About a month ago, I got an email from a very handsome man that went a little something like this. Very handsome man:

Hi Khatz, just wondering what you think of the JLPT. Is it worth taking to measure your Japanese fluency, even if by some chance it’s not required when applying for a job in Japan? If so, how do you know when you’re ready?

Let me answer that very handsome man’s question with a rhetorical question. Would you, native user of English reading this, take the TOEFL/TOEIC, to put on your resume in order to prove your English proficiency?

Think about it.

• You have a resume in Japanese.
• Your name is kanjified.
• Your cover letter is in Japanese.
• You talk to HR on the phone in Japanese, and they have to ask your nationality to make sure, because they thought a gaijin was supposed to be calling.
• You also write HR emails in Japanese.
• Your interview is in Japanese. Interview: a one hour Q/A session on academic/technical subjects.
• Not to mention the essay you submitted days before the interview, which you discuss and liberally quote from.

If this doesn’t prove Japanese proficiency, then what the billclinton does?

I hate the freaking JLPT. It’s nothing but a way for the test-givers to make money [nothing wrong with that] asking stupid 4-choice questions in which 50% of the time [fake statistic] 2 of the answers are correct Japanese in some reasonable context, but of course only one answer is “JLPT correct”. I know I’m being harsh; I understand and even share the desire for unbiased third-party evaluation of language skill. But this is not it, folks; it just friggin isn’t. This beast is a failure. The never-ending human desire to reduce everything to a number and a certificate falls flat again. And I like numbers. Dude, I love money, numbers and machines, and Progress and all that good stuff. Last week, I was wearing my sweatshop-made Nikes and washing down my McDonald’s burger with a Coca-Cola, when I accidentally ran over an entire family of hippies with my brand new Hummer; their screams were so loud I could barely hear my iPod. And this, people, is why I’ll be the first to tell you that these JLPT numbers is whack. Matt Damon and I both avidly dislike them apples.

The Japanese Language Proficiency Test is just like every other standardized test in that it doesn’t measure actual ability or proficiency in the field in question; it merely measures proficiency in taking the test. Oh, don’t get me wrong — you need to know some English to understand SAT directions and some Japanese to understand JLPT instructions, but beyond that it’s all about splitting the stupidest, ugliest hairs imaginable.

For the sake of honesty, it should be renamed to something along the lines of the “Japanese Language Proficiency Test Proficiency Test” — much like how the SAT has at various times in the past respectively been called the “Scholastic Aptitude Test” and the “Scholastic Assessment Test” but ETS had to back off them lies because SATs neither measure nor assess scholastic anything. The SAT group of tests, now literally reduced to a meaningless acronym, measure SAT-taking ability. That’s why Adam Robinson had to go and write Cracking the SAT . Did you know that your score will go up each time you take an SAT or JLPT or even an IQ test? Did ya suddenly become more scholastically apt? Did ya get smarter? Do ya know more Japanese than 5 minutes ago?

And somehow the JLPT people have got the whole freaking world convinced that you need a JLPT to get a job and even be recognized as an adult in Japanese society. None of my Japanese friends, colleagues and associates have ever even heard of the JLPT. Just as most English native speakers have no idea what the TOEIC and TOEFL are. Tellingly, the author of this super-excellent book discusses the phenomenon of people with madd dope TOEIC test scores but crappy English.

Anyway, the JLPT matters far more to and among gaijin, than to and among actual Japanese people. Because guess what — Japanese is not about passing tests, it’s about listening to, reading, speaking and writing real, live, uncut, unedited, NON-MULTIPLE CHOICE Japanese. Are Japanese people going to come up to you and be like:

“私は東京に行きました” And then go,
Did I go (a) TO Tokyo (b) FROM Tokyo (c) IN Tokyo or (d) AT Tokyo?

No! For one thing, Japanese people don’t say lamo, borderline textbook-sounding things like “私は東京に行きました” any more often than English speakers say “how do you do?!” or “what is your good name?”. More importantly, there is no multiple freaking choice in real life. Real life is “harder” like that, in that you either understood fully and correctly or you didn’t. But it’s also easier in that you can actually have fun practicing and not have your Japanese “childhood” turn into a JL-motherlovin-PT preparation ritual.

Urrrggh. Did I mention I hate the JLPT?
BTW, if they buy me off, I’ll take it all back. This post? Gone! What joke? Whose town?

