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NEWS: Japanese Manga Course in Washington State




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CrackaJax



Joined: 19 Aug 2004
Posts: 250
Location: Mount Olympus, Syracuse University
PostPosted: Mon Aug 23, 2004 5:45 pm Reply with quote
Wow. This is definitely an interesting thing. If only colleges in New Jersey did this...
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kopiikat



Joined: 12 Nov 2002
Posts: 29
Location: a realm of subtitles and bad dubbing
PostPosted: Mon Aug 23, 2004 6:36 pm Reply with quote
I doubt colleges will do this any time soon. If I read it correctly, this is a Japanese language center, most likely a privately owned small organization. If a college were to offer something small like this, I'm sure it would only be worth about a credit. Although 100 kanji is pretty fast for such a short period of time and so few classes... probably too fast. I took Japanese Monday-Friday for two semesters last year, and I can hardly read basic manga without extensive dictionary use and the internet handy for new verb forms I haven't learned yet.

On the other hand, I wouldn't be surprised if someone like the Japan Society in NY started doing something like this soon, maybe with those new "use manga to learn Japanese" type books that are coming out.
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CrackaJax



Joined: 19 Aug 2004
Posts: 250
Location: Mount Olympus, Syracuse University
PostPosted: Mon Aug 23, 2004 8:49 pm Reply with quote
Does anyone know of any school type text books that teach japanese? I loved the simplicity of the Paso A Paso series for teaching spanish, and I was wondering if there was anything like that for japanese.
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minakichan





PostPosted: Tue Aug 24, 2004 9:21 am Reply with quote
While I think this is kinda weird, it's a good idea!

I learned most of my Chinese by reading Chinese-translated manga (with a dictionary and a fluent Chinese speaker nearby of course!)

And this way allows students to actually figure out what stuff means by themselves at times, using context clues and the pictures in the manga. If you find it out yourself rather than have it taught at you, you will most likely retain it better.

^^
-Mina
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Former ANN Editor in Chief


Joined: 02 Jan 2002
Posts: 2460
Location: Do not contact me for support.
PostPosted: Tue Aug 24, 2004 3:53 pm Reply with quote
CrackaJax wrote:
I was wondering if there was anything like that for japanese.


Look for the "Genki" series of books. They're the best books I've seen with regards to basic grammar. You can also try the "Nakama" series, but it's not as good as "Genki" that I've seen.
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CorneredAngel



Joined: 17 Jun 2002
Posts: 854
Location: New York, NY
PostPosted: Tue Aug 24, 2004 4:51 pm Reply with quote
kopiikat wrote:
I doubt colleges will do this any time soon. If I read it correctly, this is a Japanese language center, most likely a privately owned small organization. If a college were to offer something small like this, I'm sure it would only be worth about a credit.


Colleges here and there have been doing this for about ten years now. One class that immediately comes to mind was at SUNY-Albany, using the Master Keaton manga. And as far back as 1994, Japanese Popular Culture in the Classroom, (Japan Digest, January 1994) discussed the specific ways manga can be used to teach Japanes specifically. I don't have access to Lexis-Nexis right now, but I also recall several articles on this topic appearing in education journals earlier this year.

Which is to say that what this particular course is doing is in no way unique...
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kopiikat



Joined: 12 Nov 2002
Posts: 29
Location: a realm of subtitles and bad dubbing
PostPosted: Tue Aug 24, 2004 6:42 pm Reply with quote
Yeah, it's been done before. I've read manga for my Japanese literature class. I just doubt you're going to get a whole university language class based on popular manga. It's just... not reliable. They use a lot of slang and a lot of inappropriate language that students shouldn't be using right away, and instead of working their way up to fluency, students would be forced to start reading at an elementary school level (at least.) You can't realistically read manga from cover to cover without a lot of language training. Hopefully, that particular class starts with panel examples instead of straight reading and also uses a textbook or handouts alongside the manga.

What I meant before was that if a class like that (8 sessions using manga) were to be offered by a university, it would probably just be a class for kicks, or be worth very little as far as credits.

Now, if there was a manga series specifically created for language learning... that would be different. In fact, that would be awesome.
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