Ring Koji Suzuki Read Online

[Brigitta Martini]

Inthis series, Tofugu asks learners what Japanese learning resources and methods they use to study and why. Today, we talk to Jonathan Kirk, the guy who made the popular kanji learning app, *Kanshudo*.

Jonathan focused on building up his reading skill first (which led him to create his kanji learning system). So if you want to boost your Japanese reading ability, pay attention. Take it away, Jonathan!

After graduating university, I set out on a six month trip around Asia armed with a kanji book, a Japanese grammar book, and a bilingual Japanese reader. After the trip, I realized how inefficient my learning method was.

So I began a quest to discover the best way to learn Japanese. This was my first step to building the learning system that got me where I am today; I can enjoy reading Japanese novels by my favorite authors.

Kanji knowledge is a prerequisite to reading. Japanese sentences are on average 18 characters long, and about 5 of those characters are kanji (the rest are kana or punctuation). In newspapers the percentage of kanji can be much higher.

There are different ways to go about learning kanji. My key breakthrough was realizing the vast majority are made up of components used over and over. Thinking of each kanji as a collection of parts enabled me to create short phrases or "mnemonics," which tie the meanings of the components with the kanji I'm trying to learn.

After the main kanji mnemonic, each of the five main components appears on a separate line with its mnemonic. This way, whenever I look up a word, I see the kanji used in it, along with their mnemonics, plus the components and their mnemonics. So looking up one word reinforces my memory of many related concepts, which is tremendously powerful.

I tried (many times!) reading things too complex for my level, and I found that to be an exercise in frustration. I had to look up hundreds or even thousands of words, but wasn't able to remember them because I didn't encounter them again quickly enough.

The key is finding material you can finish at a reasonable speed (and enjoying it helps too). If reading takes too long, or you have to look up too many words, you're slowing down your rate of progress.

The first is from the last chapter in a beginner textbook1, the second is from an intermediate reader containing stories for Japanese children2, and the third is from an essay by Haruki Murakami3. It's easy to see how the complexity escalates!

So, during the first stage, the best reading material is collections of short pieces, preferably in a bilingual format, based on JLPT level or Kyōiku (Japanese school grade) level. Find pre-curated collections of material, because kanji aside, the material will have simpler grammar, shorter sentences, and fewer idioms.

Kanshudo is my go-to dictionary whenever I have good Internet access. Like other online dictionaries, Kanshudo draws on the open source JMdict/EDICT Japanese/English dictionaries, which are comprehensive and constantly updated.

The iOS app Midori is my go-to dictionary when I don't have good Internet access. It's also based on JMdict/EDICT, and has built-in kanji drawing recognition. It lets you export anything you look up easily so you can then import it into any flashcard app for study.

Kenkyusha's dictionary is most useful for its explanations of word usage. It has a very extensive sentence library, and its actual dictionary is deeper than anything based on JMdict/EDICT. When I run into a term that has no obvious direct counterpart in English, or I don't fully understand from the definition alone, this is my resource I reach for.

I typically look up words on my phone, because I use the kanji writing feature a lot. If you are using iOS, this is a tip you may not have run into that I find very helpful: add the traditional Chinese handwriting recognition keyboard. These days it will provide you with the Japanese versions of kanji as well as the Chinese versions. It's the easiest and fastest way to look up kanji you don't know.

For most people, learning a word effectively will require you to see it, actively try to learn it, use it often, and refresh your memory of it many times. Here is the system I used to help me manage this challenge.

You need a place to store words and to manage learning them over time. Choose something with built-in spaced repetition, such as Kanshudo or an app like Anki. I personally look words up in Kanshudo's dictionary and tag them as favorites, then add them to a flashcard set named after the place I found them (usually a novel I'm reading).

You need to ensure you learn words you're going to need first. This makes life easier, because you'll be able to communicate better; plus, you'll have less looking up to do, so your reading speed will increase as well.

You could focus on words related to your work or words that are more common or useful in Japanese generally. I use Kanshudo to manage this for me by creating flashcard sets containing everything I look up in books, then letting the app auto-sort the most useful words to study first. All words in Kanshudo's system have a ranking indicating how "useful" they are for a learner, based on an analysis of word usage across many different sources such as Google, Wikipedia, etc.