Focus on 日本語, not on stupid tests. Take it from someone who knows: your daily interactions in Japanese are the greatest preparation and proof of proficiency. Watching comedy shows, talking to friends, reading manga — this is the real deal; this is life; this is your test of Japanese language proficiency. You should aim to be so good at Japanese that some stupid deskmonkey circle-filling test of it would simply be an insult to your very being — a proposition as ludicrous as asking you to take the TOEIC or TOEFL.

Do. Not. Learn. Japanese. To. Take. Tests. In.

End of rant.

PS: I have reviewed resumes written by candidates who (wrote they?) had passed upper levels of this JLPT (at least level 2, and maybe some level 1)…the resumes sucked — poor usage, terrible formatting, kanji errors left and right. For all their precious test scores, do you think I recommended them? DO YOU? In cases like this, and indeed in most of the cases that I can think of that matter, language skill is — or at least freaking well should be — self-evident; it doesn’t need to be tested.

Save your time and money for that cosplay convention in a couple of months.

End of rant. Really. I’m done.

And another thing! The arrogance of those JLPT-makers. When did I die and give them the right to decide what constitutes “standard” Japanese? On what authority do they decide these levels? By what divine, Khatzumotoan power do they decide the contents of the test? No, wait, scratch that — if you don’t yet know enough Japanese, the JLPTers can always hide behind that — all you need do is go look at some ESL/EFL materials to see for yourself the kind of bullwinkle that passes for language “education” and skill evaluation. My friend, the emperor has no clothes. You do not need these tests; they’re just a bunch of junk some people who think they know what they’re doing put together. If you really want to test your Japanese ability, turn on the television.

For real. The End.

You thought I was done, eh? Well, rants don’t conclude: they merely pause! I’m back with another talking point! What’s all this shizzle about “well, Khatzumoto, I’m going to take the JLPT to motivate me”. ‘The fooooooork? Dude, if you need, to shell out actual dollars, to have someone ask you, to fill in crappy little circles, with a stupid little #2 pencil, in some massive room, filled with other nervous deskmonkeys…to get <airquotes>”motivation”</airquotes>…then maybe you shouldn’t be learning Japanese in the first place. Dude, come on! Make your own phrekkin’ goals, man!

If you really want to test your Japanese ability, turn on the television.

A reader named Kaba shares her AJATT success story. Yay!

Hello there Khatzumoto~ though I’ve only commented once on your blog (by the name of Kaba), AJATT has almost taken over my life.  It literally will when I quit my English-heavy preschool teaching job in August [Khatzunote-o: this was written back in June].  Anyway, my story mostly consists of how I found success through any little thing I could find to motivate myself.

Working my way through Heisig seemed as natural and ordinary as it could’ve been. There were two main sources of motivation in this stage:
1. Bragging family and friends’ ears off about my progress (”I was at 1200 last week, and now I’m at 1550,” for example.  I became a little too happy with the “wow”s and such). I’m just not too sure what to say about how this bragging business involves English-speaking. Anyhoo…
2. Recording this progress on a calendar. Each day, whatever kanji number I was at was written on the respective calendar day.  If Tuesday’s number on the calendar was the same as Monday’s, I’d become ashamed and make sure such a thing wouldn’t repeat itself.  Seeing the difference in numbers between each day was a nice concrete form of motivation.  Also, setting a “last day of Heisig” date was effective since I was always trying to see how many days or weeks before the date I could finish, just to be extra proud of myself and all.  Almost each day I would surpass my daily average amount of kanji, just so I could happily watch my deadline move up.

Now, in the sentence stage, I’m using pretty much the same forms of motivation.

The Kanji Poster: This combines both physical evidence of progress and the ability to show off (though more humbly this time).  Here is what I do: Each time I learn a new kanji reading I write the kanji down on an index card.  By the end of the week, the card is filled with kanji that I am now able to fill in with a red marker on the kanji poster.  Once the whole poster is red, I will have accomplished my goal.  This definitely brings on determination to learn more readings, and anyone who passes through my room is bound to say, “Hey, your poster there is lookin’ pretty red if I do say so myself ;)”  Take a picture of your reddening (or greenening or purpling) kanji poster each week and you’ll truly see your progress.

It’s fun to watch them merge into large blobs of blushing kanji.

