Harry Potter and reading for vocabulary

I need to work on my vocabulary. This becomes obvious to me every time I venture outside the familiar confines of friend or work-related conversation. I have some parallel goals. I want to learn the words in context - learning a new noun means that I will probably understand it next time I hear it on the radio, but I want to be able to use it in conversation, so I need to know how  and when to use it too. I also want a finite goal each day so when I have achieved it I can say "Great. Done. Time to play with my cat."

My objectives, in a nutshell:

1. Increase my vocabulary
2. Learn the words in context
3. Have a finite goal each day

Here's a technique I have been using for increasing vocabulary through reading (or conversely reading for vocabulary). I confess I stole and modified it from Dougal Phillips, Australian Japanese language wizard and owner of becomingagun.com but I can't refer you to his original article because it lived at a now defunct Geocities site and has yet to reappear on becomingagun.com, so here is my precis.

Each morning I read one page of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, or rather ハリー・ポッターと賢者の石。

Why Harry?

a. I already know the story, which helps me guess meaning.

b. There is a lot of speech throughout the book, so I am learning a lot of words and phrases I can employ in conversation.

c. Heaps of new vocab, especially descriptive terms.

d. I kind of fancy Hermione.

And I follow these steps:

1. I limit myself to one page a day. Only one? Yep. Just one. Some days there will be more words than others, but it averages out. The point is that I have a clear goal - and achieving it feels good.

2. I read the page, pencil in hand. For those of you who like to keep study books pristine I say "get over it". You are here to learn, and writing in your book will aid that aim (keeping the book clean satifies no learning need that I can think of).

3. When I encounter a kanji I am not familiar with I put a line next to it and then write a "K" in the margin. For words I do not know I do the same thing, but use "M" (for "meaning"). For phrases which I understand but are not yet part of my verbal arsenal I write a "U" for "Hey, that's a cool expression - I think I would like to USE it"

4. When I get to the last character on the page I stop, even if the story is terribly exciting and I want to know what happens next. Harry and his pals will still be on the page when I get back.

5. I transcribe all the kanji, words and phrases into my Kokuyo notebook, in three columns. Left hand side for kanji, middle for the reading and the right hand side for the meaning/explanation.

6. I get out my trusty Canon Wordtank, look up meanings, readings etc and add them to the note book.

7. I turn the words into flash cards and review them. I am using paper flashcards to keep  me away from the computer but iFlash or FlashcardSuite are just as good.

Here's a sample from page 243 (which I read this morning)

• 措置       そち        a step, a measure
• 必死       ひっし       inevitable
• 堪える     こらえる     bear, stand, endure,
• 当惑       とうわく　　　perplexity, embarassmment      
• むき出す   むきだす　　show, bare (eg teeth)    
• 押し殺す    おしころす    suppress (eg laughter)
• 大理石     だいりせき    marble
• 存分に     ぞんぶんに   to one's heart's content   
• 掠める       かすめる     steal, pilfer, filch
• 破る        やぶる　　　　break (This one I included because I forget how to write it)
• 褒美        ほうび        prize, reward
• 背後        はいご　　　back, rear   
• 睨み       にらみ　　　a glance
  
• 口を利く  くちをきく　talk
• ツン                            a sharp movement of the head
• そっぽをむく　　　　　look the other way

And do I achieve my objectives? (Assuming I stick to the plan - and I do)

1. Increase my vocabulary
Sure do. Take today's list - 16 "words". Not bad. That's 112 per week, 448 per month or 5376 a year. Less if you take weekends off. Some days there are only a few words I don't know. On the other hand, when Dumbledore starts talking the page is soon covered with pencil marks.

2. Learn the words in context
I write the page number of the book in my notebook so at any time I can immediately look up the word and see how it was used.

3. Have a finite goal each day
The 1 page a day rule is important. If you read 2 or 3 pages before taking stock of new vocabulary you will likely accumulate a huge list of words which take a long time to transcribe, causing you to lose interest and motivation partway and leading to you abandoning the activity. Reading and looking up the words for only one page should take you no longer than 30 minutes, so you can do it in the morning before work/school or at lunchtime. The psychological aspect is important - "just a page" is easier to face than " a few pages" and knowing you can knock the task over in half an hour makes it less likely you will procrastinate.

The down side - at approximately 450 pages it will take a year and a half to read one book. But I am guessing that the better my vocabulary gets the less words I will need to write down and I should be able to progress to 2, or even 3 pages a day. But first things first.

I am not directly helping my reading fluency with this stop-write-transcribe approach, but that is OK because my aim is not fluency it is vocab. For fluency I am ready Densha Otoko - no dictionary, no stopping and writing, just plowing through it and guessing where necessary).

Try this method out, see if it works for you and let me know any pitfalls you face.

Notebook, Wordtank, novel - Accio!

Comments

[Scott]

I've seen the "Harry Potter" approach multiple times. In fact, if I recall correctly, a couple of people have wondered into #nihongo to specifically ask where to find a japanese version of Harry Potter. Thanks for the link to becomingagun, it's interesting to see where the trend started.

So, are you looking solely for vocabulary or do you find new grammatical constructs as well? If you come across a new grammatical construct, what is your method for memorizing or practicing?

[Will Jasprizza]

Hey Scott

Looking back through my notebook most of what I have jotted down is pure vocab, heavily weighted towards nouns (the K category) and verb combinations (mostly M). The grammar in HP hasn't been much of a problem. What I often find is a new way of using a contruct I am already familiar with, in which case a big "U" goes in the margin. To practice I whip out my notebook whenever I have a spare moment, look at a word and (a) try to recall what was happening in the story at that point and (b) bring it up in conversation with a friend or colleague sometime during the day. If I can work it into the conversation then fantastic, otherwise I'll just ask straight out what kind of situation Aさんuses the word. I find having a good old natter works wonders for my recollection.

How do you tell if there is special harry potter only vocabulary? Obviously it wouldn't be in a dictionary, but....

[Rachael]

Sorry, I should probably given some kind of nick for the above...

1

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