The recent interest in my newsletter has been quite overwhelming. Just a few days ago, this letter went out to only a few people. Today, we have formed a community of over 1500 learners. I’m very grateful for your support and happy to know the newsletter is helping you in your studies. Please keep sharing this resource, so that more people can benefit from it. Hopefully over time, we can form a more interactive community that helps and supports each other.
First, I’d love to get to know all of you better. Some of you have already been in touch about suggestions for improvement (please keep doing this, I welcome your feedback). Let me know what motivates you to study Japanese, what your biggest hurdles are, and what you hope to get out of this newsletter.
Please drop a line and introduce yourself in this public thread, or get in touch privately by replying to any of the daily snippets.
Haha, you're completely right! I should have probably introduced myself first.
I'm originally from The Netherlands where I also live today. I started studying at university in 2005 at age 18, but due to circumstances I was exposed to Japan, the language and the culture, from the age of 2. I was lucky enough to visit the country when I was 8 for the first time. But I really got hooked when I was on a music tour of Japan at age 15. I met a lot of people who had studied the language and culture at university and decided that this was what I wanted to do as well. From that moment on, Japan, and especially the Japanese language became my life. I studied day and night, and after my second year I was able to go to Japan through an exchange program. I lived there for a year, but went back for another year during my MA degree. After I finished my studies I became a language and literature lecturer at my home university, but I was hungry for more. I quit my job and went back to Japan, took the entrance exam at the literature department of a university in Tokyo, and did another MA degree, all in Japan (writing a single-spaced 80 page thesis in Japanese was one of the best writing courses I ever took...). After finishing my Japanese MA, I went to study some more (I know, when am I finally going to grow up...!?) in the U.S. for two years. Three years ago I returned to Holland where I currently teach Japanese language and literature and do a lot of translation work.
I got into Japanese literature because of my love for the language. I usually get bored very quickly, but for some reason Japanese has remained my obsession for the last 15 years. During my teaching I always get a kick out of it when others get enthusiastic as well. This is why I want to share my passion with as many people as possible. Holland has been in lockdown for a while now, so in order to do something productive that actually helps people (initially just my own students) I started this newsletter. I noticed that the pandemic is making people feel more isolated, both from each other as well as from resources. I wanted to create something that provides both a sense of community and a helpful study tool for those who share my passion for language.
Fortunately, after 15 years, I've overcome many of the hurdles I had in the beginning of my studies, but I remember that it felt liberating when I decided to no longer feel embarrassed about making mistakes - either in front of peers or when talking with native speakers - and noticed I was making a lot of progress due to that decision.
Hopefully this gives you a little insight into who I am. I look forward to learning more about all of you, as well.
I really appreciate your efforts in delivering this newsletter! I have studied Japanese both here in the U.S and in Japan, but I was never formally introduced to Japanese literature unless it was already translated in English. Thus, I’m grateful to you for sharing these short literary pieces from its crude and authentic form as it allows us, learners, to appreciate the linguistic artistry of the works.
As for suggestion, down the road I think it would also be nice to offer historical context to these works. I believe different historical periods in Japan produced distinct types of literary works, so it’ll be amazing to learn how historical events influence the writing style of the Japanese authors you introduce.
Nevertheless, I appreciate your efforts and eagerness to help learners improve their Japanese language skills through Japanese literature. I’m curious, what are your motivations in establishing this program and what do you hope to accomplish in the long run?
Hi Josh, it's great to meet you! It sounds like you already have a lot of experience. Where in Japan did you study?
Thanks so much for your suggestion! Historical context is indeed important, so this is definitely something I'll keep in mind for the near future.
My initial motivation for this platform came from my lectures on Japanese literature, during which I would always carve out time to read the original works in class with students. Many of them indicated that they'd like to keep reading after the semester ended, but didn't know where to start or found the idea of reading an entire book too overwhelming due to a lack in knowledge of kanji or vocabulary. Of course, COVID hasn't made things easier. So I came up with this format.
As for the future, I really hope to serve the readers. The positive feedback and growing popularity has exceeded anything I had envisioned at the outset, and many of you have come up with really amazing ideas. For now I just want to listen to what the community needs and see if I can create it for all of you. In order to realize this I'll most likely create paid subscriptions for people who are interested in these extra features in order to cover various outsourcing expenses, but the newsletter as it exists today will always be free and open to anyone with an email address. My main goal is to share my passion for Japanese language and to create a supportive community for everyone who's interested and wants to improve their language skills.
I was born in Belgium Antwerpen and lived there for 15 years before moving to Germany. (Dus spreek ik vlaams. Of nederlands...? K’ben me niet zeker)
In Germany i went on to study liberal arts in University but I was drawn to animation during the end of my studies. I made my own hand drawn 50 minute long animation and decided that I had to move on to Japan if I wanted to progress to become a pro. I have worked two years at the Japanese language school as a support staff member and still work as a manga assistant for a mangaka who has been a big support for me throughout my entire stay here becoming a mentor (in Japanese as well) and a friend over the course of time. Currently I am going to an animation school in Tokyo.
Thanks to my mother being Chinese, Kanji wasn’t a big difficulty, but having to grapple with the mentality of the Japanese language educators was. I found the teaching format for Japanese extremely unnatural and it made me angry that I wasn’t learning the actual spoken language of my peers. For two years I tried to work my ways around it by reading literature on my own and listening to tons of podcasts while mimicking their speech. But up until now I haven’t encountered a format as effective as yours, a format I wished for since such a long time! It has really helped to me to overcome the urge to check up every word which I am only half accustomed to and actually remember and concentrate on the things I am reading.
Bunsuke, keep on doing what you do! It’s really great that you are around!
Hi Rin, thanks so much for introducting yourself, and for your kind words. (En wat grappig dat je Nederlands spreekt!) It's incredible that you were able to create a 50 minute hand-drawn animation. Is it somewhere on the web so we can see it? Very cool that you're in Tokyo now as an assistent to a manga artist. How are you finding life in Japan?
I'm really glad to hear that the newsletter is helping you in your studies. I plan on keeping this platform going for as long as people enjoy it and find it useful. In time, I want to create even more content and build a curriculum for Japanese language learning based on what I'm doing here. I'll keep you posted on how this develops.
Hope I get to see your drawings at some point. Thanks again!
I am glad that this community grew bigger! I saw a post from reddit and decided to subscribe to your newsletter, and has been grateful to your daily snippets since then. I read your newsletter to initiate myself to learning Japanese. The short length, translation and vocabulary/grammar list helps me do that. In the future, I hope to completely comprehend your newsletter without the help of vocabulary list and translation. But, even if I reach such level, I would still want to receive your newsletter.
My main motivation really is Japanese literature, mainly "otaku culture". I have been studying Japanese on and off since 2018. Until now, my biggest hurdles would be: (1) not being able to tolerate ambiguity and keeping on wanting to understand every vocab/grammar I do not know in a clause; (2) forgetting things that I have already studied before; and (3) not keeping up with my study schedule. Fortunately, I am already working on my personal hurdles.
I do not have any suggestions right now, but I will inform you once I think of something. Thank you again!
Hi Boben, thank you so much for your comment. I really enjoyed reading that the newsletter is helping you study Japanese. Hopefully we can grow even bigger and create more features that help you even more.
As for your hurdles: you're definitely not alone. Many people struggle with all of these things. For me, alternating between deep analysis of a few sentences in order to really pick apart the grammar with sessions where I pushed myself to read through longer texts even though I didn't understand everything really helped. Forgetting is also normal, but repetition and consistency are key. Hopefully this newsletter will help with the latter two.