My last key to my success is entirely different, and something I just recently started.  I’ve found that swapping emails with a native Japanese speaker does wonders for reading comprehension, knowledge of readings and all the other abilities that seem to appear magically.  And, it puts the pressure on you to truly make an attempt understand what’s being said.  It’s easy to give up when there isn’t another party on the other end waiting for your response, but when you know you can’t leave the other guy hanging, there’s an automatic need to respond with something related to the kanji after kanji of email that was sent to you (and if you’re typing in Japanese, ask for your native speaker friend to correct your mistakes).  I’ve exchanged about 20 emails so far and now I find myself speed-reading even furigana-less manga…

Working full time has bought me some nice media to pull sentences from, but it has me on a slow pace. My “stats” are as follows: 560 sentences in 2 months, 200 of which were done on my one week vacation.  So guess what? Bye bye job

To sum it up, my success is muchly due to shameless bragging, concrete evidence of progress, and situations where one must must must understand the Japanese that’s laid out in front of one’s face (and plenty of time away from other obligations).  Whatever bit of motivation you can find with undoubtedly lead to results, which will, in return, lead to motivation once again, and it repeats over and over from there.  Obviously there’s the constant audio-visual immersion as well, but what else can I say that Khatz hasn’t about that?

That’s her story . If you’ve had success with the methods discussed on this website, please email me about it! I can put it up here and it’ll inspire other people, and you’ll save me some writing!

This is part 5 of a multi-part series on smoother SRSing.

I’ve mentioned timeboxing many times before; it’s just one of those things that’s so useful you want everyone to try it. Timeboxing seems to be very beneficially lopsided in that it’s super simple and super useful on the one hand, while also being difficult (although, like anything, probably not impossible) to abuse, since it is both flexible and inherently self-limiting.

Some people (one person) I know have suggested that timeboxing is only necessary because so many of us are so completely out of touch with our own feelings — and by “feelings”, I mean women and minorities — and preferences, having experienced so much forced activity from an early age. In Japanese, those people are usually called “hippies”. LoL. No, I definitely think that they (she) may be right; it’s a compelling idea, though kind of outside the scope of what I want to share here.

The actual mechanics of timeboxing are painfully simple. You simply limit an activity to a preset time of your choosing. All you need is a timer of some sort; I have a trusty pair of kitchen timers I use that are super easy to set and reset, with shortcut buttons for setting 10 minutes, 10 seconds, 1 minute, and cetera.

Timeboxing seems to be at the root of much of the mystery as to why people are able to do crap jobs for other people’s benefit but won’t even tidy their own bedrooms (as discussed here); many people get timeboxed in their daily lives at schools and offices, but few people ever take the controls for themselves.

OK, enough intellectually lazy social theory already. Let’s just discuss the benefits of timeboxing, for the uninitiated. This is a non-exhaustive list of some of the cool things timeboxing has done for me:

