User talk:Retropunk

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Contents 1 Japanese Wikibook 2 Typo in page name 3 Wikistress? 4 Japanese book update 5 Lessons development 6 More mergers 7 NPOV

[edit] Japanese Wikibook

Hi Retropunk,

I just added a comment on Talk:Japanese#Wow._This_is_a_mess which I wanted to draw your attention to as you're involved in this book. --Swift (talk) 05:12, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Typo in page name

Hi Retropunk,

I found Japanese/Lessons/Leeson_7 while browsing orphaned pages. Japanese/Lessons/Lesson_7 seems to be a more recent version of the former. Is it OK to delete that orphan? --Swift (talk) 13:02, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Wikistress?

Hi Retropunk,

Thanks for all your hard work on the Japanese wikibook lately. I'm happy that this effort to make sense of the existing material has been sustained so far.

I wasn't, however, quite sure what to make of the tone in your last few comments. I quickly wanted to check if you were unhappy with the direction or pace of progress; and, if so, whether that was something we could try to sort out before continuing.

I think we both want the best for this book and believe that discussing the ideas we have for it will benefit it greatly. A fresh viewpoint can often serve well, not only to spot the flaws in poor ideas, but also to improve already good ones.

I was a little confused by your comments on Talk:Japanese/Reading Hiragana. "Do what you want to do." Since it seems you've spent a good deal of your time on these pages I wanted to first approach you on this. Both to avoid stepping on your toes, and to get your oppinion on this; constructive critisism would be preferable.

I hope we can continue to work together to make this book the best it can be. --Swift (talk) 02:43, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

I wrote a comment on that talk page several times before I gave up.

The use of roomaji on a pronunciation table would only benefit the people who wish to impress people with their minimal Japanese speaking capability. Some people may be able to become fluent off of just learning words in roomaji. The use of roomaji as a guide for people to learn hiragana and katakana isn't better any better. In my opinion, the book should reference sounds as a pronunciation supplement for the kana scripts and not the hepburn transliteration. However, I don't know of any PD sound files for the entire syllabary. Another problem is when writing the kana scripts on a keyboard with IME or some other language software. IME translates the hepburn roomaji into kana and into kanji.

To summarize, I would not mind if all three scripts (hiragana, katakana, and roomaji) are provided for all concepts. I find it counterproductive to have it in strictly roomaji. --Retropunk (talk) 03:22, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm still confused. Could you please tell me if you're frustrated by the progress on the Japanese wikibook? My comments above weren't specific to the talk page I linked to.

Regarding that talk page. My last comment there only briefly mentioned romaji. The bulk of it was on how to best place content on the various pages. I'm, furthermore, in no way inflexible on any point.

It's this sort of stuff that leads me to think that you're frustrated. You seem to catch only the biggest sticking point in comments and lash out at them. I think we can conduct this in a much more constructive way. What do you think? --Swift (talk) 03:34, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm not frustrated on the progress on the Japanese wikibook, put please stop with the "[...] much more constructive [...]" talk. I'm not a child.

I've already stated my thoughts on using roomaji (which the current pronunciation page uses) as a resource. I suggested moving the Kana page portions to the page, which you disagreed with this. I've suggested moving the current pronunciation to roomaji page, since it's all in roomaji. You disagreed with this. I've suggested to putting everything into the page (pronunciation wise) - although I really wouldn't want to do this, but you believe that character pronunciation is some how vastly different from reading aloud. I'm tired of giving suggestions for this page. It's not "constructive" for either one of us for you to disagree with every one of them, or for me to disagree with you. If you have your vision on how it should look like, why don't you be WB:BOLD and do it. I'm done with my input for it. --Retropunk (talk) 04:20, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Your comments on my disagreement with your suggestions indicates that you don't find this part of the collaboration less than constructive. I'm not treating you as a child when I stating that I believe we can and hope that we would conduct it better. I'm treating you like a rational human being interested in discussion.

You list three points of disagreement and portray them like some long feud where I've been blowing off every one of your attempts to compromise. Rather, you've made two comments on Talk:Japanese/Reading Hiragana. After the former I give you a rationale for my opinion of how I see the content should be divided among these pages. I also give you my opinion that I believe romaji to be most useful for the pronunciation page and that I don't see much value in the Kana page (the content of which already exists on these other pages).

Nowhere do I state any of my opinions to be superior to yours. Never do I call your opinions or reasoning ridiculous. I've asked you for the argument for your views and am willing to be change my mind. I'm interested in discussing our differences as I believe it will improve the book. I understand that such a discussion may not be possible.

I'm going to back off from this and will refrain from contacting you again. I'm still interested in your comments and hope that you will review my contributions on this book and contact me if you're not happy with my work.

Take care, --Swift (talk) 15:32, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Japanese book update

Hi Retropunk,

I hope you are doing well despite a heavy workload. I just thought I'd drop a line to let you know my thoughts for the next few weeks and to see how you were doing.