Thanks again for commenting! A make sure to keep in touch.
I'm Hannah. I found you because of your Reddit post on r/LearnJapanese. I'm American and currently learning Japanese because I wanted to challenge myself. I already learned basic spanish, greek, and latin, and i became very interested in Japanese next. i want to do more than just basic japanese, i want to reach N2 or N1. Your letters help me to see new vocabulary and see more full paragraphs to practice with :)
Hi Hannah, it's great to meet you. And I'm glad to have found a fellow language nut! Did you learn ancient Greek or modern Greek? I'm confident that you'll reach N2 or N1 level in no time. Hopefully the newsletter will help build your vocab and give context to the words. Do you have any concrete plans on when you want to take N2?
I learned ancient greek in a college classroom. Greek, Latin, and Spanish were all learned in classroom settings. Japanese is the first I am self teaching with a textbook, anime, japanese music, texts such as your newsletter, japanese youtube practice videos, etc. I am very interested in it and I find that I'm more motivated than with other languages. Ideally I'd like to take a JLPT test maybe this December, but that might be too optimistic of me.
It's great that you have such passion for language in general and for Japanese in particular. Hopefully we can all help you prep for the JLPT. If you have any questions that you think more people struggle with, don't hesitate to send them to me. Maybe we can start another discussion thread and work through the more structural issues together. Good luck!
Hi Nekoda, thank you for this compliment. I'm glad the newsletter is helping you.
I always mention the title of the work in the letter itself, in「」for titles of short stories, or『』in the case of titles of novels. If books are still in print, I could add a link to Amazon Japan. Would this be helpful?
Thanks again for your feedback! I really appreciate it.
Hey Bunsuke! The help you've given me in my language learning journey has been incredible. Tonight, I was looking through old emails (I recently moved to Japan and kind of...stopped looking at emails) and I found your link to 漢字の実践練習. Contrary to your email, the link still works, and I am so grateful for that. Thank you so much for doing what you do!
Hi Quin! Thanks for the amazingly generous compliment! I'm glad I was able to contribute to your language learning journey. I disabled the link before and enabled it again later on. Enjoy😊
I am a female who studies japanese culture and language and such on her own with various books and websites. I started learning at age 8 or 9. Somehow I'm still on an absolute beginner - n5 level, but I'm trying :)
I found this website on Kanshudo after figuring out there's a whole :)ing library full of little stories in Japanese (light of my day, not going to lie)
I just recently made an account and I'm really looking forward to using this :]
Hi Sage! Thanks for getting in touch. Wow, what motivated you to start learning Japanese at such a young age? I hope you get a chance to visit the country once Japan opens its borders again. Hope you enjoy the newsletter!!
Bunsuke, thank you for the wonderful newsletter! The quotations are well chosen, and presenting them without furigana, but with vocabulary and translation below is a the best format, in my opinion. I spent 5 years as a US Navy physician in Yokosuka Japan, married a Japanese wife, and although I'm no longer in the Navy or in Japan, continue to try and study and read Japanese every day. Studying from native materials is so much more interesting and meaningful than studying from textbooks. Your pieces are so different from a lot of the learning resources available to upper intermediate students! Thank you for sharing your literature selections with us!
Hi Jeff, thank you so much for your kind words. It makes me really happy to read that you're enjoying the newsletter, and that it's of value to you in your daily studies. I think that your experience of living in Japan already gives you a lot of context for these daily excerpts. Did you live there long?
I'm also glad to read that you really understood my intentions for this newsletter. There are almost no materials for intermediate and advanced students, and the materials that do exist still seem to shield learners from any actual living expressions of language. This felt so strange to me, and was one of the reasons why I created this platform. In fact, you've given me a good idea for tomorrow's discussion thread.
Thanks again for joining the community. Please keep getting in touch, and let me know if I can help in any way.
Earlier you asked around what people were thinking of the newsletter and I thought I'd let you know, however belatedly ;)
I've been teaching myself Japanese for about four years now (with lots of help from friends who study/studied at university and actually know what they're doing ;) I got to the point where I can understand the texts in books, websites, sources... That is to say: I get what the texts are about what's going on in the story. But in full honesty, the details of a train of thought or the nuances in dialogue or description have eluded me for the most part. Until I came across your newsletter. I absolutely love it. Trying first to read these sentences myself and comparing my attempt to your complete and nuanced translation has shown me how to pay more attention to sentence structure. Since I subscribed to your emails, I got a lot better at paying that same level of attention to my own reading. You've given me the confidence to believe that I can deconstruct and grasps all grammar that I previously kind of skimmed over.
So thank you! I hope you'll keep doing what you're doing for many days to come.
Hi Pauline, thank you so much for your kind and generous words! I think it's really impressive that you've come so far just by studying on your own. I remember giving up within a few weeks when I first tried to learn Japanese on my own, so the fact that you're reading literature in Japanese after just four years is remarkable. I'm really glad you're enjoying the newsletter, and it makes me very happy to hear that it's actually helping you improve your reading skills. You're already doing so well, so please keep going, I'll be sure to keep sending these excerpts to you everyday for as long as people don't get sick of me ;)
Hello! I'm Paloma, a Brazilian Japanese Teacher and I was so happy for finding you! You are such a great inspiration and mainly such a good resource not only for me (I still have to apply for JLPT N1) but for my students too. I'm so happy!! Since we can't afford buying japanese books, my students are most of the time greeving for some real literature reading and your newsletter is giving them the chance to know a lot more about Japan e and Japanese besides anime and J-music. Thank you for your work!
Hi Paloma! Thanks so much for introducing yourself and getting in touch! Your students are part of the reason why I started this newsletter. There are so many people who are talented and have a bunch of potential but lack the resources they need to improve. Your message made my day! Reading things like this makes creating this platform really worth it. I'm curious, what other types of resources do your students want/need? I'm thinking of expanding the material and am trying to figure out how to serve as many of the readers as possible.
Dear Bunsuke さん、ありがとごさいます。I really like reading Murakami Haruki and Natsume Soseki, but only started studying Kanji seriously about two months ago and now follow online lessons. Reading a whole novel is a huge challenge. Your newsletter is a great help. It's also nice to get to know so many others who are passionate about learning this wonderful, yet difficult language. Ik ben trouwens oorspronkelijk van België en heb lange tijd in Nederland gewoond, dus vond het leuk om te lezen dat je van Nederland bent. In ieder geval nogmaals bedankt voor dit prachtig initiatief!
Hi Koppa, it's nice to meet you. Really glad to see you're enjoying the newsletter and finding it useful in your everyday studies. Grappig dat je uit de buurt komt. Waar in Nederland heb je gewoond?
Hi Bunsuke! You know so much that I really thought you were a native Japanese speaker! I am at best N4-N3 and the excerpts you give are a couple of rungs above my level but I really enjoy being able to appreciate Japanese literature in the text, and seeing how Haruki Murakami's style is so different from Yukio Mishima's, for example. One thing I would ask for is maybe avoid or limit archaic words. Other than that, I think this is an amazing resource. Keep up the good work! Where in the Netherlands are you located? I am hoping to go to Amsterdam in May for a meeting (although who knows these days what will be possible?...) and hopefully to Japan for two weeks in October/November.
