Customer Reviews

A Reader of Handwritten Japanese

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What a shame to find out that this book is out of print! I picked it up at a used bookstore near my home a year ago, and it rapidly became an indispensable resource. This book is a collection of actual handwritten Japanese letters sent to Prof. O'Neill and his careful, detailed translations of them. Anyone who has learned enough Japanese to write a letter in the language knows that the structure of a formal English letter is quite different from that of a Japanese one. This text, with a collection of formal and informal letters on a variety of subjects, is unparalleled as a guide to letter-writing in Japanese, and is also valuable as an intermediate- to advanced-level supplementary textbook. I would also recommend _A Reader of Handwritten Japanese_ to students of any level interested in improving their handwritten Japanese, as Prof. O'Neill has recieved some letters written in beautiful hand. If you find a copy of this book, by all means buy it!

O'Neill's A Reader of Handwritten Japanese is a beautiful book that would benefit intermediate and advanced learners of Japanese.

CONTENT
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-A brief, well-written introduction to Japanese letters and the book.
-25 introductory texts. These are all correspondence. He includes transcriptions, notes, and translations with them.
-35 intermediate texts. More correspondence with transcriptions and notes, but NO translations.
-20 higher level texts. More correspondence with transcriptions and notes, but NO translations.
-20 advanced texts. More correspondence with transcriptions and notes, but NO translations. The last text is the only (?) one in the book that is not correspondence. It shows two extracts from classical literature written in cursive.

PROS
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+ There is nothing else like this available. One-hundred different models of writing gathered together in one place with transcriptions. Working through the book definitely improves your ability to recognize characters and patterns. I am struggling with sixteenth-century texts at the moment, and I have revisited this text to help deepen my familiarity with handwriting.
+ The translations are very excellent, there is a thorough glossary at the back, and he provides occasional notes as well. This is all invaluable to language learners who want to be able to correspond with others in Japanese.

CONS
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- The book is outdated. Let's face it. Most of our correspondence these days is done by email, so there is less and less of a need to read and write like this. Instead of just correspondence, maybe a new edition could be published with a wider range of handwritten Japanese that we are likely to encounter.
- How are we supposed to use the book? I would like more discussion of the patterns found in each letter, alternatives, and so forth.
- I would like translations for all of the texts. This is tough stuff, even for advanced learners. We already have a difficult task trying to decipher what is on the page.

SUMMARY
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If you come across a copy of this book somewhere, you ought to get it. It may not be republished, and I doubt it will be revised, so it is a rare commodity.

I have used this book, it looks like copies of some correspondence between O'Neill and some of his business associates and friends--primarily having to do with his research trips to Japan. I compiled a list of the more useful openings and closings to letters, with appropriate seasonal greetings, but I believe many of these may be available as canned openings in MS Word. They are no doubt also available on the internet.

Aside from these timeless items, this book is dated. The handwriting is also very neat, not like the chicken scratches I often have to translate from barely legible faxes or the notes someone has scribbled on a greasy, cafeteria napkin. So, this book is unlikely to help you too much in deciphering real handwritten Japanese.

If this book is in your library, it might be worth looking into, but I do not recommend buying it.