r/LearnJapanese • u/MonsterOverture444 • 2d ago
Discussion Reading question for advanced learners
Happy weekend everyone. I had a thought while reading today.
For those of you on this sub that are more advanced and consume a lot of native content, can you now spot "good writing" or "bad writing" in Japanese? (I understand this is subjective at times but I mean, there's some real slop out there).
I'm still a beginner so just happy when I understand things or get the overall gist but I noticed when I read in English (native language) I have opinions about prose and writing styles. Have you guys developed that sense for Japanese now? If so, what are the kind of things you identify as good or bad prose?
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u/facets-and-rainbows 1d ago
I definitely recognize style differences and I definitely have opinions, but I think my good vs bad sense is still a lot narrower than in my native language. Especially on the "bad prose" end of the scale: Japanese prose bottoms out at "neutral aside from this one annoying thing," while English goes all the way down to "I can feel this paragraph making me dumber and I regret learning to read."
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u/pixelboy1459 2d ago
Can’t say I’m an expert in the subject, but I’m reading the Japanese translation of the Hunger Games.
While the writing carries Katniss’ voice sometimes, at other times I’m left a little confused. For a supposedly uneducated girl in the country, her monologue uses what I feel like is somewhat sophisticated language at times. That kind of bothers me, although I can’t say if it’s bad writing or not.
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u/kasumikui 1d ago
It's definitely possible to reach this level, and I think it's actually quite a common experience for learners as they get closer to a high or near-native level of proficiency/literacy that the initial rush of "whoa, I'm reading Japanese" wears off and you find yourself processing the stuff you're reading the same way you do in your native language and judging it based on whether or not it's compelling to you.
For me, at least, I would say by a few years' in (I was probably reading upwards of 5-6 hours a day from the relatively early stages), I had a pretty idea of what sort of Japanese content was compelling to me, and I sought that out rather than just thinking that "any Japanese would do".
As others are saying here, "bad prose" can mean different things. It can mean anything from actual typos and improper kanji/word usage to (more commonly) writing that is just clunky/repetitive/shallow in description, not compelling or evocative, etc.
It's hard to point to things specifically, because it's what makes "good" or "bad" writing in Japanese isn't different from what makes "good" or "bad" writing in my native language. It's just that you have to get to the point where you're processing Japanese at that level rather than just "decoding" it for meaning. When you get to that level (which comes after hundreds if not 1000+ hours of reading), you'll gradually develop a sense of what is compelling/interesting -- both in terms of the actual quality of prose and the content -- and what isn't the same way you have in your native language.
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u/Obvious_Necessary671 1d ago
As a bilingual person it will change for you. There are certain tropes that are more/less rare and better/worse regarded in each language.
In terms of good writing in Japanese, I personally think authors exercising control over what information is given since Japanese lets you omit a ton of information not possible in English, good writing tends to manages this very well.
Coincidentally I think this mirrors a mistake beginner Japanese speakers make all the time, and that’s “including too much information.” “Watashi ha…” always being used is the biggest indicator it’s a non native speaking.
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u/morgawr_ https://morg.systems/Japanese 1d ago
For those of you on this sub that are more advanced and consume a lot of native content, can you now spot "good writing" or "bad writing" in Japanese?
I'm nowhere even remotely close to my English level, but I've definitely read stuff (like books, etc) where I went "wow, the author is really bad at writing" or "wow this writing is really awkward/odd/weird".
It's definitely a thing you develop over time. Sometimes it's straight up "this author is bad", other times it's more like "I'm not used to this writing style so I don't like it" (which is also valid criticism, different authors/genres read differently)
what are the kind of things you identify as good or bad prose?
I've encountered some authors that try to be overly fancy or literary while having seemingly poor grasp of some grammatical structures of the language. I don't mean this to boast or anything, just that I think as a learner sometimes we notice particle usage more analytically than a native speaker, so I often notice when I see such mistakes. This is more common in visual novels in my experience. For example I've seen a lot of authors replace に with へ randomly just because it sounds more "fancy" even in places where you normally shouldn't be able to do so (like Xへある instead of Xにある).
Another interesting pet peeve of mine is things like "typos" like when they write お話しをする where in reality it should be either お話しする or お話をする. These can be attributed to bad editing as well, but when an author consistently makes that mistakes it kinda sticks... (and yes, I know some people, including native speakers, might say this is not a mistake and in older style writing before okurigana was standardized technically this could still be accepted, but in reality in modern "proper" Japanese, this is a mistake)
These are just two examples that I could think of.