Hi Arthur, thank you for the generous compliment! It's great to see that you are already able to distinguish between different writing styles. That took me a long time to grasp. As I borrow from literature from both this and the last century, some archaic words are unavoidable, but when there is a word that is really no longer in use I'll clearly indicate that it is. In other cases, it might just be that it's simply literary language. In those cases, I think it's worth learning the word. I live near Amsterdam, so let me know if you're around in May!
Hi Bunsuke - it's nice to 'meet' you! Like you, I've had a lifelong interest in and love of Japan and Japanese, centered on Japanese literature. I lived there in my 20s, continued studying and reading after I left, and eventually founded a Japanese learning system (Kanshudo). Reading, learning and teaching Japanese has become a major theme of my life. As I love reading Japanese novels, I think your idea with this blog is fantastic, and I'm delighted to have discovered it! Choosing material to read is a challenge in any language given the time involved with reading a sample (as opposed to say trying out a TV show), but doubly so in a second language. I started with your extract from 夏目漱石 today (one of my favorite authors) and am really looking forward to seeing what else you introduce. よろしくお願いします! Jonathan.
Hi Jonathan, it's nice to meet you! It's great to read that we share a love of Japan and Japanese. I also have a special place in my heart for Natsume Soseki, and even have a few versions of his complete works on my book shelf.
I checked out your learning system, and it looks fantastic! I'm sure this is a very useful resource for both beginners and more advanced students.
Thank you for signing up and supporting this platform. I hope you get something out of it!
Hi Busunke! I'm a Mandarin translator from Alaska and I majored in literature in university, so I'm really looking forward to learning more about Japanese literature through your posts. I started studying Japanese about six months ago, and I'm hoping to eventually be able to browse bookstores and libraries in Japan and enjoy literature in the original language, or maybe even translate some literature myself a few years down the road. It's also really interesting to see the strategies that other translators use to convey the ideas of language A in language B when there are so many differences in how these languages express ideas. So your blog is exactly the kind of content I'm looking for. Please let us know if we can support you in any way as your blog grows (like Patreon, etc).
Hi Seth, it's great to meet you! I was hoping I would meet someone here who's fluent in Mandarin. I took a semester of it not too long ago and was stunned to learn that, while reading was easy because of my background in Japanese, speaking was immensely difficult. I kept trying to picture a sentence of characters in my head and 'read' it aloud. I never got the hang of it, so much respect for making the effort of taking on this mix of languages.
Translation is always a difficult one, because there are so many choices to make and elements to consider. But I like the challenge and the discussions that it raises. Hopefully we can do more of that on discussion threads such as this one.
Thank you for offering your support. I might indeed start paid subscriptions for added features at some point in the near future. Thanks for signing up, I hope the newsletter helps you in your studies!
Oh that's cool! Yeah, I'm having a very similar experience with Japanese kanji. Coming from a Mandarin background, once you start the figure out the general rules of the pronunciation shift, you can kind of guess how certain characters can be pronounced in Japanese, but it's not always exact (I dabbled a little in southern Chinese dialects while I was living in Fujian, and they still have some of the pronunciation characteristics that are similar to how Chinese was pronounced during the Tang dynasty, which was the era that the Japanese envoys started to bring over kanji, and there's a lot of overlap with Japanese, so that's pretty helpful context sometimes). But then the syntax and the particles (probably with the exception of 的/の) do totally different things. And then there's all the extra grammatical information at the end of words, which feels like wading through an ocean. It feels sort of like looking at an incomplete jigsaw puzzle. So it's been slow-going, but it's gradually starting to make sense. I would love to take a deeper look into the differences between classical and modern Japanese at some point, and see how the language has changed, and if there are any lingering grammatical elements from classical Chinese.
Anyway, great work and looking forward to more! :)
はじめまして! Thank you for creating this newsletter. It's a lovely resource and I enjoy doing my best to read and break down each one in the morning at work. I'd say that I'm somewhere nearing a JLPT N5 level, so I am able to produce the sounds of the words in the newsletters, but I struggle with the kanjis and putting the sentences together. I know a good bit of phrases from anime and listening to Japanese podcasts/twitch streams.
I've been practicing Japanese since September 2020. I took a semester of Japanese at my college in 2018, but it felt particularly grindy and rigid. It often moved too fast and I was unable to keep up most of the time. It lowered my interest significantly. Thankfully, my motivation and determination shot back up after getting in touch with an old friend from elementary school who moved back to Japan when we were little. She reached out to me and we have been pen pals since. I've been practicing Japanese with the hopes of being able to write a full letter to her in Japanese, and to visit the country when possible. I had hopes to visit her last May but was unable to because of Covid. I also owe a lot of my motivation to KemushiChan (ロレッタ) on Youtube. Her videos are motivating and super informative. My biggest hurdle is the amount of time I can commit to learning, which is greatly affected by work. I hope to spend more time learning Japanese with every week. The improvement is addicting. Thank you again.
Hi James, thanks for introducing yourself! It's great that you're powering through despite the limitations imposed on your time by work. I had never heard of ロレッタ so I looked up her channel. It looks very informative and entertaining! Let's hope Japan opens its borders again soon. Really glad the newsletter is helping you improve. Hopefully the daily chunks of text aren't too big a burden on your schedule.
Well I officially started learning in 2017 but only really got a successful streak going grammarwise around the New Year 2021
I'm an artist from Denmark and I mainly try and learn so that I can cut one more barrier of communication between me and the artist of the other end of the media I'm consuming (whether it be video games or anime (a big milestone of mine for instance would be to get to read the Ace Attorney/Gyakuten Saiban franchise as originally presented, since it was hyperlocalized)), part of it is also seeing why localizers choose the translations that they do.
Eventually I would also want to visit or live in Japan for a time, and it'd be nice to get as little alienation from the folks around me as possible.
Lastly I've also read some academic feminist stuff that was intriguing, though it's more of a hobby so I doubt I'd go as in-depth into the subject as even most of them.
I would like to try my own hand at translating some never before translated work in the long run for the sake of preserving the text.
My biggest hurdle has definitely been interpretation of longer sentences, so I figure I'll feel challenged every time this pops into my mail.
Hi Tassu, thanks so much for introducing yourself. It's great that you have clear goals that you are working towards. There is so much literature that hasn't been translated and that will never be translated by commercial publishing houses. Perhaps one day you can start your own translation platform, so that these types of texts are preserved and read more widely. I'm really happy that the newsletter challenges you and helps you in your studies.
I started studying two months ago so my japanese is very limited and know how to say simple things, in my last class we just saw います / あります and this small articles are really helping me to understand better the language, thank you so much for this, Bunsuke!.
Not sure if this space is the right place to ask for suggestions but since my kanji knowledge is very limited, do you think you could include the hiragana meaning for kanjis?, for example in:誕生日 it would be good to know which one is, 'tan', which one 'jou' and which one is 'bi' (lol I used that as example because is one of the few I know)
Again, thank you so much for this project I really appreciate it.
Hi Gera, thanks for getting in touch. It's fantastic to see that you're so ambitious, keep up the good work!
I would actually like to encourage you to remember the readings of the kanji within the word, for the reason that kanji have so many different readings and it depends on the word or even the context of a sentence which one of those you should use. In the example that you mention, 誕 might be read as たん and 生 as じょう, but simply flip those characters and you get 生誕, which you read as せいたん (not じょうたん). This is why I don't break down words into individual kanji and their readings. Hope this makes sense. Good luck, and thanks for subscribing!