• Timeboxing helps you quit while you’re ahead — it’s fine to work to exhaustion sometimes, but always working on certain tasks to exhaustion will (subconsciously) plant in your mind the idea that the task is exhausting, which will make you not want to do it.
• In a related vein, timeboxing helps you make efficient use of energy. What I mean is, sometimes you don’t have the energy to go through 100 reps in one setting. But who says you have to? Maybe you only have the energy to do 120 seconds of reps. So timebox a 2-minute block!
• There are at least two basic types of procrastination. Timeboxing can help prevent both.
  • Evasive procrastination. This is where you simply don’t touch the task at all. Timeboxing can help you see past the fear and dread (in this sense, it’s actually getting you out of touch with your feeling), past the negative images of endless work, by giving things a concrete, relatively low time limit. You could say that timeboxing is a like an enzyme — a catalyst — bringing two substrates (you and your work) together, lowering the psychological “activation energy” needed to get the “chemical reaction” that is you working on task, to start up. This is the little biochemistry that I remember, so it may be wrong and/or outdated, hmm…
  • Working procrastination. This is where you’re doing the job, but you’re doing it slowly because you think it’s going to take a long time. It’s weird, people tend to work faster on a task the shorter they expect it to be: the effort they put in is inversely proportional to how much effort they think is needed; it must be an overactive self-preservation behavior — sort of a “why sprint in a marathon?” type thing. Anyway, timeboxing makes things shorter in both perception and actuality, and therefore helps you work faster.
• In concrete terms of SRSing, timeboxing has led me to play a number of different kinds of “racing” games.
  • In one version, I try to see how many reps I can do in 2 minutes; I sometimes repeat this game over and over, until suddenly I “run out” of reps!
  • In other versions, I try to complete the entire day’s set in 30 minutes, or get halfway in 15 minutes. Even if I don’t make it, the momentum/inertia keeps me going further…but sssssssssshhhh! Don’t tell my subconscious that; it’s not supposed to know.
  • Late update: I’m playing a new timeboxing game in which I have my SRS scheduled to automatically come up about once every 45-60 minutes, at which point I work on it for 1-2 minutes, sometimes longer if I feel like it, sometimes shorter. So, on days when I don’t have the strength to do all my SRSing in one sitting, I just split it up into tiny, unnoticeable chunks. What might have been a chore has now become a game, even a way to take a break from a different task. Sometimes I do actually have the strength and desire to do a whole day’s reps in one sitting, though…
• Indecision. I used to have major problems with indecision. Be it something big like buying a new major peripheral fer me computey, or choosing whut bloggin’ softweer to use fer me websoight, or something small like picking a treat at the convenience store. Then, between reading Steve Pavlina and figuring things out for myself, it dawned on me: if there’s room for you to be indecisive about a task, then the task itself may very well not matter that much. Think about it — you wouldn’t think twice about breathing air, or killing zombies[1], because it matters, you’ve got to breathe air otherwise a clown will die and your face will stick. But if you’re at a convenience store and you’re up in the air about whether to get soymilk or apple juice, maybe you should get neither. Or, maybe it doesn’t matter which one you get, it just matters that you get one in very finite amount of time and not give yourself an ulcer over it. More examples:
  • Picking omiyage (souvenirs) for friends back home; it’s easy to spend hours choosing a stupid souvenir. When we went to Korea last month, Momoko and I gave ourselves ~15 minutes to find a shop and 15 minutes to pick souvenirs for all our friends who knew we’d gone. Half an hour to do a task that could have been OCDed into a daylong ordeal of hesitation, regret and backtracking (”hey, maybe we should’ve gotten the thing at that shop we were at that’s now a 3-hour train ride from here?!”).
  • Picking an apartment. You could spend the rest of your life picking an apartment in Japan. After all, new properties are forever coming in and out of existence. This had been the solemn admonition of a Japanese friend back in the US, who, interestingly, was getting his MBA, learning to be an executive, and so was probably very much into decisiveness. Taking his advice, I knew some merciless decision-making was necessary. I made some hard conditions — (1) the apartment had to be a direct commute (no train changes) from my company at the time; (2) there had to be greenery nearby, (3) the rent had to be at or below a certain number, anything even 1 cent over was out, (4) the water pressure had to be good, because MY TURDS ARE BIG (5) the size had to be at or above a certain number of square meters, (6) it had to allow pets, and (7) I had to feel like going there — I figured that if I couldn’t be bothered to carry my feet someplace, there’s no way I’d want to live there. From that point on, all it took was a 10 minute phone conversation with the then-future-spouse to decide between the last two candidates. It took me 7 days to pick and move into my apartment when I first came to Japan. My colleagues were shocked: “give it more time”, they wailed, “give it a least a month or two”, they cajoled. All they could see was a fresh-faced, over-optimistic newbie who didn’t know what he was doing. All I could see was an invitation letter to do graduate work at Indecision University. I still live in that apartment, and I still like it. So do my two cats.

And it’s all thanks to timeboxing. So, sometimes a task doesn’t matter at all. Sometimes the sun goes round the moon — no it doesn’t, Vanessa Williams! Sometimes, it just matters that it be done and gotten over with. Most of the hand-wringing isn’t actually essential to the decision, nor does it actually optimize the final decision, it’s just a behavior many of us have fallen into to make ourselves and others feel better since we have this idea that “I took a long time and gave myself a lot of stress and emotional pain and engaged in much weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth in making this choice, ipso facto it must be an optimal choice, since the quality of a choice is directly proportional to the agony that went into it”.

I am not advocating recklessness; I am, in fact, advocating pragmatism. Worrying about something does not make a decision better. Verily, I submit to you that wasting your time and life worrying about what Kwanzaa gift to get your friends in Japan is the ultimate recklessness. Now, sometimes…sometimes…it’s good to “sleep on something” for days, weeks, even months — for example, when I had to come out to my family about being gay, black, Jewish, and Republican on the same day — but most of the time it isn’t; most of the time, that’s just procrastination. Most of the time, you just need to collect relevant domain information as quickly as possible, mix some logic here, some gut feeling there, maybe get some advice (not orders…too many people are looking to be ordered around because that’s just so much easier — take advice, not orders) and just pick, just go. Realize that you don’t have the whole world on your shoulders, you’re not curing cancer and Superman is not going to die because of this, and just get on with life; you’ve got buttocks to scratch and chocolate soymilk to drink, don’t let things like “decision-making” get in the way of that.

