Japanese/Discussion/Archives:September, 2005

Resolved Issues
Here we list all those issues that we have already decided upon and why.

Splash page
Our wikibook had a spash page, but after much discussion it was decided that it it served no purpouse other than to show the flag. Therefore we now have the flag on our homepage. We don't need a splash page. GoodStuff 10:00, 4 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Target Audience
The target audience are people who know nothing about Japanese. They know no kana, no kanji, no nothing. GoodStuff 11:26, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Roomaji and Kana
After a long, (really long) discussion and voting, the majority of contributers decided not to use Roomaji in the examples at all, but teach the kana in the first few lessons. We also decided to link the kana to soundfiles, so that one can click on the individual kana and hear how they should be pronounced.

The incredibly long discussion was posted on the mailinglist on 10 Nov 2004, where it will remain in the archive for those interested. GoodStuff 08:20, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * Or would, if the message history went so far back anymore... 130.233.22.111 03:59, 15 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Unfortunately the old mailing list (Yahoo group) was mysteriously deleted, so the current mailing list is not the mailing list where the discussion took place. All discussions from the old mailing list have been lost. - Sik0fewl 21:44, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

In a subsequent discussion, the majority agreed that in instances where roomaji was necessary (such as describing linguistic concepts with Japanese words), that we use the following conventions.
 * Consonants will be written using the Revised Hepburn system (s, sh, z, j, t, ts, ch, f)
 * Long vowels be written according to kana spelling (aa, ii, uu, ee, ei, oo, and ou)
 * n mora will be written n' before a vowel or "y" (zen'aku)
 * n mora before "m", "b", or "p" will not be changed to "m" ("senpai", not "sempai")

Things Too Minor to Give Place in TOC
but are in there anyways!

Japanese Exercises
I know that I haven't made that many, only comprising of the first two Katakana lessons, but I've only done so because I need feedback. Please tell me what you think of what I've made. A simple "it works" will suffice. --Akir


 * they help :)

My steping in
Sorry to step in before reading the contributor guider. but i don't think self-contained a good idea, that's not systematical enough for learners IMO. and maybe u guys would like to see if the catalog i changed in Japanese/Elementary Japanese appropriate. --Yacht 02:26, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)


 * Hi Yacht, maybe it's best not to number the lessons. I'm going to change the rule in Japanese/Contributor's Guide to ask everyone to use the format "Japanese/Lesson/Description of Lesson". Then the lessons can be moved about more conveniently. The numbering of lessons does seem to make arrangement of lessons more problematic.  -- Mkn 01:13, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)

well, i know that soon after i created the catalog, that's why i posted my questions here. but don't u think it's a bit wierd if a text book is not arranged by being numbered? that's quite surprising to me when i first enter this textbook, because that makes this textbook more like a reference for those who have already have some knowledge of Japanese (i mean grammar reference, or a quick reference for travellers) rather than a book for a basic who doesn't know Japanese at all but want to learn Japanese systematically. i don't think they expect to encouter so many long sentences at the very first beginning. what do u think? --Yacht 07:12, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)


 * Hi Yacht, the actual page name can omit lesson numbers. See Japanese/Basic Japanese. It's more convenient to use the convention "Japanese/Lesson/Greetings" for example. then just write "Lesson 2: ((Japanese/Lesson/Greetings|Greetings))". The original page before the major modifications is here. You can see that the lessons consisted of just vocabulary, phrases, grammar. But because they were listed like a reference, they were moved into their own page sections. Other major changes was the decision to drop romaji, which resulted in the creation of kana lessons, which also spawned kanji lessons. This is part of the decision to make this wikibook "self-contained" to avoid relying heavily on external links.
 * Which leads us to the lessons now. Very few people seem able or willing to write the content for actual lessons (or they could be unavailable). I wasn't able to write any lessons because of the lack of experience. But now I'm using some Japanese language course videos to summarize and get a better idea of how to write the lessons while avoiding plagiarizing their content. However, the way I'm writing the lessons needs to be improved upon by making it easier to read and understand. I hope to make it practical and interactive. Adding review lessons to test the reader's knowledge. How are you writing the lessons? Do you use any textbook or video to help you?  -- Mkn 08:37, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)

well, i c. it's okay to go without numbering the lessons when naming them, but as in the textbook, i advice they'd better to be arranged by numbers. my suggested structure is in Japanese/Elementary Japanese/Lesson 1 (<--i also found this naming not wiki enough, should be Japanese/Elementary Japanese/Lesson 1 :P ). oh, yes, i have Japanese textbook, because i am not a Japanese native speaker. the catalog is more or less similar to my textbook, step by step. --Yacht 06:43, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Return to Japanese table of contents

I was Nezumi and was working on the Japanese for a while, however, I decided to leave it behind because I'm working on college right now. However, I will be transferring schools so I can get back into japanese. You can delete my sections. Nezumi is kanji incase you didn't notice that.

A transwiki-ed page
I just happend to find a page Japanese/Guide, which is moved from the wikipedia article Japanese language guide. Since no link to the page has been made, this so-called "transwiki" does not seem to work well... I'm not sure but some might find something useful on the page. - Marsian / talk 08:05:17, 2005-09-05 (UTC)