I'm half Japanese, I learned the language when I was young but ended up forgetting it because I didn't use it. I picked it up again about a year and a half ago, and I started reading literature a few months ago. I think I mostly started just because I thought it would be cool to be bilingual but I've ended up really enjoying my studies. I'm hoping to get to the stage where I can at least understand Japanese fluently, and possibly be able to speak in the future. Thank you so much for making this newsletter, it looks like it'll be a great resource.
Hi Lynne, thanks for introducing yourself. I'm glad you ended up enjoying the process of learning the language. I really hope this newsletter will help you. Please reach out if you have any questions or suggestions that we can discuss with the wider community. I'm really grateful that you signed up!
Thank you for creating such a wonderful resource! As many others did, I found you through your recent reddit post and have enjoyed reading both new and past newsletters in my e-mail and on your site.
I'm Sev in the Midwestern US, I've loved Japan all my life starting with Pokemon and growing over time to really appreciating the art and culture. Also, my grandpa designed some large pieces for a Shinto temple in Shiga prefecture, so he spent a significant amount of time in Japan for the project, and I got to learn a lot about Japan through his stories and things he brought back. I haven't been to Japan yet but it is my top travel destination when I have some money saved up and it's safe to travel again.
I taught myself how to read kana as well as some various words and kanji using free online tools and old Japanese Pokemon cards, which was very fun but my studies really took off when I studied it as an elective for 2 years in university. I would've done more years, but alas, other credit requirements and scheduling conflicts got in the way. Since then I have VERY slowly been working on Tobira and poking around in various online resources. Having your newsletter delivered daily is often like a little reminder or inspiration to spend more time with it, and of course is a rewarding learning experience in itself!
I saw you mentioned in an earlier reply that you decided to start this in a desire to continue your previous experience with sharing literature. Is it possible in the future that this would be used as a platform to, bit by bit, work through a whole, single book or short story? I realize of course that this is a very significant undertaking. Also, the choice of a single text would inevitably leave some people disinterested as opposed to the nice variety of excerpts you currently distribute. However in a fantasy world where time and energy are infinite it would be fun.
Anyway, looking forward to seeing more! Stay well!
Thank you for your comment! I'm really glad you like the newsletter.
You have such a unique connection to Japan. I can only imagine how cool it must be to one day visit Japan and see the pieces your grandfather designed for the Shinto temple in Shiga. Have you at least seen pictures of it?
It sounds like you already have quite a bit of experience learning the language. Taking it slow is good. The key is to be consistent without burning yourself out, which is why I created this resource. Hopefully it helps.
I love the idea of doing an entire book. In fact, other readers have suggested similar ideas. Though the newsletter as it exists today will always be free, I'm thinking of adding paid subscriptions for those who want extra features (things like high quality audio by a native speaker who reads the passages, a book club in which we talk about longer sections in a discussion thread, and a breakdown of my approach to translations). If enough people are interested in this, this is a real possibility for the near future. Would this be something that interests you as well? Let me know.
I have! In fact, Here is a link to photos of his work on it - the linked photo and the following ~20 photos by advancing to the right. https://dleedusell.com/gallery/shiga-interior
As for the paid subscription with extra features and book idea, I am ALL for that! :D
Sev, this is incredible! Your grandfather's work is so impressive. I'll make sure to visit this temple on my next visit to Japan. Thanks for sharing this!
As a beginner( learned kana and knew some kanji plus some basic grammars, nothing to write home about), your bite-sized reading practice helps me greatly. For me, learning Japanese is as of right now purely a hobby, allowing me to enjoy Japanese music, anime, any form of media in general. With this newsletter I hope I could read a full novel someday, aka loooong time, but that day will come sooner.
For feedback, I would love to get your literal translation alongside "English-accepted", "official" translation, because I know, at least for me, the way Japanese is hard it's because it's tricky to wrap my head around sentence structure, e.g 好き（な) adj/noun vs like (verb). Why?? T.T J/k this is why I love languages :D
I'm in the phase of enjoying understanding Japanese lyrics for the same reason, it's short and I can try to uncover the goodies lost in translation.
Anyway, I wish you the best with this new project. Arigatou!
Hi Tom, it's great to meet you. I'm glad to read you're enjoying the newsletter.
It's great that you're studying for your own enjoyment. Learning Japanese is a hobby with no end. And the good news is, you're already reading Japanese literature through this letter, so if you stick with it for a while, you'll find that the transition to reading short stories or novels on your own is organic and less challenging than you might think. Try to read a page from a book now, see how far you get, and then try again in one year after having studied through this newsletter. I'm confident that you'll have made progress beyond your expectations.
Adding more in-depth analyses of how to approach longer sentences is definitely an option for the near future. As I would have to outsource some of these features and partially redirect some of my own time and energy that is going into other work now, I'm considering adding paid subscriptions for these extra features. Of course, the newsletter itself will always be a free resource.
Thanks again for subscribing. I hope it'll help you in your studies.
Thank you so much for creating this resource. It is so incredibly helpful to have passages of text with explanations behind all of the content. My biggest motivation to study Japanese is so that I can visit Japan. The reason I've been learning because I I've watched and read anime and manga all of my life, as well as played so many video games from Japan. Many of my fondest childhood memories are surrounded in these things. Because all of these things gave me so much while I was growing up, I wanted to learn more about the Japanese culture and language. At first I only planned to learn a little, but I found that the more you're able to read and listen, the more enjoyable learning becomes. Being inside all day too (due to the pandemic) encouraged me to be more productive and use this time to learn more. Thank you for listening/reading, and thank you for providing a wonderful resource.
I agree with many people that kanji is a very difficult aspect of learning Japanese, but I've found the different sentence structures and ways of expressing ideas to be the most difficult. Often when I see sentences where I know all of the words, I'm always surprised to see how the ideas are expressed much differently than they are in English. I think this makes it harder for me to want to try speaking, since I feel much more limited as to what I can say that sounds natural. I hope this makes sense!
I look forward to being introduced to more Japanese literature through this newsletter. It can be hard to find literature that is not too hard, especially when the first few pages are often more difficult due to the world being introduced to the reader.
Thank you again for all of your work on this!! It is greatly appreciated.
Hi Kali, thanks so much for your reply. I'm really happy to see the newsletter is a useful resource for you. That feeling of nostalgia surrounding a culture and a language can be a powerful motivating force, so I'm sure you'll improve your Japanese skills rapidly.
Being more productive during the pandemic has also been a reason for me to start this letter. I wanted to create something that would really help people. My vision for it is that we can create a supportive community so that we don't feel we're alone in studying this difficult language.
Making your Japanese sound more fluent and natural is perhaps the most difficult thing there is. It takes time and real effort, and even then you'll encounter new ways of saying things 'as a native would' all the time. So what you're saying absolutely makes sense. I think it's something we all struggle with.
Hopefully you can find support and give it to others in return here.
I just came across your YouTube video about learning Kanji and reading the video notes, I discovered your newsletter. After reading (rather trying to read ) a sample , I subscribed to it to help me with my reading. The newsletters are short ,concise with explanation of vocabulary and grammar points. Was in search of such tool!!
I’m a On & Off beginner ,started a year ago and realized how important Hiragana and Katakana are to build a good foundation so I decided to start back from the beginning ,
You want to know who your readers are, but... what about you? Who are you, dear Bunsuke? :)
Haha, you're completely right! I should have probably introduced myself first.