Thanks for reading. Check back soon for the next installment: part 6

[Update: The people have spoken! In addition to Amazon.jp links, alternative purchase links to YesAsia have been added where available! These may be useful to those outside of Japan, since YesAsia offer free worldwide shipping. Sometimes the markup makes it so that it evens out, but at other times it is a better deal for overseas customers. As always, the proof shall be in your do-the-math pudding.]

Don’t you just hate how so many magazines these days date themselves like three years in the future? I remember when I lived in the UK in the late 1990s, PC World magazine would put out its January 2015 issue in like 1997.

Exaggeration is humorous.

So I’m going to buck the trend, darnit! This is information collected in the past, so it’s going to be back-dated and there’s nothing you can do to stop me except voice your opinion in comments. OK, here we go.

銀魂/Gintama

• Format: Manga (Serialized), Paperback
• Author: 空知 英秋/ SORACHI Hideaki
• Furigana: YES!
• Genre: Period Action Comedy Sci-Fi
• Veracity: Fiction
• Color: Black and white
• Illustrations: it’s a manga, champ
• Notes: Multi-volume series, publication ongoing, a classic in the making
• Khatzumoto’s Komments: The Tokugawa Era. Twenty years have passed since the shogunate opened diplomatic contacts with extraterrestrials and passed the edict abolishing swords and, by extension, the samurai. But one samurai still holds out against the Roman invaders…Aaah, forget it! You just have to read it. Describing the set-up of Gintama in the hope of shedding light on its coolness is kind of like explaining Super Mario Bros. as “Italian plumbers jumping on mushrooms” or Cowboy Bebop as “space bounty hunters with jazz music”; it doesn’t quite do it justice. Anyway, both the manga and the anime own; it really is funny stuff. Loaded with characters you’ll wish existed for real, biting wit and parodic references to virtually every other manga, anime, drama or variety show ever produced in Japan, plenty of which you’ll know (Trick, Shonen Jump itself, and cetera!). Great jokes, great writing, great way to learn Japanese…Gintama will have you in stitches. While you’re at it, get the anime as well, for listening practice. Well, actually, just for plain enjoyment, but, you know — two organic clay pigeons, one free-range stone. ‘Tama is still in serialization (25+ volumes and counting), but unlike Dragon “We Own Your” Ball Z or One “Is the Number of Lifetimes You’ll Spend Buying This” Piece “…Of”, they’re actually worth getting.
• [Alternative Link]

日本の論点2008/The Issues for Japan, 2008

• Format: Annual Essay/Paper Collection, Paperback
• Editor: Various Artists
• Furigana: None
• Genre: Politics, Economics, Science, Technology
• Veracity: Non-fiction
• Color: Black and white
• Illustrations: pictures of every author, plus tables and diagrams on some but by no means all articles
• Khatzumoto’s Komments: I hate the news. Haaaate the news. Vapid, inaccurate, biased sensationalism prepared by people who don’t know what they’re talking about but are acting as if they do. I stopped watching the news and reading newspapers a long time ago. But I still want to know what’s going on in the world. As soon as I saw this handsome paperback tome (it’s nearly 1000 pages long) at the train station, I knew I had to have it. Filled with essays (papers?) written by experts in their respective fields, often having wildly differing opinions on the same issue (minus simplistic Crossfire-style posturing for the sake of posturing). People who actually know what they’re talking about, debate, discuss and dissect in commercial-, spin- and (relatively speaking) brainwashing-free black and white text. No one pretending to be impartial, no one pretending to simply be giving an account of the facts; it’s got all the issues that are in daily newspapers — increasing pet ownership, relations with BRICs, the aging population — without the fluff and facade. This collection also boasts a number of papers by people who wrote the book on subject X, be it immigration or “parasite singles”.
• Sidenote: The author bios and references to other works are perfect for follow-up. From the perspective of a learner, I’d say you’d do just as well getting a previous year’s issue if the price is right.
• [Alternative Link]

