ivantohelpyou

Last week, I picked up Breaking into Japanese Literature: Seven Modern Classics in Parallel Text by Giles Murray.

It's a very clever idea: take public-domain works written in Japanese from Aozora, run them through Jim Breen's Japanese-English dictionary server, create an impeccable translation, and hire an actor to perform a reading for digital audio. Package the collection and sell as an easy-to-carry paperback – no need to carry word lists or dictionaries (paper or electronic). Just take along the book and an MP3 player with the spoken word.

At the Cornell FALCON program, we were taught that reading actual texts was by far the best way to learn the written language. Flashcards may be useful for passing tests, but it's hard to sustain interest in a pile of flashcards.

Nevertheless, I recently discovered japanese-kanji.com, and decided to get a sense of how much I know after about 10 years of having the Japanese language as a sporadic hobby, and eight years after FALCON.

The chart at right shows my results, with the characters (in traditional order) along the x-axis, and the comprehension level on the y-axis.

Note that each character has two readings: "on" (from the Chinese root) and "kun" (native Japanese pronounciation).

Despite atrophy from lack of use, I have a solid grasp on the first 400 kanji or so, although there are some for which I don't know the relatively obscure on/kun readings. For the next two hundred kanji, I know most of them well. After that? Not so good. While I know many of the more difficult characters in context from reading actual texts, I wasn't so good at picking them out of a lineup.

I'm not going to radically change approaches at this point, but it's good to have a method to periodically benchmark my progress.

Labels: Japan, literature

As a student of the literature, culture and language of Japan, I humbly request that any readers of this blog who are citizens of Japan sign the Aozora petition, which seeks to block the proposed extension of the term of copyright protection from 50 to 70 years.

Personally, I'd like to read some more contemporary works in my lifetime, and their availability in digital form makes it feasible for me to use automated translation programs to aid in my studies. Keeping contemporary works from the mid-1950s onwards in paper-only form raises the barrier to comprehension by requiring hands-on, line-by-line translation at a higher level than I currently possess. The availability of a modern corpus of Japanese literature in digital form would do more to promote the Japanese language abroad than any other initiative I can imagine.

Furthermore, retaining the upper limit of a 50-year copyright in Japan may also spur creativity and innovation by Japanese artists that could demonstrate to U.S. policymakers the benefit of moving away from the ill-considered concept of perpetual copyright.

As a U.S. citizen, I will do my part to support candidates and officeholders who recognize the value of allowing cultural artifacts to enter the public domain for free, unfettered use.

And for a story about what may happen if we take copyright to the extreme, read Melancholy Elephants (1983) by Spider Robinson, freely available at the author's web site.

Labels: Japan, literature, politics

In Boston last week, I went to a thesis-writer's meeting for ALM students at the Harvard Extension School. I started taking courses in 2002, and in order to graduate by 2009 I only need to take two more courses and write a thesis. Before I can write the thesis, I have to get the topic approved by the ALM program director. This calls for a proposal. I finished my first draft of a proposal in mid-February. Between waiting for comments and doing further revisions and refinements, I expect that it'll take at least a few more months, or perhaps even the summer, to secure approval for the topic. Once I get approval, I'll be assigned to a Harvard faculty member who will act as thesis director. I'll then have nine months to write the thesis.

So far, I have taken several classes related to foreign literature (in translation). But I can only write one thesis. My field is talking dogs. Their history goes back farther than you might think. In fact, I have spent almost two years tracing the history of talking dogs throughout the ages. But that's too big of a topic for a thesis.

It struck me that coming up with a thesis topic has a few aspects in common with developing an idea for a startup business. The thesis proposal stands in for the business plan, and the Harvard faculty member represents venture capital. Just like a business plan, a thesis topic has to be focused, realistic, well-researched and with potential appeal to the people who will invest something of value, whether it's expertise, money or both.

It's not a perfect analogy. For instance, the program director remains unique to academia as a single point of access to the intellectual resources of the university. The thesis has to be letter-perfect before it ever reaches the desk of a Harvard professor. Plus, degree candidates are not allowed to cold call professors or do elevator pitches at the faculty club.

Eventually, I narrowed the focus of my thesis to a single short story by a single author. (More about this to come.) The point is that I had the opportunity to write about anything in the field of foreign literature and culture. My research interests brought me to talking dogs, and within that I found a single question which I will investigate and hope to answer. The question has enough heft to support extended study, but isn't so vague as to be dissolute.

By the same token[1], in order to successfully start a business, you need focus. You can't just say, "I can do either X, Y and Z" and expect to launch. Of course, it's good to spend time doing X, Y and Z to determine which avenue has the most promise, and what specific service within that would provide the most value. And that's part of what I've been doing for the past six months. I know a lot more about what I could be doing. Now it's time to pick something specific and run with it.
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[1] Considering that you can't buy tokens anymore in Boston or New York City, do we have to start saying, "By the same MetroCard?"

Labels: literature, talking dogs

Some thoughts from a walk with Ratt:

Dogs are the original bloggers. Every day, they mark the same territory with their latest output, while sniffing around at what other dogs leave behind. And then, when two dogs meet, the first thing they do is inspect each other's equipment.

Speaking of dogs talking to one another on their daily walks, I wonder how Gogol's Diary of a Madman would come across as a blog.

As a blog, the first entry would be the last one from the book:

No, I haven't the strength to endure it any longer! Good God, what are they doing to me? They're pouring cold water over my head!

As a short story, it starts off on October 3rd:

October 3rd
Something very peculiar happened today. I got up rather late, and when Mavra brought my clean shoes in I asked her what the time was. When she told me it was long past ten I rushed to get dressed. [...]

Because of reverse-chronological posting and the long tail of blog entries through search engines, writers no longer control the order in which their writings are received by readers. This has profound implications for how to write, since any single entry has to be prepared to provide the "It was a dark and stormy night" hook at any time.

When I got home, I checked to see if Diary of a Madman was available in translation through Project Gutenberg or other e-text providers. It's not, but I did find someone else looking for it on one of the forums at The Literature Network (online-literature.com), which has an index to e-books and a fairly active community. "Wow," I thought. "What a great idea, just like Shelfari."

Then I saw the site navigation:



... Authors - Shakespeare - Bible ...

That tells you all you need to know about what the average person wants when searching the Web for literature. Sure enough, one of the most popular threads in the forums was the Evolution vs. Creation debate, with 1,440 replies. In the poll, Evolution scored a solid win over Creation by a score of 167-134. However, at 49.85% of the vote, Evolution failed to earn a majority. We're still not sure how it would have turned out in the Electoral College.

Labels: literature, religion, talking dogs, Web 2.0