I'm originally from The Netherlands where I also live today. I started studying at university in 2005 at age 18, but due to circumstances I was exposed to Japan, the language and the culture, from the age of 2. I was lucky enough to visit the country when I was 8 for the first time. But I really got hooked when I was on a music tour of Japan at age 15. I met a lot of people who had studied the language and culture at university and decided that this was what I wanted to do as well. From that moment on, Japan, and especially the Japanese language became my life. I studied day and night, and after my second year I was able to go to Japan through an exchange program. I lived there for a year, but went back for another year during my MA degree. After I finished my studies I became a language and literature lecturer at my home university, but I was hungry for more. I quit my job and went back to Japan, took the entrance exam at the literature department of a university in Tokyo, and did another MA degree, all in Japan (writing a single-spaced 80 page thesis in Japanese was one of the best writing courses I ever took...). After finishing my Japanese MA, I went to study some more (I know, when am I finally going to grow up...!?) in the U.S. for two years. Three years ago I returned to Holland where I currently teach Japanese language and literature and do a lot of translation work.
I got into Japanese literature because of my love for the language. I usually get bored very quickly, but for some reason Japanese has remained my obsession for the last 15 years. During my teaching I always get a kick out of it when others get enthusiastic as well. This is why I want to share my passion with as many people as possible. Holland has been in lockdown for a while now, so in order to do something productive that actually helps people (initially just my own students) I started this newsletter. I noticed that the pandemic is making people feel more isolated, both from each other as well as from resources. I wanted to create something that provides both a sense of community and a helpful study tool for those who share my passion for language.
Fortunately, after 15 years, I've overcome many of the hurdles I had in the beginning of my studies, but I remember that it felt liberating when I decided to no longer feel embarrassed about making mistakes - either in front of peers or when talking with native speakers - and noticed I was making a lot of progress due to that decision.
Hopefully this gives you a little insight into who I am. I look forward to learning more about all of you, as well.
Hi Bunsukeさん!
I really appreciate your efforts in delivering this newsletter! I have studied Japanese both here in the U.S and in Japan, but I was never formally introduced to Japanese literature unless it was already translated in English. Thus, I’m grateful to you for sharing these short literary pieces from its crude and authentic form as it allows us, learners, to appreciate the linguistic artistry of the works.
As for suggestion, down the road I think it would also be nice to offer historical context to these works. I believe different historical periods in Japan produced distinct types of literary works, so it’ll be amazing to learn how historical events influence the writing style of the Japanese authors you introduce.
Nevertheless, I appreciate your efforts and eagerness to help learners improve their Japanese language skills through Japanese literature. I’m curious, what are your motivations in establishing this program and what do you hope to accomplish in the long run?
ありがとうございます。
Hi Josh, it's great to meet you! It sounds like you already have a lot of experience. Where in Japan did you study?
Thanks so much for your suggestion! Historical context is indeed important, so this is definitely something I'll keep in mind for the near future.
My initial motivation for this platform came from my lectures on Japanese literature, during which I would always carve out time to read the original works in class with students. Many of them indicated that they'd like to keep reading after the semester ended, but didn't know where to start or found the idea of reading an entire book too overwhelming due to a lack in knowledge of kanji or vocabulary. Of course, COVID hasn't made things easier. So I came up with this format.
As for the future, I really hope to serve the readers. The positive feedback and growing popularity has exceeded anything I had envisioned at the outset, and many of you have come up with really amazing ideas. For now I just want to listen to what the community needs and see if I can create it for all of you. In order to realize this I'll most likely create paid subscriptions for people who are interested in these extra features in order to cover various outsourcing expenses, but the newsletter as it exists today will always be free and open to anyone with an email address. My main goal is to share my passion for Japanese language and to create a supportive community for everyone who's interested and wants to improve their language skills.
Dear Bunsuke,
I was born in Belgium Antwerpen and lived there for 15 years before moving to Germany. (Dus spreek ik vlaams. Of nederlands...? K’ben me niet zeker)
In Germany i went on to study liberal arts in University but I was drawn to animation during the end of my studies. I made my own hand drawn 50 minute long animation and decided that I had to move on to Japan if I wanted to progress to become a pro. I have worked two years at the Japanese language school as a support staff member and still work as a manga assistant for a mangaka who has been a big support for me throughout my entire stay here becoming a mentor (in Japanese as well) and a friend over the course of time. Currently I am going to an animation school in Tokyo.
Thanks to my mother being Chinese, Kanji wasn’t a big difficulty, but having to grapple with the mentality of the Japanese language educators was. I found the teaching format for Japanese extremely unnatural and it made me angry that I wasn’t learning the actual spoken language of my peers. For two years I tried to work my ways around it by reading literature on my own and listening to tons of podcasts while mimicking their speech. But up until now I haven’t encountered a format as effective as yours, a format I wished for since such a long time! It has really helped to me to overcome the urge to check up every word which I am only half accustomed to and actually remember and concentrate on the things I am reading.
Bunsuke, keep on doing what you do! It’s really great that you are around!
林
Hi Rin, thanks so much for introducting yourself, and for your kind words. (En wat grappig dat je Nederlands spreekt!) It's incredible that you were able to create a 50 minute hand-drawn animation. Is it somewhere on the web so we can see it? Very cool that you're in Tokyo now as an assistent to a manga artist. How are you finding life in Japan?
I'm really glad to hear that the newsletter is helping you in your studies. I plan on keeping this platform going for as long as people enjoy it and find it useful. In time, I want to create even more content and build a curriculum for Japanese language learning based on what I'm doing here. I'll keep you posted on how this develops.
Hope I get to see your drawings at some point. Thanks again!
Good day!
I am glad that this community grew bigger! I saw a post from reddit and decided to subscribe to your newsletter, and has been grateful to your daily snippets since then. I read your newsletter to initiate myself to learning Japanese. The short length, translation and vocabulary/grammar list helps me do that. In the future, I hope to completely comprehend your newsletter without the help of vocabulary list and translation. But, even if I reach such level, I would still want to receive your newsletter.
My main motivation really is Japanese literature, mainly "otaku culture". I have been studying Japanese on and off since 2018. Until now, my biggest hurdles would be: (1) not being able to tolerate ambiguity and keeping on wanting to understand every vocab/grammar I do not know in a clause; (2) forgetting things that I have already studied before; and (3) not keeping up with my study schedule. Fortunately, I am already working on my personal hurdles.
I do not have any suggestions right now, but I will inform you once I think of something. Thank you again!
Hi Boben, thank you so much for your comment. I really enjoyed reading that the newsletter is helping you study Japanese. Hopefully we can grow even bigger and create more features that help you even more.
As for your hurdles: you're definitely not alone. Many people struggle with all of these things. For me, alternating between deep analysis of a few sentences in order to really pick apart the grammar with sessions where I pushed myself to read through longer texts even though I didn't understand everything really helped. Forgetting is also normal, but repetition and consistency are key. Hopefully this newsletter will help with the latter two.
Thanks again for commenting! A make sure to keep in touch.
I'll try following your advice. I'll keep in touch! Thank you again.
Hi!
I'm Hannah. I found you because of your Reddit post on r/LearnJapanese. I'm American and currently learning Japanese because I wanted to challenge myself. I already learned basic spanish, greek, and latin, and i became very interested in Japanese next. i want to do more than just basic japanese, i want to reach N2 or N1. Your letters help me to see new vocabulary and see more full paragraphs to practice with :)
Hi Hannah, it's great to meet you. And I'm glad to have found a fellow language nut! Did you learn ancient Greek or modern Greek? I'm confident that you'll reach N2 or N1 level in no time. Hopefully the newsletter will help build your vocab and give context to the words. Do you have any concrete plans on when you want to take N2?