My pace slowed down considerably after my old computer broke down. I've got a new one in the meantime, but am struggling with a few technical problems and won't be as productive as I'd like to be for a while. So far, I'm quite happy with where we've been able to take this book. We've trimmed away 33 pages, 15 navbars and printable versions, and 6 templates. Category:Japanese is now down to a much more manageable 176 pages (with an extra 39 in Category:Japanese vocabulary).

I spend a bit of time today reordering a few things on the Japanese/Contents page. I think it's beginnig to show quite nicely the reduncancies. The next step for me is to try to tackle some of these and merge where possible. I believe that only then can we start to massage the avaialable content into the structure give by a syllabus. There a lot of work to do, but while it may take long to get this done I think the end of this stage is at least in sight.

There are a few things I'd like your thoughts on. One is on the redundancy between Japanese/Reading Hiragana and Japanese/Kana. I took large chunks of the former and spliced into the latter with the intent to create a page that would merge the two kana pages since the two syllabaries share a lot of concepts, while leaving the pronunciation of these to Japanese/Pronunciation (where I've added some soundbytes that I found on Commons). You didn't see eye to eye with me on this, but I'm fine with leaving two versions of this content if there is support for either.

Given that you've been absent for a while, I figured I'd check in to see whether you knew how much you could contribute to the project in the near and far future. If you'll be away for a while yet, but have any concerns that you'd like me to keep in mind (such as whether you'd like to keep the Japanese/Reading Hiragana page and give it equal prominence on the Japanese page) please let me know.

Sincerely,
--Swift (talk) 06:01, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

I may be around occasionally to check on things, but putting a heavy effort into material is probably out of the question... at least in the near future. I'm normally free on Sundays and generally tired by then. I've looked your current rendition of Japanese/Kana, and while I have problems with it (e.g., references another page purely in romaji, kana page is partially romaji), I can live with it and the removal of Japanese/Reading Hiragana. I don't think there's a feasible way to make what I would be perfectly content until we get PD wav files for the all of the pronunciation. However, I would think we should require the person to review the pronunciation page instead of "See also:", which is more like a suggestion. I can ask a native to provide sound files - or at least try to find someone savvy enough to record them. My Japanese isn't even near perfect, so I would be a horrible choice.

The syllabus would be tough. It may be just wiser to have a constantly updated syllabus, but a consistently updated. A contributor can add to the syllabus their lesson (after making sure it's not a duplicated material) and add what they want. If we implement Junesun's plan, I don't think it's necessarily bad if the storyline is disjointed. It should be easy for everyone if we just make a starting point and a guideline to making an addition to the syllabus. --Retropunk (talk) 07:27, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply and the comments.

My reasoning for using romaji on the pronunciation page was that it's pretty much the first step into the language -- learning to enunciate what you are reading -- and thus students won't know any Japanese characters yet. The kana page does use latin characters for a number of words (e.g. dakuten and sokuon -- these is what you're talking about, right?) since the text is, after all, in English. Similarly we talk about a hamza, not a الهَمْزة when writing about Farsi in English.

I recognise the importance of using Japanese to practice and have purged several dialogues and vocabulary lists of romaji. I just find them akward these attempts to squeeze Japanese characters in wherever possible. There are perfectly good English words for these concepts. English text with English characters, Japanese text with Japanese characters.

I completely agree with you that the pronuciation page desperately needs more audio files. I don't mind leaving the page without these for a while. The rest of the book isn't that great anyway. Before this ever becomes a recommendable resource, we'll have to secure some decent ones. We're just not there yet.

I left the link to the pronunciation page as a "See also" figuring that the order of links on the Japanese page would imply that it was a "required" read. I'm reluctant to introduce "required" material at this point. We're nowhere close to binding this book properly together and people learn differently anyway. I don't think we need to hold students' hands all the way. --Swift (talk) 08:13, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

By the way, I contacted commons:User talk:Marsian last month and in passing asked if he'd be able to contribute sound files for the pronunciation page. He never got back to me, but I find his work to be of very good quality and would love to have a full set of audio files by him. --Swift (talk) 14:24, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

The use of romaji has always been my problem. Reading romaji is going to be a small portion of everyday Japanese. However, I'm willing to let this go as I have no idea how to represent the pronunciation without a full media library for the entire syllabary. I don't mind waiting on the "required" material. --Retropunk (talk) 03:30, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Lessons development

Hi Retropunk,

We've been managing a steady pace in getting through the Japanese/Contents which is positive. I've personally started on the easy stuff; merging pure grammer overviews and not adding much content. Every now and then, however, I glance over the meatier pages as well as your grammar list and wonder about how best to tackle that.

