No, your getting it wrong. It is the tutor that is being disrespectful not the person(me) who is trying to learn. I never posted like this ever before anywhere on any other site but if the tutor is going to follow me around the site and keep on responding to me in negative ways and uncalled ways when I ask normal questions that are not trying to start an arguement, thats another thing.

@ Davey yes, he has been here for 10 years is believable but I want to know if he has tutored people in real life and not just the internet or a web cam.

Fifteen years ago his mother was trying to get him to stop sh!tting his diaper.

I tried to get him to stop sh!tting himself that learning kanji was all he needs to do in order to read Japanese.

I hope she had better luck than I did.

Reading comprehension is my strongest point. You need to be very patient to acquire a good reading skill in my honest opinion.

Gentlemen, let's please not forget our good manners and keep it civil. Personal issues should be further elaborated on in Private Messages and not in public. Thank you.