I learned ancient greek in a college classroom. Greek, Latin, and Spanish were all learned in classroom settings. Japanese is the first I am self teaching with a textbook, anime, japanese music, texts such as your newsletter, japanese youtube practice videos, etc. I am very interested in it and I find that I'm more motivated than with other languages. Ideally I'd like to take a JLPT test maybe this December, but that might be too optimistic of me.
It's great that you have such passion for language in general and for Japanese in particular. Hopefully we can all help you prep for the JLPT. If you have any questions that you think more people struggle with, don't hesitate to send them to me. Maybe we can start another discussion thread and work through the more structural issues together. Good luck!
Hi!
This newsletter has been a great idea, giving each day something new to read and maybe pick some vocabulary from.
One suggestion that I would make is to maybe give a little bit of info from where the extract comes from, the exact title of the book and such.
That way, if something looks interesting every one could search more about the book and buy it if they want to read it.
Hi Nekoda, thank you for this compliment. I'm glad the newsletter is helping you.
I always mention the title of the work in the letter itself, in「」for titles of short stories, or『』in the case of titles of novels. If books are still in print, I could add a link to Amazon Japan. Would this be helpful?
Thanks again for your feedback! I really appreciate it.
Great idea, great execution. Keep up the good work.
Thanks so much for your generous comment. I'll keep sending you those lines every day!
Hey Bunsuke! The help you've given me in my language learning journey has been incredible. Tonight, I was looking through old emails (I recently moved to Japan and kind of...stopped looking at emails) and I found your link to 漢字の実践練習. Contrary to your email, the link still works, and I am so grateful for that. Thank you so much for doing what you do!
Hi Quin! Thanks for the amazingly generous compliment! I'm glad I was able to contribute to your language learning journey. I disabled the link before and enabled it again later on. Enjoy😊
Hi, Bunsuke! :D
i'm sage, or seiji in japan
I am a female who studies japanese culture and language and such on her own with various books and websites. I started learning at age 8 or 9. Somehow I'm still on an absolute beginner - n5 level, but I'm trying :)
I found this website on Kanshudo after figuring out there's a whole :)ing library full of little stories in Japanese (light of my day, not going to lie)
I just recently made an account and I'm really looking forward to using this :]
btw I've never visited Japan
you're lucky you went at age 8 >:/
from one of your newest members,
seiji/sage :}
Hi Sage! Thanks for getting in touch. Wow, what motivated you to start learning Japanese at such a young age? I hope you get a chance to visit the country once Japan opens its borders again. Hope you enjoy the newsletter!!
Thank you! And probably because I always felt so fascinated by it.
Bunsuke, thank you for the wonderful newsletter! The quotations are well chosen, and presenting them without furigana, but with vocabulary and translation below is a the best format, in my opinion. I spent 5 years as a US Navy physician in Yokosuka Japan, married a Japanese wife, and although I'm no longer in the Navy or in Japan, continue to try and study and read Japanese every day. Studying from native materials is so much more interesting and meaningful than studying from textbooks. Your pieces are so different from a lot of the learning resources available to upper intermediate students! Thank you for sharing your literature selections with us!
Hi Jeff, thank you so much for your kind words. It makes me really happy to read that you're enjoying the newsletter, and that it's of value to you in your daily studies. I think that your experience of living in Japan already gives you a lot of context for these daily excerpts. Did you live there long?
I'm also glad to read that you really understood my intentions for this newsletter. There are almost no materials for intermediate and advanced students, and the materials that do exist still seem to shield learners from any actual living expressions of language. This felt so strange to me, and was one of the reasons why I created this platform. In fact, you've given me a good idea for tomorrow's discussion thread.
Thanks again for joining the community. Please keep getting in touch, and let me know if I can help in any way.
Hello Bunseku!
Earlier you asked around what people were thinking of the newsletter and I thought I'd let you know, however belatedly ;)
I've been teaching myself Japanese for about four years now (with lots of help from friends who study/studied at university and actually know what they're doing ;) I got to the point where I can understand the texts in books, websites, sources... That is to say: I get what the texts are about what's going on in the story. But in full honesty, the details of a train of thought or the nuances in dialogue or description have eluded me for the most part. Until I came across your newsletter. I absolutely love it. Trying first to read these sentences myself and comparing my attempt to your complete and nuanced translation has shown me how to pay more attention to sentence structure. Since I subscribed to your emails, I got a lot better at paying that same level of attention to my own reading. You've given me the confidence to believe that I can deconstruct and grasps all grammar that I previously kind of skimmed over.
So thank you! I hope you'll keep doing what you're doing for many days to come.
Pauline
Hi Pauline, thank you so much for your kind and generous words! I think it's really impressive that you've come so far just by studying on your own. I remember giving up within a few weeks when I first tried to learn Japanese on my own, so the fact that you're reading literature in Japanese after just four years is remarkable. I'm really glad you're enjoying the newsletter, and it makes me very happy to hear that it's actually helping you improve your reading skills. You're already doing so well, so please keep going, I'll be sure to keep sending these excerpts to you everyday for as long as people don't get sick of me ;)
Yours,
Bunsuke
Hello! I'm Paloma, a Brazilian Japanese Teacher and I was so happy for finding you! You are such a great inspiration and mainly such a good resource not only for me (I still have to apply for JLPT N1) but for my students too. I'm so happy!! Since we can't afford buying japanese books, my students are most of the time greeving for some real literature reading and your newsletter is giving them the chance to know a lot more about Japan e and Japanese besides anime and J-music. Thank you for your work!
Hi Paloma! Thanks so much for introducing yourself and getting in touch! Your students are part of the reason why I started this newsletter. There are so many people who are talented and have a bunch of potential but lack the resources they need to improve. Your message made my day! Reading things like this makes creating this platform really worth it. I'm curious, what other types of resources do your students want/need? I'm thinking of expanding the material and am trying to figure out how to serve as many of the readers as possible.
By the way, when are you applying for N1?
Dear Bunsuke さん、ありがとごさいます。I really like reading Murakami Haruki and Natsume Soseki, but only started studying Kanji seriously about two months ago and now follow online lessons. Reading a whole novel is a huge challenge. Your newsletter is a great help. It's also nice to get to know so many others who are passionate about learning this wonderful, yet difficult language. Ik ben trouwens oorspronkelijk van België en heb lange tijd in Nederland gewoond, dus vond het leuk om te lezen dat je van Nederland bent. In ieder geval nogmaals bedankt voor dit prachtig initiatief!
Hi Koppa, it's nice to meet you. Really glad to see you're enjoying the newsletter and finding it useful in your everyday studies. Grappig dat je uit de buurt komt. Waar in Nederland heb je gewoond?
Thank you so much for taking the time to reply. Ik woonde in Bergschenhoek en woon nu weer in België.
You're welcome, and I'll let you know if I'm ever in the neighborhood!
Hi Bunsuke! You know so much that I really thought you were a native Japanese speaker! I am at best N4-N3 and the excerpts you give are a couple of rungs above my level but I really enjoy being able to appreciate Japanese literature in the text, and seeing how Haruki Murakami's style is so different from Yukio Mishima's, for example. One thing I would ask for is maybe avoid or limit archaic words. Other than that, I think this is an amazing resource. Keep up the good work! Where in the Netherlands are you located? I am hoping to go to Amsterdam in May for a meeting (although who knows these days what will be possible?...) and hopefully to Japan for two weeks in October/November.