Not that I'm anywhere near that stage. I plan to concentrate on those grammar pages for now, but I was been wondering if you had formed some idea as for how and when you would like to move along with the work you started. If you think it would be useful to start hacking up and rewriting specific parts of the available content (such as the the introductions and other basic stuff of which we have way too many copies) to use in the first lessons in order to test some of your ideas, please let me know and I can give these higher priority when I'm choosing tasks. --Swift (talk) 19:38, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

I really haven't thought about moving forward on the lesson plans. I suppose I've been hoping we would get a somewhat expert, but no one has really shown up. Junesun gave an series of 'events' and vocab/grammar to be used for the first few lessons, which really isn't that bad from what I recall. I've just been too lazy to either hack up the existing and/or make new material. If you want, you can go ahead and take a hack at it. I believe my current setup for lessons is solid, but I'm opened to new ideas on presenting the material. -- Retropunk (talk) 05:13, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

I see. Do you reckon you won't contribute much to this Wikibook once we finish refactoring and copyediting the existing content? I'll have a look through your grammar points list and see if I can come up with an interesting path through them. It would be a very long term goal for me, though. You mentioned that JLPT is now five levels. Do you know how that has affected the material for the lowest level?

If you're looking for another Japanese-related project in dire need of help, there is always the JLPT Guide. Patching it up to reflect the new level might help catch prospective contributors who otherwise might just pass on. --Swift (talk) 15:31, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

The new level is between 2 and 3. There should be no difference for 2,3,4; and JLPT1 is believed to become more difficult. I'm not really sure what my future will be on this book. It's not that I don't think I'll be contributing, but more of, "Can I even contribute once we're at a certain point?" Lately, it's been more of, "I'm too tired to even think." I'll try making a few more pleas to a few more ENG<->JAP discussions groups: sci.lang.japan, lang-8 (again), and other high-traffic sites.. if i can find more. -- Retropunk (talk) 16:51, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Well, everyone has a point where they won't be able to contribute further. Let's see what your enquiries bring.

Hope you get some rest to regain your strength ... for wherever your path lies! --Swift (talk) 17:07, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

I've been thinking some more about the lesson plan. What is your source for the list at User:Retropunk/Japanese Curriculum/Outline/Beginner Lessons/Grammar? I'm interested partly because I'm a stickler for process and would like to document things for future contributors, but also because I'd like to see the corresponding lists for the other levels so as to have an idea how the form might scale and the various levels fit together.

Let me know if you hear anything from these discussion groups. --Swift (talk) 17:38, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

JLPT Study has the grammar for JLPT4/3. It doesn't have JLPT2/1.

E-Japanese Some more. It has some JLPT2/1 points.

[1] Shows examples for JLPT1/2. Links to EJapanese for 3/4.

It may also be useful to buy Kanzen Master. It's highly regarded. In general, you could just type "JLPT2 Grammar" and you'll get tons of hits. --Retropunk (talk) 17:12, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

The only JLPT4 grammar I found at these sites was on this E-Japanese page. I also tried to search a bit myself, but couldn't find much of any worth, and certainly nothing as detailed as what you compiled! I was really surprised about the lack of content on the JLPT official site.

I've been looking over the list and think I might try to order them up into roughly twenty lessons with a grammar point or two per each. I'm only worried about two things: that the list is incomplete or that I'll do poor enough a job at it that someone else will see it best to toss my work. --Swift (talk) 14:18, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

My list of grammar points came from JLPTStudy.com. I took their list and compiled it a bit. The best scenario would to get a book like Kanzen Master (or Complete Master)... but they don't have one for JLPT4. --Retropunk (talk) 22:19, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

I couldn't find any such list on JLPTStudy, I browsed everything linked from http://www.jlptstudy.com/4/: [2], [3] and [4]. The closest thing to a grammar list was on a site linked to from JLPTStudy: http://www.mlcjapanese.co.jp/. They have a bunch of material including a grammar list from past tests.

One of the reasons I'm so interested in finding a good source is to be able to update our list and the book. The JLPT is a useful measure but if we don't document how this book relates to the topics being tested, reader won't have much of a guarantee that it actually prepares them for the test, and future contribuotrs won't know how to update the book to reflect changes in the test. We'll need to create some sort of a lesson plan that can be maintained and for that we need to reference primary sources where we get the grammar.

A (very quick and narrow) interenet search revealed JLPT Taisaku Koumoku Seiri - 4 Kyuu Mondai-shuu which might also be a useful resource. --Swift (talk) 05:49, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

this is the exact page I took my list from - well, I may have update the list some. MLC has a lot of tests, practice work, and other fun stuff. I don't know about the book you mentioned. --Retropunk (talk) 06:56, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

[edit] More mergers

Hi, Retropunk,

Could I bother you to have a quick look at the Talk:Japanese#Removal Suggestions? I've managed a couple of spurts over the last couple of weeks and would really appreciate it if you could review my work before I start deleting pages. --Swift (talk) 20:00, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Sorry to bug you again. Could you take a quick look at the remaining ones? Cheers, --Swift (talk) 05:55, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

[edit] NPOV

Please take a look Talk:God's Rights/Amnesty. الحارث بن همام (talk) 03:44, 9 June 2009 (UTC)