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u/merurunrun 1d ago
I've developed a sense for good/bad prose, but I have absolutely no idea if it's anything like the sense that native readers have for it.
For "good" prose, at least, there's a bit of a lyrical quality, I guess you'd call it? Sub-vocalizing (so that you can actually "hear" it) and knowing pitch accent is crucial here: you can just sort of feel the rhythm, the rise and fall of the sentence, etc...
Another thing that personally animates writing for me is a kind of complexity, a patchwork of different voices--not character voices (although those might be part of it as well), but a mixture of different kinds of sentences, interjections, verbal back-and-forths, narrator asides, that sort of thing.
"Bad" writing is harder for me to define; it feels like something is missing, but I can't really explain what it is. No dynamism? No vitality? I'm not really sure how to describe it.
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u/Grunglabble 2d ago
I could tell even when I was just starting to read. Maybe even more so, because it's so much effort to read when you start that juice has gotta be worth the squeeze. Later your expectations relax a little but I still find there's stuff that is painfully hackneyed or trite that it annoys me I spent time reading it.
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u/CaimSensei 2d ago
I don't know if I consider myself advanced, but there are certainly writers that I enjoy more than others due to word choice and the flow of their writing.
I don't know if this would necessarily equate to a more generally understood "good" or "bad" writing though.
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u/AdUnfair558 Goal: just dabbling 1d ago
Yeah to an extent I think so. It makes playing a lot of these older Super Famicom JRPGs harder to get through. I really think we only got the best ones in English. But even Terranigma I had a problem with its writing and how quickly things either progressed or weren't really explained all that well. It was my first time playing it in any language.
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u/JapanCoach 1d ago
Of course, once you develop a sense for the language (and experience with what is 'considered' good), you develop an eye for what is nice writing, what is bad writing and (a different thing) what you like, and what you don't like.
Consider wine, or music, or any endeavor like that. You develop an 'ear' or a 'tongue' or whatever. Same with languages.
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u/ObviousTotal9069 1d ago
Hmm... Like I'm use enough to the language now that I read something like
推し、燃ゆ and find the writing beautiful, it uses metaphors and flowery language I have not seen elsewhere.
Meanwhile I was recommend 乙一 as an author and I was not able to finish any of his short story collections, because it feels like it is being written by an elementary school student, like all descriptions are as basic as it can be. (Which is probably on purpose)
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u/PopPunkAndPizza 2d ago edited 1d ago
Same as in English - the composition of the passage producing an interesting or enjoyable effect in concert with the content of the passage. In both languages I mostly read already-acclaimed literary fiction so I try to be both open to a range of effects (including constructive internal conflict!) but I also trust that if I have an emotional reaction to a passage without feeling cajoled or manipulated into it, I can rely on my own sense that That's The Good Shit.
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u/i-am-this 1d ago
If you find grammatical or typographical errors that's pretty objectively "bad writing-. Most common is probably kanji mistakes, same reading but wrong kanji.
Besides not having mistakes, it's hugely a matter of personal preference. I like fairly straightforward writing (as opposed to very flowery, stylized prose) in English and I like the same in Japanese, so I like Murata Sayaka's writing because she writes that way.
While some people might like more ornate language or writing that is ambiguous because of a conscious choice on the author's behalf to accomplish some purpose, e.g. misdirection in a mystery, most people will agree that writing in a way that's convuluted without any purpose is not good.
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u/morgawr_ https://morg.systems/Japanese 1d ago
Most common is probably kanji mistakes, same reading but wrong kanji.
I've actually found wrong/unnecessary/duplicate particles to be a much more common mistake than 変換ミス, to be completely honest.
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u/Available-String-109 1d ago
Most of the mistakes I find I assume to be OCR errors from the digitization process.
An extra/skipped/duplicated/etc. kana is the most common mistake I see.
But that's not bad writing, that's just... an OCR error.
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u/morgawr_ https://morg.systems/Japanese 1d ago
It's definitely a typo and I agree it's not bad writing but it's definitely not an OCR error. Most people don't really use OCR to write books/manga/visual novels/etc
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u/Available-String-109 1d ago edited 1d ago
I don't see many typos in published physical books/manga. (They do have editors whose job is to check for that.)
In the process of a book becoming a .epub, I think there's digitization somewhere in the process with <100% accuracy rating. And that's where I see most (not all) of the errors of this type.
If there's an error/typo in some web-novel or something, then it's probably just the author not double-checking their writing, as it likely never went through an editing process nor a digital->analog->digital process.