Hi Arthur, thank you for the generous compliment! It's great to see that you are already able to distinguish between different writing styles. That took me a long time to grasp. As I borrow from literature from both this and the last century, some archaic words are unavoidable, but when there is a word that is really no longer in use I'll clearly indicate that it is. In other cases, it might just be that it's simply literary language. In those cases, I think it's worth learning the word. I live near Amsterdam, so let me know if you're around in May!
Hi Bunsuke - it's nice to 'meet' you! Like you, I've had a lifelong interest in and love of Japan and Japanese, centered on Japanese literature. I lived there in my 20s, continued studying and reading after I left, and eventually founded a Japanese learning system (Kanshudo). Reading, learning and teaching Japanese has become a major theme of my life. As I love reading Japanese novels, I think your idea with this blog is fantastic, and I'm delighted to have discovered it! Choosing material to read is a challenge in any language given the time involved with reading a sample (as opposed to say trying out a TV show), but doubly so in a second language. I started with your extract from 夏目漱石 today (one of my favorite authors) and am really looking forward to seeing what else you introduce. よろしくお願いします! Jonathan.
Hi Jonathan, it's nice to meet you! It's great to read that we share a love of Japan and Japanese. I also have a special place in my heart for Natsume Soseki, and even have a few versions of his complete works on my book shelf.
I checked out your learning system, and it looks fantastic! I'm sure this is a very useful resource for both beginners and more advanced students.
Thank you for signing up and supporting this platform. I hope you get something out of it!
Hi Busunke! I'm a Mandarin translator from Alaska and I majored in literature in university, so I'm really looking forward to learning more about Japanese literature through your posts. I started studying Japanese about six months ago, and I'm hoping to eventually be able to browse bookstores and libraries in Japan and enjoy literature in the original language, or maybe even translate some literature myself a few years down the road. It's also really interesting to see the strategies that other translators use to convey the ideas of language A in language B when there are so many differences in how these languages express ideas. So your blog is exactly the kind of content I'm looking for. Please let us know if we can support you in any way as your blog grows (like Patreon, etc).
Hi Seth, it's great to meet you! I was hoping I would meet someone here who's fluent in Mandarin. I took a semester of it not too long ago and was stunned to learn that, while reading was easy because of my background in Japanese, speaking was immensely difficult. I kept trying to picture a sentence of characters in my head and 'read' it aloud. I never got the hang of it, so much respect for making the effort of taking on this mix of languages.
Translation is always a difficult one, because there are so many choices to make and elements to consider. But I like the challenge and the discussions that it raises. Hopefully we can do more of that on discussion threads such as this one.
Thank you for offering your support. I might indeed start paid subscriptions for added features at some point in the near future. Thanks for signing up, I hope the newsletter helps you in your studies!
Oh that's cool! Yeah, I'm having a very similar experience with Japanese kanji. Coming from a Mandarin background, once you start the figure out the general rules of the pronunciation shift, you can kind of guess how certain characters can be pronounced in Japanese, but it's not always exact (I dabbled a little in southern Chinese dialects while I was living in Fujian, and they still have some of the pronunciation characteristics that are similar to how Chinese was pronounced during the Tang dynasty, which was the era that the Japanese envoys started to bring over kanji, and there's a lot of overlap with Japanese, so that's pretty helpful context sometimes). But then the syntax and the particles (probably with the exception of 的/の) do totally different things. And then there's all the extra grammatical information at the end of words, which feels like wading through an ocean. It feels sort of like looking at an incomplete jigsaw puzzle. So it's been slow-going, but it's gradually starting to make sense. I would love to take a deeper look into the differences between classical and modern Japanese at some point, and see how the language has changed, and if there are any lingering grammatical elements from classical Chinese.
Anyway, great work and looking forward to more! :)
Bunsuke,
はじめまして! Thank you for creating this newsletter. It's a lovely resource and I enjoy doing my best to read and break down each one in the morning at work. I'd say that I'm somewhere nearing a JLPT N5 level, so I am able to produce the sounds of the words in the newsletters, but I struggle with the kanjis and putting the sentences together. I know a good bit of phrases from anime and listening to Japanese podcasts/twitch streams.
I've been practicing Japanese since September 2020. I took a semester of Japanese at my college in 2018, but it felt particularly grindy and rigid. It often moved too fast and I was unable to keep up most of the time. It lowered my interest significantly. Thankfully, my motivation and determination shot back up after getting in touch with an old friend from elementary school who moved back to Japan when we were little. She reached out to me and we have been pen pals since. I've been practicing Japanese with the hopes of being able to write a full letter to her in Japanese, and to visit the country when possible. I had hopes to visit her last May but was unable to because of Covid. I also owe a lot of my motivation to KemushiChan (ロレッタ) on Youtube. Her videos are motivating and super informative. My biggest hurdle is the amount of time I can commit to learning, which is greatly affected by work. I hope to spend more time learning Japanese with every week. The improvement is addicting. Thank you again.
Stay safe Bunsuke!
- James
Hi James, thanks for introducing yourself! It's great that you're powering through despite the limitations imposed on your time by work. I had never heard of ロレッタ so I looked up her channel. It looks very informative and entertaining! Let's hope Japan opens its borders again soon. Really glad the newsletter is helping you improve. Hopefully the daily chunks of text aren't too big a burden on your schedule.
They're actually a really great size! I look forward to reading more and hopefully one day being able to read them in their entirety.
Well I officially started learning in 2017 but only really got a successful streak going grammarwise around the New Year 2021
I'm an artist from Denmark and I mainly try and learn so that I can cut one more barrier of communication between me and the artist of the other end of the media I'm consuming (whether it be video games or anime (a big milestone of mine for instance would be to get to read the Ace Attorney/Gyakuten Saiban franchise as originally presented, since it was hyperlocalized)), part of it is also seeing why localizers choose the translations that they do.
Eventually I would also want to visit or live in Japan for a time, and it'd be nice to get as little alienation from the folks around me as possible.
Lastly I've also read some academic feminist stuff that was intriguing, though it's more of a hobby so I doubt I'd go as in-depth into the subject as even most of them.
I would like to try my own hand at translating some never before translated work in the long run for the sake of preserving the text.
My biggest hurdle has definitely been interpretation of longer sentences, so I figure I'll feel challenged every time this pops into my mail.
Hi Tassu, thanks so much for introducing yourself. It's great that you have clear goals that you are working towards. There is so much literature that hasn't been translated and that will never be translated by commercial publishing houses. Perhaps one day you can start your own translation platform, so that these types of texts are preserved and read more widely. I'm really happy that the newsletter challenges you and helps you in your studies.
I started studying two months ago so my japanese is very limited and know how to say simple things, in my last class we just saw います / あります and this small articles are really helping me to understand better the language, thank you so much for this, Bunsuke!.
Not sure if this space is the right place to ask for suggestions but since my kanji knowledge is very limited, do you think you could include the hiragana meaning for kanjis?, for example in:誕生日 it would be good to know which one is, 'tan', which one 'jou' and which one is 'bi' (lol I used that as example because is one of the few I know)
Again, thank you so much for this project I really appreciate it.
Hi Gera, thanks for getting in touch. It's fantastic to see that you're so ambitious, keep up the good work!
I would actually like to encourage you to remember the readings of the kanji within the word, for the reason that kanji have so many different readings and it depends on the word or even the context of a sentence which one of those you should use. In the example that you mention, 誕 might be read as たん and 生 as じょう, but simply flip those characters and you get 生誕, which you read as せいたん (not じょうたん). This is why I don't break down words into individual kanji and their readings. Hope this makes sense. Good luck, and thanks for subscribing!