中央公論/Chuuou Kouron

• Format: Monthly Magazine, Paperback
• Author: Various Artists
• Furigana: None
• Genre: Politics, Economics, Science, Technology
• Veracity: Non-fiction
• Color: Black and white
• Illustrations: some, but not that many
• Khatzumoto’s Komments: Another favorite of mine. Think of it as a monthly version of 日本の論点 (which is an annual collection). As you might expect from a more frequently published work, it’s slightly more prone to knee-jerky, alarmist, fadish discussion than 論点, but overall, still a worthy read. You might consider getting this one from your library if you can. Failing that, from a learner’s perspective, it may be worth buying a couple of issues if only because it’s much more portable than the 800+ pager that is 論点.

なんで時間がないんだ？―やりたいことができる時間捻出法/ Why Don’t I Have Any Time? How To Make The Time To Do What You Want

• Format: Single Book, Paperback
• Author: 菅野結希/KANNO Yuuki
• Furigana: None
• Genre: Personal Development, Personal Organization
• Veracity: Non-fiction
• Color: Black and white
• Illustrations: some funny little scribbly manga, but not that many
• Khatzumoto’s Komments: One of my favorite PD books; I’ve read and re-read this one many times, and it’s been on heavy rotation in my manbag for weeks at a time. Kanno firmly locates the source of a good portion of time poverty in simple untidiness. And seeks to kindly, gently and humorously (you’ll love her style, and the way she suddenly breaks into new parapgraphs to emphasize something — a tool I copied, by the way) lead you to a saner, tidier lifestyle, without the OCD/type A/guilt-based/Victorian appeals to morality (”cleanliness is next to godliness, you ****ing wogs!”) that are typically associated with getting things in order. She makes you want to be neat, and makes you want to read her book and makes it feel good; no one’s scolding you. One of the most powerful and deceptively-simple-in-a-”didn’t everyone learn this as children?”-way pieces of advice she gives is this: “出したら、仕舞う” — if you take it out, put it back. It sounds almost stupid when you think about it…but how many adults do you know that have yet to master this? That mother of yours…
• [Alternative Link]

どこへいくの?ともだちにあいに!/何処へ行くの？友達に会いに！/Where Are You Going? To See My Friend

• Format: Picture Story Book (Ehon), Hardcover
• Author: いわむら かずお/IWAMURA Kazuo, エリック・カール/Eric CARLE
• Furigana: All hiragana, but no kanji
• Genre: Children’s Books
• Veracity: Fiction
• Color: Yes
• Illustrations: Tons, it’s a picture book!
• Khatzumoto’s Komments: Wow. Writing these is tiring. Yeah, so, this is a straight up 絵本（えほん）– a (children’s) picture book. Um…yeah. It looks like it’s not actually a mere translation, but, in fact, a bilingual joint collabo venture between Iwamura and Carle. Sweet. I read this book back in the day; the repetition was really cool and firmly planted some really useful structures (”grammar”) in my mind. It’s so simple, in fact, that I never found it necessary to look at the English; everything is clear from context. The lack of kanji kind of sucks hard for RTKers like you and me — and it’s what kept me and 絵本 from seriously dating, but oh well…You know, to tell you the truth, I really want to write something like this, except with kanji. Dick and Jane was an attempt at that, but…I feel like it got too complicated. Oh yeah, this was supposed to be about someone else’s book. Anyway, it’s a good book. Buy or borrow it.
• [Alternative Link]

マンガ金正日入門/A Manga Introduction to Kim Jong-Il

• Format: Manga (2-volume series; this is only the first book), Paperback
• Author: 李 友情 (著)/Ri Yuujou, 李 英和/Ri Eiwa (Translation)
• Furigana: None
• Genre: Politics, History, Biography
• Veracity: Non-Fiction…かなぁ
• Color: Black and white
• Illustrations: it’s a manga, champ
• Khatzumoto’s Komments: Mmm…due to the nature of the subject matter and information sources involved, you can never be sure that this kind of thing is entirely true. Early in the book, they attempt to insinuate that Kim Jong-Il/金正日 killed his little brother when they were like 6 years old…And they keep drawing Kim Il-Sung/金正成 with like this massive, hideous goitre action going on. Hmmm…mmmmm…I mean, at least try to fake some grounding in reality, son! This is the sort of thing that is later revealed to have been reverse propaganda — kind of like the borderline-fraudulent exaggeration of Soviet military capability by let’s just say people who hang out in five-sided buildings. Either way, it’s an enjoyable read, and potentially a fascinating history lesson. Sounds like a lot of drama went down on that Korean peninsula. Yeeah! Asia! トヨタ！寿司！
• [Alternative Link]

