Rosetta Stone Japanese good enough to translate novels?

[falcolobo]

So I got Rosetta Stone German from one of my misguided friends who thought I wanted to learn German. Well I plan to return it for a Rosetta Stone Japanese. I was wondering if it taught Japanese to a complicated enough level that I would be able to at least aid in the translation cycle here at BakaT.

Is it good enough to translate novels?

[ainsoph9]

Rosetta Stone focuses on the immersion method, which is the best method...given that you are doing non-stop 24/7. Unfortunately, that is not how most people work. So, I would recommend other ways of learning Japanese over the Rosetta Stone, unless you are that gun-ho about it. Try taking classes, using the internet, etc. If you need resources, I believe that there are several threads here for that.

[rpapo]

Rosetta Stone focuses on the immersion method, which is the best method...given that you are doing non-stop 24/7. Unfortunately, that is not how most people work. So, I would recommend other ways of learning Japanese over the Rosetta Stone, unless you are that gun-ho about it. Try taking classes, using the internet, etc. If you need resources, I believe that there are several threads here for that.

My experience may be different from others, but from where I sit there is absolutely nothing out there that is aimed at the "wanna learn a language" group that will take you anywhere near as far as you need to in order to do these translations well. Adrenaline/Obsession will do it, as long as you can sustain it long enough. Having friends with the patience and will to help you along would be a huge advantage. Total immersion is the best way to learn a language, but there few opportunities in life to do it, move of which revolve around living in the target country.

My own experience: I had three years in high school (1 hour a day, five days a week plus homework) of Spanish. Eight years later I entered a total immersion program for two months prior to moving down to Peru for a while. I passed up everything I'd learned in high school within two and a half weeks. By the time I left the program, I could converse with others of my class, but it became obvious on the flight down to Peru that I had a ways to go yet. After four months in the country, I no longer had any difficulty understanding others, and they could understand me in spite of my still strong accent. By the time I returned to the USA, I actually had to readjust back to English, and my ears were so attuned to other accents that I could even distinguish my own regional accent spoken by others (though I'd never noticed it before).

Contrast this with my experience so far with Japanese. I live in an English speaking world, and literally have nobody to practice the spoken language with, and only anime and podcasts to listen to. I listened to all 90 of the Pimsleur language CDs early on (2008), and added to that many hundreds of podcasts from JapanesePod101.com. In addition, I studied a variety of you-can-learn-it books on Japanese. I learned the kana, and started on the kanji. But my adrenaline was running out by late 2009, and I still found the printed language to be a wall for me. The kanji were slipping off my brain like mud off a wall...

Determined to conquer, however, and seeing just how awful (to my point of view) some of the non-native English speaker's translations of Japanese were on Baka-Tsuki, I decided to try my hand with something small to help with B-T, which I had discovered only a month or two before. There were many surprises lying in wait the moment I actually tried to translate printed text, and because of them and other concerns, it took me two weeks to translate my first page. It truly felt like I'd jumped into the deep end of the pool without really knowing how to swim.

That was late 2009. Now it's early 2013. I wouldn't call my work top-notch, or even close, but I can typically translate a page in a couple of hours work, sometimes quicker, sometimes slower. I've learned a lot, but it's certainly cost a lot of effort too. But I still have a long way to go.

[falcolobo]

Thanks for the feed back guys. I just got the program. From what I see from online research and asking friends, it seems that the experience is different for every person. Since I'm on vacay right now, I plan to no-life it since I have nothing better to do. Hopefully I pick it up well.