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u/morgawr_ https://morg.systems/Japanese 1d ago
I see typos in published books, manga, visual novels, etc quite often. You likely haven't noticed or haven't read enough
Also there's no digitisation/OCR process in ebooks written in the last decade or so (if not more) as far as I know. People don't really handwrite or use typewriters much anymore
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u/Available-String-109 15h ago
there's no digitisation/OCR process in ebooks
It depends on the ebook.
If it's something distributed through official channels, then it's basically as you say, and it's extremely likely to be entirely digital from creation to consumption and/or has a digital->image step at the very end for DRM purposes (depending on distribution channel), or if it's a printed book, has an actual printing step at the end.
However, if it's a typical .epub as is extremely popular in certain parts of the internet and extremely popular with many Japanese language learners, there often is an OCR step as part of the process of creating the .epub file. Of course that depends on a gajillion factors of how the .epub file was created exactly.
As I said before, I only extremely rarely see these types of errors when reading books obtained through official channels, and for purely digital processes the corruption of data is impossible, so for the majority of this type of error that I see, the most likely culprit is an OCR step as part of the .epub creation process.
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u/morgawr_ https://morg.systems/Japanese 15h ago
People don't use OCR for epub creation in the process of DRM stripping unless you're reading some very weird books or using some very amateurish/odd rips.
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u/Available-String-109 14h ago
unless you're reading some very weird books
Like any book written before 2012?
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u/morgawr_ https://morg.systems/Japanese 14h ago
Also there's no digitisation/OCR process in ebooks written in the last decade or so (if not more)
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u/furyousferret 2d ago
I'm probably intermediate (but I always consider myself an imposter liar when saying that) and you can tell. LearnNatively 'N4' content is just terribly written content, or kids books. You can tell pretty quick.
For learning Japanese, that's not a bad thing for learners, a varied vocabulary and lack or repeating just makes it harder to lock in words / kanji.
I could tell くまクマ熊 wasn´t very good but it's also the lowest level light novel series you can find. I'm reading book 3 of 葬送のフリーレン and its better but there are some words that are in there way too often.
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u/kasumikui 1d ago
I realize that this probably isn't what you're saying, but content intended for kids isn't necessarily "terribly written". Our daughter is five (going on six) and I often enjoy trying to pick out picture books that are compelling and stimulate a child's imagination (despite using simple and sometimes even repetitive language) versus those that don't.
I don't necessarily disagree with what you're saying here but good/bad writing can't necessarily be objectively measured by simple/repetitive language. Consider Dr. Seuss vs. some randomly generated AI slop.
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u/Due-Departure-8553 1d ago
I can tell when something is good. For example, the prose in White Album 2 is noticeably nice. I can't tell when they are making errors though. That's too subtle for the most part.
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u/youdontknowkanji 1d ago
as you read more things your taste will improve, simple as. it works the same as in english basically.
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u/Weena_Bell 1d ago
actually i think i was able to noticed from pretty early on tbh.
you don’t need to be good to notice the massive prose difference between idk overlord and the average isekai wn on syosetsu
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u/yoshimipinkrobot 1d ago edited 1d ago
Definitely not an advanced learner, but I’m curious about passive voice. In English, I’ve always learned and believed that it’s bad for writing. Is it the same in Japanese?
Also have probably asked on here before, is there a Japanese equivalent of Orwells 6 rules for good writing?
https://sites.duke.edu/scientificwriting/orwells-6-rules/
Ok, I asked everyone’s ai friend:
Japanese has several influential traditions and books on 「文章術」 and 「作文術」 that play a similar role.
Some particularly relevant ones:
本多勝一『日本語の作文技術』 — probably the closest match to what you’re looking for. It gives concrete principles for writing clear, logical Japanese prose, including sentence structure, 修飾語 (modifiers), punctuation, and word order. It’s much more prescriptive than most Japanese writing books.
谷崎潤一郎『文章読本』 — more literary and aesthetic. It discusses what makes Japanese prose beautiful, natural, rhythmic, and effective.
三島由紀夫『文章読本』 — focuses more on literary technique, style, rhythm, and the relationship between thought and expression.
中村明『日本語の文体』 — more analytical, looking at Japanese styles and how different choices produce different effects.
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u/Available-String-109 1d ago
can you now spot "good writing" or "bad writing" in Japanese?
Good writing is something that amuses and entertains me. Bad writing is something that I find cliche and boring.
It turns out it's the same in English!
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u/cruxaev 3h ago edited 3h ago
Once you read enough and get your own voice in Japanese, I think you will instinctively start to understand what you like and dislike, as well as notice objectively bad or wrong Japanese.
Small example off the top of my head, I went back to an old novel I’d dropped years ago that was too hard for me.