Hi!
I'm half Japanese, I learned the language when I was young but ended up forgetting it because I didn't use it. I picked it up again about a year and a half ago, and I started reading literature a few months ago. I think I mostly started just because I thought it would be cool to be bilingual but I've ended up really enjoying my studies. I'm hoping to get to the stage where I can at least understand Japanese fluently, and possibly be able to speak in the future. Thank you so much for making this newsletter, it looks like it'll be a great resource.
Hi Lynne, thanks for introducing yourself. I'm glad you ended up enjoying the process of learning the language. I really hope this newsletter will help you. Please reach out if you have any questions or suggestions that we can discuss with the wider community. I'm really grateful that you signed up!
Dear Bunsuke,
Thank you for creating such a wonderful resource! As many others did, I found you through your recent reddit post and have enjoyed reading both new and past newsletters in my e-mail and on your site.
I'm Sev in the Midwestern US, I've loved Japan all my life starting with Pokemon and growing over time to really appreciating the art and culture. Also, my grandpa designed some large pieces for a Shinto temple in Shiga prefecture, so he spent a significant amount of time in Japan for the project, and I got to learn a lot about Japan through his stories and things he brought back. I haven't been to Japan yet but it is my top travel destination when I have some money saved up and it's safe to travel again.
I taught myself how to read kana as well as some various words and kanji using free online tools and old Japanese Pokemon cards, which was very fun but my studies really took off when I studied it as an elective for 2 years in university. I would've done more years, but alas, other credit requirements and scheduling conflicts got in the way. Since then I have VERY slowly been working on Tobira and poking around in various online resources. Having your newsletter delivered daily is often like a little reminder or inspiration to spend more time with it, and of course is a rewarding learning experience in itself!
I saw you mentioned in an earlier reply that you decided to start this in a desire to continue your previous experience with sharing literature. Is it possible in the future that this would be used as a platform to, bit by bit, work through a whole, single book or short story? I realize of course that this is a very significant undertaking. Also, the choice of a single text would inevitably leave some people disinterested as opposed to the nice variety of excerpts you currently distribute. However in a fantasy world where time and energy are infinite it would be fun.
Anyway, looking forward to seeing more! Stay well!
Dear Sev,
Thank you for your comment! I'm really glad you like the newsletter.
You have such a unique connection to Japan. I can only imagine how cool it must be to one day visit Japan and see the pieces your grandfather designed for the Shinto temple in Shiga. Have you at least seen pictures of it?
It sounds like you already have quite a bit of experience learning the language. Taking it slow is good. The key is to be consistent without burning yourself out, which is why I created this resource. Hopefully it helps.
I love the idea of doing an entire book. In fact, other readers have suggested similar ideas. Though the newsletter as it exists today will always be free, I'm thinking of adding paid subscriptions for those who want extra features (things like high quality audio by a native speaker who reads the passages, a book club in which we talk about longer sections in a discussion thread, and a breakdown of my approach to translations). If enough people are interested in this, this is a real possibility for the near future. Would this be something that interests you as well? Let me know.
Thanks again for your support!
I have! In fact, Here is a link to photos of his work on it - the linked photo and the following ~20 photos by advancing to the right. https://dleedusell.com/gallery/shiga-interior
As for the paid subscription with extra features and book idea, I am ALL for that! :D
Sev, this is incredible! Your grandfather's work is so impressive. I'll make sure to visit this temple on my next visit to Japan. Thanks for sharing this!
First of all thank you for your work, Bunsuke.
As a beginner( learned kana and knew some kanji plus some basic grammars, nothing to write home about), your bite-sized reading practice helps me greatly. For me, learning Japanese is as of right now purely a hobby, allowing me to enjoy Japanese music, anime, any form of media in general. With this newsletter I hope I could read a full novel someday, aka loooong time, but that day will come sooner.
For feedback, I would love to get your literal translation alongside "English-accepted", "official" translation, because I know, at least for me, the way Japanese is hard it's because it's tricky to wrap my head around sentence structure, e.g 好き（な) adj/noun vs like (verb). Why?? T.T J/k this is why I love languages :D
I'm in the phase of enjoying understanding Japanese lyrics for the same reason, it's short and I can try to uncover the goodies lost in translation.
Anyway, I wish you the best with this new project. Arigatou!
Hi Tom, it's great to meet you. I'm glad to read you're enjoying the newsletter.
It's great that you're studying for your own enjoyment. Learning Japanese is a hobby with no end. And the good news is, you're already reading Japanese literature through this letter, so if you stick with it for a while, you'll find that the transition to reading short stories or novels on your own is organic and less challenging than you might think. Try to read a page from a book now, see how far you get, and then try again in one year after having studied through this newsletter. I'm confident that you'll have made progress beyond your expectations.
Adding more in-depth analyses of how to approach longer sentences is definitely an option for the near future. As I would have to outsource some of these features and partially redirect some of my own time and energy that is going into other work now, I'm considering adding paid subscriptions for these extra features. Of course, the newsletter itself will always be a free resource.
Thanks again for subscribing. I hope it'll help you in your studies.
Hi Bunsukeさん!
Thank you so much for creating this resource. It is so incredibly helpful to have passages of text with explanations behind all of the content. My biggest motivation to study Japanese is so that I can visit Japan. The reason I've been learning because I I've watched and read anime and manga all of my life, as well as played so many video games from Japan. Many of my fondest childhood memories are surrounded in these things. Because all of these things gave me so much while I was growing up, I wanted to learn more about the Japanese culture and language. At first I only planned to learn a little, but I found that the more you're able to read and listen, the more enjoyable learning becomes. Being inside all day too (due to the pandemic) encouraged me to be more productive and use this time to learn more. Thank you for listening/reading, and thank you for providing a wonderful resource.
I agree with many people that kanji is a very difficult aspect of learning Japanese, but I've found the different sentence structures and ways of expressing ideas to be the most difficult. Often when I see sentences where I know all of the words, I'm always surprised to see how the ideas are expressed much differently than they are in English. I think this makes it harder for me to want to try speaking, since I feel much more limited as to what I can say that sounds natural. I hope this makes sense!
I look forward to being introduced to more Japanese literature through this newsletter. It can be hard to find literature that is not too hard, especially when the first few pages are often more difficult due to the world being introduced to the reader.
Thank you again for all of your work on this!! It is greatly appreciated.
Hi Kali, thanks so much for your reply. I'm really happy to see the newsletter is a useful resource for you. That feeling of nostalgia surrounding a culture and a language can be a powerful motivating force, so I'm sure you'll improve your Japanese skills rapidly.
Being more productive during the pandemic has also been a reason for me to start this letter. I wanted to create something that would really help people. My vision for it is that we can create a supportive community so that we don't feel we're alone in studying this difficult language.
Making your Japanese sound more fluent and natural is perhaps the most difficult thing there is. It takes time and real effort, and even then you'll encounter new ways of saying things 'as a native would' all the time. So what you're saying absolutely makes sense. I think it's something we all struggle with.
Hopefully you can find support and give it to others in return here.
I just came across your YouTube video about learning Kanji and reading the video notes, I discovered your newsletter. After reading (rather trying to read ) a sample , I subscribed to it to help me with my reading. The newsletters are short ,concise with explanation of vocabulary and grammar points. Was in search of such tool!!
I’m a On & Off beginner ,started a year ago and realized how important Hiragana and Katakana are to build a good foundation so I decided to start back from the beginning ,
so here I am !!