サムライチャンプルー/Samurai Champloo [Vol. 1][Vol. 2]

• Format: Manga (2-book series), Paperback
• Author: ゴツボ マサル/Gotsubo Masaru
• Furigana: Yes! Yes!
• Genre: Hip-Hop Samurai Action
• Veracity: Fiction
• Color: Black and white
• Illustrations: Um…manga?
• Khatzumoto’s Komments: You already know that Samurai Champloo is one of the best anime ever. Now, enjoy the manga! There were only two volumes produced, but they have much of the anachronistic humor and sweeping, breathless action of the original. チェケラチョー (check it out, y’all!)

クレヨンしんちゃんヌパン4世＆エンジェル編/Crayon Shinchan: Nupin the 4th’s Angels Edition

• Format: Manga, Paperback
• Author: 臼井義人/USUI Yoshito
• Furigana: Yes
• Genre: Humor
• Veracity: Fiction
• Color: Black and white
• Illustrations: Um…manga?
• Khatzumoto’s Komments: Crayon Shinchan is a living legend. Naughty humor for the peoples. And it’s especially good for kanjiphiles — imagine an irreverent, full-kanji, furiganaed children’s book — since we tend to skew ourselves toward reading abstract material if only because (1) that’s what much of the adult world is about and (2) kanji gives us that power. But words like うんこ and おしっこ are just as much a part of Japanese as 大胸筋矯正サポーター. So, Crayon Shinchan is like Shrek, in that it’s ostensibly “for children”, but the humor is really operating at two levels; it’s the kind of thing parents purport to purchase for their progeny but actually end up reading on their own. The regular Crayon is great to begin with, and this owns even more: it’s a special edition (one of several? are there more? I don’t know?) in which our titular hero keeps his toddler age and personality, but is taken out of his usual family context and put into spoof fantasy worlds loosely based on cultural icons like Lupin the Third, Charlie’s Angels and Jackie Chan movies. In one episode, “drunken fist kung fu” turns into “somniferous fist kung fu”, whereby “Shin Chan” becomes more powerful the sleepier he gets…yeah, there are tons of puns, and you’ll enjoy them all. And another thing! The humor is all basically self-contained, such that knowledge of the regular Crayon Shinchan is not a prerequisite. You’ll be laughing out loud in public, causing yourself both joy and embarrassment.
• [Alternative Link]

【携帯版】思考は現実化する/Think and Grow Rich

• Format: Single Book, Paperback
• Author: ナポレオン＝ヒル（著）、田中孝顯（訳）| Napoleon HILL (author), TANAKA Takaaki (translator)
• Furigana: No
• Genre: Pre-New Age/Hippy, Good, Old-Fashioned Personal Development
• Veracity: Non-Fiction
• Color: Black and white
• Illustrations: None
• Khatzumoto’s Komments: Yeah, this book needs no introduction, really. It’s one of the “classics” of the PD genre. Unlike classics in other fields, though, people actually read this one…of their own free will. Translator Tanaka had a bad habit of splitting this thing up into multiple volumes (print and grow rich?), and adding, I kid you not, MORE FOOTNOTES THAN ACTUAL BOOK…a single tome becomes a freaking trilogy but I’m not bitter. Friggin’…Anyway, so I’m mostly putting this thing up because it combines everything in one nice paperback as Nature intended! And I had a hardish time finding it. So here. I give. To you. Thank me later.
• Sidenote: There is also a diagram-based (Japanese) version of TAGR that’s longer on pictures but kind of shallow and short on content; the most interesting thing about it is that it has this sort of “pedigree” of PD speakers/authors, showing who was whose direct sensei/disciple. Also, Hill didn’t actually write it; it’s more of a Cliff’s Notes prepared by the Asia Pacific HQ of the Hill Foundation. So, yeah…The version you most likely want is the main one previously discussed.
• [Alternative Link]

OK, that’s it! Feel free to share your own recommendations, or requests for the kinds of books you(d like evaluated for next time. I figure a lot of people are wanting 敬語 and programming books, and I haven’t put those up here yet, so that might be the focus of the next edition of KBL (hey! sounds like “kibble”!). OK, see you next time!

