# Practising Japanese with Literature



## Isaak77

By the way, is better to practice Japanese with modern literature than old literature because old literature do contain obsolete Japanese?

Moderator Note:
This thread has been split from here in order to make room for a more general topic.


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## Flaminius

No one should get in the way of you and Sōseki if you are craving to appreciate his works in Japanese.  Literature is a valuable thing in its own right.  If, however, you are looking for texts to train your reading skills, you will find more friendly vocabulary and grammar in post-WWII authors.


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## Isaak77

Is there more opinions about 
"is better to practice Japanese with modern literature than old literature because old literature do contain obsolete Japanese"?


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## SoLaTiDoberman

There is pros and cons to reading こころ by 夏目漱石 for you.

Old literature has a wide range of differences. For example, 舞姫 by 森鴎外 was written in old Japanese grammar. I do not recommend you to read 舞姫. It may have a difference like between English and Spanish.
In the case of こころ, however, it was written in basically the same present Japanese grammar. 夏目漱石 is a very famous writer, whose Japanese is supposed to be "excellent." And most Japanese people read こころ when they were high-school students, at school, in their Japanese classes. Therefore, it might be useful for you to share one of the cultural backbones of the Japanese people.

The demerit of learning Japanese by こころ is that it contains obsolete words and phrases from time to time.
By the way, my grandfather hated him because when he actually learned from him at Matsuyama city, Natsume was very rude and offensive to the rural students. He insulted Matuyama people as countrymen. You can read the atmosphere in 坊ちゃん, which was written from a viewpoint of 夏目漱石. He made fun of the Matsuyama dialect in his work.
Therefore, I don't like him personally, although I respect some of his works. 
I don't think he was a respectable man. Therefore, I personally do not recommend 夏目漱石 because I hate him too.
Joking aside, You may encounter a lot of politically incorrect expressions. You should be aware of the time difference as well as the cultural difference. 

In short, I completely agree with #2.
You can learn Japanese by reading, for example, 村上春樹, who is a very popular and famous writer.


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## Isaak77

Talking about Kokoro, I was trying to read it and it have hard parts.  Seeing that in this forum there are Japanese native speakers I'm very curious and can't help to ask them this silly question: May for native Japanese be difficult to understand the difficult parts?


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## SoLaTiDoberman

You need to provide us with the specific parts which you think are difficult.

But probably, the most parts which you think are difficult aren't that difficult for native speakers.

Nonetheless, it's difficult to understand Kokoro completely for even native speakers.
For example, most Japanese high school students cannot get the full score of 100 on their Japanese exam regarding Kokoro. Only excellent students get the full score. This is strong evidence that native speakers are not perfect. It depends on their educational background and intelligence.

Even when I read the everyday newspaper, there are expressions or words that I cannot understand from time to time. But I usually go through them, ignoring them.


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## Isaak77

SoLaTiDoberman said:


> You need to provide us with the specific parts which you think are difficult.
> 
> But probably, the most parts which you think are difficult aren't that difficult for native speakers.
> 
> Nonetheless, it's difficult to understand Kokoro completely for even native speakers.
> For example, most Japanese high school students cannot get the full score of 100 on their Japanese exam regarding Kokoro. Only excellent students get the full score. This is strong evidence that native speakers are not perfect. It depends on their educational background and intelligence.
> 
> Even when I read the everyday newspaper, there are expressions or words that I cannot understand from time to time. But I usually go through them, ignoring them.


Thanks for your explanatory answer.


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## Flaminius

When I was in high school, I found _Wagahai-wa Neko de Aru_ hard.  This is more casual and light-hearted than the sulky recondite _Kokoro_, but conversations in it are carried out in a variety of Japanese I would call Ancient Tokyoite.  It was already distinct from the speech of the commoners of Yedo, but full of features not found in the variety of Japanese I picked up growing.  It's also different from how elderly old Tokyoites that I knew spoke.

You must understand that Modern Japanese is very young.  Its spoken variety needs to be separated from the that of Kansai, the Japanese variety traditionally considered as standard.  Its written form is all the more different from the previous standard after two language reforms; one during the modernisation, and the other during and after WWII.

From a complete layman's point of view, Sōseki is as different from Murakami as Daniel Defoe is from J. K. Rowling.


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## Isaak77

SoLaTiDoberman said:


> There is pros and cons to reading こころ by 夏目漱石 for you.
> 
> Old literature has a wide range of differences. For example, 舞姫 by 森鴎外 was written in old Japanese grammar. I do not recommend you to read 舞姫. It may have a difference like between English and Spanish.
> In the case of こころ, however, it was written in basically the same present Japanese grammar. 夏目漱石 is a very famous writer, whose Japanese is supposed to be "excellent." And most Japanese people read こころ when they were high-school students, at school, in their Japanese classes. Therefore, it might be useful for you to share one of the cultural backbones of the Japanese people.
> 
> The demerit of learning Japanese by こころ is that it contains obsolete words and phrases from time to time.
> By the way, my grandfather hated him because when he actually learned from him at Matsuyama city, Natsume was very rude and offensive to the rural students. He insulted Matuyama people as countrymen. You can read the atmosphere in 坊ちゃん, which was written from a viewpoint of 夏目漱石. He made fun of the Matsuyama dialect in his work.
> Therefore, I don't like him personally, although I respect some of his works.
> I don't think he was a respectable man. Therefore, I personally do not recommend 夏目漱石 because I hate him too.
> Joking aside, You may encounter a lot of politically incorrect expressions. You should be aware of the time difference as well as the cultural difference.
> 
> In short, I completely agree with #2.
> You can learn Japanese by reading, for example, 村上春樹, who is a very popular and famous writer.


There's not book in Japanese of Murakami on the web where may I download or read online?


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## SoLaTiDoberman

Basically, you should pay for it because of the copyright.
【村上春樹】国内外から“常に注目度No.1” - 電子書籍 | U-NEXT 初回600円分無料

This site is free.
村上春樹さん | 東京ヤクルトスワローズ


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## Isaak77

SoLaTiDoberman said:


> Basically, you should pay for it because of the copyright.
> 【村上春樹】国内外から“常に注目度No.1” - 電子書籍 | U-NEXT 初回600円分無料
> 
> This site is free.
> 村上春樹さん | 東京ヤクルトスワローズ


Thanks.in the site that it's free it is a short story of murakami?


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## SoLaTiDoberman

Yes.
It's not very short/light novels of him, but Murakami's blogs, as a baseball fan.


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