If you want to actually communicate with actual Japanese people, you'll need more than just reading ability. In particular listening comprehension is a key skill you'll need to practice. The good news is listening can be improved just by having conversations with people. So if you can interact with Japanese people in Japanese in any way, that's all you need.

However, both of these are aimed at a Japanese audience so the Japanese used is native level. If you are at an earlier stage, NHK has an excellent simplified Japanese news podcast called Easy Japanese - NHK WORLD RADIO JAPAN.

The above is an outline of the system I've evolved during my personal odyssey towards Japanese reading proficiency. The most important thing I want you to take away is that the challenge of learning to read Japanese fluently is not impossible at all. I hope some of my approach can help you get to where you want to be.

Of course, a night of binge-watching horror movies! But in case you want to double your horror experience, you can also read the novels that famous horror movies were based on to get a different perspective.

So grab your popcorn, turn off the lights, and scroll to your favorite online streaming platform to watch these thrilling movies that are actually adaptations of books. Then check out the book versions and see how the shows and movies differ from page to screen.

The 1973 movie The Exorcist, starring Max Von Sydow and Ellen Burstyn, is considered one of the scariest movies (and one of the most profitable) movies ever made. But before the 1973 film version of the story, the 1971 novel by William Peter Blatty was a best-seller. In fact, it spent 57 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list.

The Haunting of Hill House horror drama series, directed by Mike Flanagan, kicked off the whole Haunting miniseries on Netflix. In case you didn't know, the series was loosely based on the gothic horror novel of the same name by Shirley Jackson first published in 1959, which was a finalist for the National Book Award and considered one of the best literary ghost stories of the 20th century.

Since Stephen King wrote It in 1986, the novel has been adapted for the big screen twice: once in 1990 as a two-part miniseries and another in 2017 and 2019 as a duology (It: Chapter One and It:Chapter Two).

Both the book and movie center on a group of seven children who must conquer their own personal fears in order to defeat the ruthless, bloodthirsty clown known as Pennywise the Dancing Clown. It is available to watch on HBO Max and Netflix.

In the film The Ring, a journalist looks into a mystery videotape that appears to kill anyone who watches it one week to the day after they do. The Ring is available to stream on Google Play, Amazon Prime Video, Vudu, and Netflix.

I Know What You Did Last Summer While you may be familiar with the 1997 slasher flick I Know What You Did Last Summer starring Sarah Michelle Gellar or the new series reboot on Amazon released in 2021, both were based on the 1973 novel by Lois Duncan.

IKWYDLS is more than just a young slasher thriller; there are many differences between the book and the movie, including the fact that the book focuses more on suspense while the movie closely follows the slasher genre and incorporates supernatural elements.

If you prefer suspense, you might want to pick up a copy of this book and read it instead. You can watch the 1997 version on HBO Max, Prime Video, and Vudu, while the series reboot (which was canceled after one season) is available on Prime Video as an Amazon Original.

The relationship of human society to the natural world is an ongoing tension in our own society that drives the action of the novel. Many readers bring their own personal viewpoint to what they are reading, and this book certainly bets that will add richness to this particular experience. The main characters find themselves in constant conflict with the rest of the world concerning their relationships to the trees and forests they come to love. And these passions teach them to become more human, to form bonds that some of them no longer thought possible after experiencing soul-wrenching tragedy. The most touching of these links proves to be between Nicholas Hoel and Olivia Vandergriff. Both wayward souls, they meet under the most random of consequences and form a bond that seems mystical in nature. From his home in the Midwest, they head to the Pacific Coast, where they become part of a guerilla ecological group attempting to halt the overlogging of old growth forests. This is the point where most of the characters converge and become a part of the overarching plot Powers creates. Some of them go so far as to engage in ecoterrorism, as the cause of protecting the trees, and essentially the natural world, they feel at home in becomes increasingly desperate. At this point, the question must be asked: what price are they willing to pay to protect what they believe in?

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