Hello [I am Lothar of the Hill People]! And welcome to the 0th edition of what many people are calling “The Oprah’s Book Club of the Internet, but without the charm, influence or relevance, and mostly in Japanese anyway…”.

A lot of people have asked me for book recommendations. And I struggle with this. On the one hand, I hate being told what to do, and I don’t want to tell people what to do — the whole of AJATT can be summed up in one phrase: “if it’s in Japanese, then it’s good”; that’s the only “condition” or “rule” if you will. Also, my books reflect my tastes, I mean, this is the difference between a typical class environment and doing stuff alone — you don’t have to read that lowest-common-denominator crap about “hey, what’s your major?”, and “Hello, I’m Tanaka Tarou from the ABC company”.

Speaking of interests, I hardly read any novels. Generally speaking, novels and me are not friends. I skip to the last page and try to get myself an executive summary before my next board meeting, nome same? Hehe…mmmm.

Having said all that, there are a ton of Japanese books out there, and when you’re just starting out, it can be a challenge to tell what books are worth getting. Especially if you’re buying exclusively online, and don’t have a chance to, skim, scan and sample the books in question.

So I’ve come up with a compromise: every month I’m going to just リストアップ (list up) the books I’m currently reading, or books I have previously read and really liked, and think you might enjoy. And give you a line or two about why I liked them. Sometimes I might even put up books I hated, but that were interesting.

By the way, I was inspired to do this by the Yamaneko Honyaku Club, which, while now apparently inactive, gave me some super useful book recommendations when I was walking up the Japanese hillock of literacy. Check it out.

Levels

I hate levels. For one thing, they’re all just made up anyway. And who the phork’s business is it what you read? If you’re 7 years old and you want to read War and Peace , then read War and Peace (note to all 7-year-olds: this book is about as entertaining as a 1000-page album of other people’s baby pictures in dim light; you’re not falling asleep because you’re stupid, it’s just that this book is indeed boring; remember, if you’re not sad that the book is ending (I’m running out of pages!), then it’s not a fun book for you). You, too, can enjoy any Japanese reading material at basically any time in your Japanese process.

Besides, that, no matter how “simple” a book in terms of level, if it’s boring, then game over. And no matter how supposedly “complex” a book, if you’re enjoying it, then you = teh winn0r. Remember, always give priority to your interests over your level. Something you’re interested in means you’re going to have domain knowledge. A science manga may be hard to read…unless you’re a scientist. As Nick Hornby hinted, it really isn’t that intellectually taxing for a physicist [someone who has extensive domain knowledge in physics] to read a physics book.

Nevertheless, I mean, it is, I guess, a fact that one goes through phases in one’s language development. So…so…(do you like how I write this as it comes?) here are some…some…(you like it?) arbitrary levels I pulled out of my…my…mind, with some reference to my current Cantonese experience. The numbers are nothing but a rough guide, and they may be completely wrong, and truth be told, I don’t know if I’m actually going to use them or not in the end, but here they are just for kicks anyway.

• Egg [0 - 500 sentences/fun listening hours] — pure n00bology, learning the very basics
• Caterpillar [500 - 1500 sentences/fun listening hours] — know all the basics
• Chrysalis [1500 - 5000 sentences/fun listening hours] — that magical intermediate phase, that strange stage where you understand maybe 75-80% of randomly picked authentic material, which is really good, but at the same time not yet enough to actually comprehend something new and raw in its entirety, since this still implies ignorance of every fourth or fifth word.
• Butterfly (you’ flyin’, baby!) [5000+ sentences/fun listening hours] — at this stage, you’re pretty comfortable with lots of stuff, you know far more than you don’t, and the words you are acquiring are of increasing rarity (low frequency).
• Daoist Butterfly — you’re no longer sure whether you’re a Japanese person who dreamed she was gaijin, or a gaijin who dreamed she was Japanese. This is native-level fluency. 本でも書け、ゴルァ！

お待たせしました！日本語上等ポッドキャスト第3回！フゥー！

今回、スペシャルゲストとして、ユーチューブで超有名のTkyoSamをお迎えしております。ご清聴あれ！

Jubilation! After a long wait, the podcast has come to it’s magical third episode! Today, we welcome Youtube’s one and only TkyoSam as our special guest. Rissun!

The mp3 file of the podcast that is being referred to in the title of this post.

Once again, special thanks to Kevin son of McLeod for the music.

トニー、宜しくね！