No time

[badtzphoto]

Comments

[badtzphoto]

"But wow, Japanese light novel series sure do go long."
It's similar to kdrama :) or jdrama!
Is your japanese fluent enough to read light novel?
Yeah, look at Saiunkoku isn't it like 18 volumes and a few short stories?
Anyway, I like Edgar and Lydia a lot, so I may get a couple of light novel volumes :)

"Do you actually order them from France?"
Yes, I order them from France. I used to order from a French comics store (bdnet.com) - they don't carry light novels, that's why I switched to amazon.fr recently.
I debated the pros and cons of ordering from France vs from Canada. My reaoning is if I order from Canada:
- first, I pay shipping twice, once from France to Canada and then from Canada here. Doesn't seem to be efficient to me. May as well go directly to the source.
- secondly, their collection seems a bit limited especially books that are published more than 5 years ago are hard to find and their wait-time is longer (since they have to get books from France, yadiyada!)
- thirdly, when I started to get manga in French, I couldn't use my amazon account for some reason (maybe they haven't centralize their system? I can't remember why), I didn't like the ideas of having 2 different accounts, so ...

[lyschan]

But that's still different, because it's a book, not a show! I s'pose manga compared to most comics is the same situation. I'm just more used to long running manga than long running book series, I guess!

No, no way do I know enough Japanese to read a LN ^^; I could probably/maybe understand a few sentences on a page, but... (do they even use furigana (the kana alongside kanji that tells how to pronounce it) in LNs? that would at least make it easier to look up words I didn't know. but still, without all the visuals of manga it seems a little daunting.)

Oh, good point about "shipping twice"-the Canadian prices are probably higher priced to begin with because they had to be imported? But I'm glad you found a good way to read manga that you can't find in English! I wonder how my understanding of French compares to my Japanese... (I took two years of both, but the French was in high school with a lazy class and easily distracted teacher, but the language is a little closer to English, but I don't know as much French vocab as Japanese, but there may be more cognates I would recognize...)

[badtzphoto]

"Hope things have settled down some (or will soon)"
Thanks. It's a long project!

How long did you study Japanese? Why did you want to learn japanese?
"the Canadian prices are probably higher priced to begin with because they had to be imported?"
yes, since the publishers are in Europe.

"But I'm glad you found a good way to read manga that you can't find in English!"
Me, too. I'm glad my parents made me learn French and paid for lessons when I was younger :)

[lyschan]

I took two years (four semesters) of Japanese in college. (that was all they offered at the time, though I think there might be a third year available now...) I took the class because I liked manga and anime and thought it'd be cool to understand what watched/read in the original language, and also because I knew from French class that I enjoyed learning new languages. I think most of my classmates had similar interests.

I do kinda wish I'd taken French classes earlier-there were four years available in HS, but I only took it my last two years there. I probably didn't have time in my schedule before then-should've dropped math sooner! :D (kidding...) It's awesome that your parents encouraged learning another language! I do think that should be encouraged a lot more in schools.

[badtzphoto]

"I took two years (four semesters) of Japanese in college."
so that's Japanese beginner and intermediate, right? And then you build up your vocabulary (or kanji) by reading? I'm impressed. Are you good with language in general?
Maybe there is hope for me to learn japanese :)

[lyschan]

Yes, beginner and intermediate. I think I do pretty well with picking up on languages, but I have a really hard time being disciplined enough to actually study it outside of a classroom setting. So at this point I'm only maintaining(ish) the level I was at when I stopped taking classes, not really progressing any farther beyond picking up a new word here and there.

Maybe I should go back to my old college and take the third year of classes :D Ooh, that would be fun. *checks out tuition costs...* Ooooor not. Yikes, college is expensive!!

[double_dear]

Just gonna jump in here to say "there's hope for anyone to learn a language if they want to badly enough!" and "how much does it cost to audit a class? or do they even allow that?"

[lyschan]

I don't know how much auditing costs. It's basically just sitting in on the class and not getting credit for it, right? I did something like that for one semester of the class when I was still a student-I just talked to the prof and asked if I could attend even though I wasn't signed up. She was fine with it then, but it might be a little weird now since I'm not a student? I dunno; I could look into it!

[badtzphoto]

"audit a class"
I haven't thought of that. Thanks for the suggestion. Now I need to find time.

[badtzphoto]

"but I have a really hard time being disciplined enough to actually study it outside of a classroom setting."
I know what you mean. My local public library has an online japanese learning program that I've learnt 2 chapters a couple of months ago and haven't started chapter 3 yet. I need to make a schedule or something.

[badtzphoto]

"do they even use furigana (the kana alongside kanji that tells how to pronounce it) in LNs?"
They do some, sparsely, though. The frequency is similar to sojei manga.