I read Korean manhwa and manga translated into Korean, and I've found a variety of verbiage.

Tactics, for instance. There were over 50 words I had to look up in the translator per volume.

I've found that reading (and even studying) manga (or manhwa) is a good alternative to reading books. I've even been encouraged to read it.

How about you?
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Not sure if this is what your asking but reading manga has made me want to study Japanese. The kana, grammar, kanji, etc.. Since some of the raws i've seen have hiragana/katakana besides the kanji it makes unknown kanji easier to read/translate. Compared to say a novel, or a text heavy book, it's easier to read and put into practice..

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Last edited by La Plume at 2:24 am, May 25 2011

I think reading manga (or manhwa, or manhua even) is probably a good way to practice conversational speaking. But for real grammer, correct word usage, etc. it is probably better to read books. People don't really talk the way they write.

Although, any reading - be it books or comics - in a foreign language is better than simply studying the textbook. I'm a case in point: I took 2 1/2 years of Japanese and have a huge raw manga collection, but I was too timid to translate any of my manga because of the conversational speaking. So now, half a year out of college I can still read Japanese, but I don't always know what I'm reading.

In French class, my teacher has made us read French comics, so for foreign language skills, it may help. As a cultural agent, it may as well.

But in literary terms, manga replaces a lot of description into pictures. You can think of it as a novel, and analyze it the same way. Really good language, though, remains in real books.

stolen from http://www.e-topic.com/articles/127/1/Education-The-Impact-of-L iteracy-Rates/Page1.html

1-3 million people I mean holey, rusted metal, Batman. And from the little reseach I've done these estimates could be low since the numbers were most likely taken from the census and that doesn't count for the homeless, not to mention the fact if they can't read the mail how are they going to answer the census? As far as manga helping literacy, I don't think so. I read Japanese raw manga for practice on reading, but with out formal training I would probably never be able to understand what is being said; I can, however, follow the general story of a section where I don't understand what is being said just by looking at the artwork. I'm sorry but manga has too much information in the pictures to improve literacy on it's own. It could be used as a tools to get kids to read and maybe be used as a supplement for kids who just can't seem to get the hang out reading.

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reading manga did help me learn how to read and write in japanese, but the only value in that is that i can read some untranslated stuff.
but anime helped with my english, since i had to read subtitles very fast. took me 2 months to completely stop pressingthe pouse button every 2 seconds....

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Would anyone agree that it's better to learn reading/writing than speaking/listening first as once you've done the former, your ought to be able to know the latter?. If you can speak/hear a foreign language, it doesn't mean you can write it/read it. Hope i'm making sense lol.

Not necessarily, everyone learns differently and is better at one things then another. Myself, I can read a hell of a lot better in both english and japanese than I can speak, usually because my brain's going 100 MPH and my mouth can only go 75.

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well i can type better than i can talk definitely , it takes a while to generate a response when i try to but i know how to make one ...
but if i know the words as i write them and can say it in my head, then all the knowledge of how to say it out of my head should be there, no?. If you just communicated and picked up words through conversations, you couldn't apply it to improving reading. What i'm trying to get at is whether it's better to focus on speaking/listening, or reading and writing whenever a new language is picked up on..

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Last edited by La Plume at 2:22 am, May 25 2011

Its only value could be that when reading poorly translated manga, you have to rewrite sentences in your head. other than that, no i dont think it does.

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When I was taking Spanish in high school, we spent a lot of time writing and memorizing words. In college, when I took Japanese, much more time was devoted to listening and speaking. However, we didn't study every day of the week. The people who learned Spanish and Japanese well in my classes studied very hard outside of class.

In my experience, Americans are pretty good at writing and reading foreign languages but not very good speaking them. I have friends who can read German, French, Spanish, Greek, etc. fairly well but can't speak the languages to save their lives (that's me with Japanese!). The reason is the same as in France, apparently: no one is used to hearing foreign languages spoken! Spanish is becoming more common, but most Spanish-speakers speak English...and there aren't enough English-speakers who know Spanish.

I thought your comment was interesting, because in the US we're always being told that everyone in Europe can speak a thousand languages effortlessly.

I guess this just means that, regardless, be it manga or books, any kind of constant reading/speaking of a language is better than nothing. ;)

Personally i find speaking or reading out loud in foregin languages easier than writing in them but i think it really depends on what (or how complicated) ur mother tongue is. personally i have an easy time speaking other languages (like japanese or spanish) since my language has complicated structure (so much that i have to think before saying anything especially when talking with older folks) but my brother has a much harder time since he wasnt brought up learning my mother tongue. Reading definatly helps get a better sense of the language (especially if you can "hear" what you are reading).

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If I were you, then I would................wait, what would I do?

"Do you think manga has increased literacy?"
Yes
"How much?"
Ah, that's the question, isnit?

As for Spanky151, 1% illiterate of a country the size of America, 200+ mil of peeps, hah, that's very good. There's always the lazy, or the very poor who got re-illiterate (meaning they 'forgot their letters'). 1% is about right. Perfection exist only in the eye of Allah, as I heard they said.