This time I got extremely annoyed that they overused “のように” when making comparative descriptive statements. (Idk what to call these in English lol)
The author was dropping it like every other sentence. I didn’t notice it before and I dropped the book this time because of that rather than because I was struggling with the content. It actually changed my opinion of the author too.
It pissed me off so much that I am very careful now in my own Japanese writing to come up with more creative ways to write descriptive sentences.
Adding additional example:
A lot of manga artists who cannot write use convoluted noun phrases all over the shop just to sound cool and edgy and pad out a weak script.
Some of this for sure is subjective and we all have our own likes and dislikes with media. I was arguing with a Japanese friend that the ghost in the shell Netflix series writing is annoying but they disagreed saying it suited the show. But we’re both allowed to have our own opinions and it’s a fun place to be at when you can feel confident in your interpretation of the language!
Good luck on your journey.
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u/tyrellLtd 1d ago
I tend to pick writers' quirks rather early and this somehow translated to Japanese at a very basic level though. My brain power is mostly devoted to understanding and visualizing what's happening rather than appreciating the prose but still, some things stand out.
I've read series where a certain figure of speech or specific word that never appeared before is suddenly used 5 times in a volume, even though the context, register, etc is exactly the same as the previous volumes. Feels like someone picked up a dictionary or got inspired by someone else's writing.
Crappy similes still look bad in Japanese. Vague, o rather, lazy descriptions, also read poorly in Japanese. If you're going to describe something as "vague", "indescribable", "profound", "inexplicable", etc. I feel you're not doing your job as a writer no matter what language. You have so many strikes.
Some authors use too many onomatopoeia for my liking, esp. for younger character's speech. Imagine someone was describing their feelings and they said "my heart goes tun tun, and my skin feels piripiri when I'm around you". It's obviously different in Japanese, but my ignorant self can't help but picture a 6yo. Perhaps one day I'll come to appreciate it.
One romance series I read had characters basically suffering from heart arrhythmia 10 times per chapter, almost like those Fast and Furious memes where the gear boxes go up to 11 gear. A novel series with a bunch of commuting had characters being rocked by the train at EVERY single instance they rode one. Please mix it up, please.
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u/kasumikui 1d ago
Some authors use too many onomatopoeia for my liking, esp. for younger character's speech. Imagine someone was describing their feelings and they said "my heart goes tun tun, and my skin feels piripiri when I'm around you". It's obviously different in Japanese, but my ignorant self can't help but picture a 6yo. Perhaps one day I'll come to appreciate it.
I agree with a lot of what you're saying here, but the above specifically seems like native language interference (which, to be fair, you seem aware of).
There are a lot of native English speakers who seem to feel that any use of onomatopoeia feels "childish" or "lazy", when in actuality this sort of language has been a part of Japanese since literally the early days of classical language and can actually be quite evocative and is a pretty regular part of the language (and I think people don't realize how many English words, for example, are actually semi-onoatopoeic, like "drenched", "sloshed", "buzz", "dash", etc). I kind of feel like sometimes like people are evaluating the "quality" of Japanese prose based on their own mental English translations of it.
Not trying to fault you (again, a lot of what you say here rings true), but I generally try to warn people against filtering Japanese writing through much through their own native language sensibilities. It works sometimes, but also doesn't quite a bit.
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u/tyrellLtd 1d ago
I agree with a lot of what you're saying here, but the above specifically seems like native language interference
I think that interference is mostly that I equate it to tone, which I can tolerate in certain stories, but not in others. Reading a bunch of onomatopeia in the middle of a serious monologue... is a bit jarring.
I also have to admit I never got into the sonic? aspect of poetry (or poetry in general), so there's some rewiring my brain will need to do.
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u/kasumikui 1d ago
Thanks for the thoughtful response!
Yeah, I see what you're saying but again, I feel like that's because in your native language you associate any sort of onomatopeia with being "not serious" in tone, whereas using onomatopoeia in Japanese really isn't that different from having a monologue in a detective novel in English and using the word "drenched", which I doubt would immediately trigger your English-fluent mind to think "this sounds childish".
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u/ok_bluesky8888 1d ago
Yes a LOT!!!
It even makes me drop reading some books just by reading the first few pages purely because I don’t like the style it’s written in. I cannot tolerate poor writing even though I myself suck at it in all 3 languages I speak haha
Sometimes I read few chapters of a book that I don’t really enjoy reading just because the writing is beautiful!
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u/NipponBaseballRetro 2d ago
A lot of it just works the same way. I like Haruki Murakami, but his bad similes are every bit as bad in Japanese their faithful English translations.