C&C below.  Snippage througout.

A little background on *me*.  I took six years of French and five of Latin
in high school. I took a college course on Language and Communication, so I
know what it's like to learn languages.

However, I *don't* know Japanese, beyond overused words and phrases in
anime.  Maybe that makes me a better reviewer...

...Then again:  I think that learning Japanese for/from anime is a Bad Idea.
It's a pet peeve of mine.  I've seen a lot of fans start to learn the
language, but never get past two years of classes.  After seeing this so
many times, I just started to think it was misguided.

These are my opinions.  Please keep in mind as you read my C&C.

Book I:  Japanese 100- Survival Course

Notes for this book of the series:  Those of you looking for the Ranma
content might not find much of it in this book- it's primarily the set-up.
Akane plays a role in it, and certain other Ranma characters may play small
roles in it, but it'll be a while before our hero (or I, myself) can speak
and/or understand the language well enough to communicate with the Tendou's
on a regular basis.  Oh, and as a brief note, while I completed the eight
lessons of the Pimsleur Audio-Only Course before writing this one, future
books I'll be writing out the chapters as I complete each lesson, so this
book may be the fastest-written of them all (and since this is likely to be
written at a snails-pace since I want to work on my other fanfics between
each of these chapters, and I've been writing slowly (for me, anyway)
recently anyway)

[urg]  This could go with the author's notes.  Or at least before the start
of "Book I"  I've already seen your comments; when I read the title I'd like
to see the *story* start.

Prolog:  Welcome to Tokyo!  What Do You Mean You Don't Know Any Japanese?

The first thing that clued me in to the fact that something out of the
ordinary had happened was that I woke up lying on a sidewalk.  Now, I admit
that in the past, after some pretty late parties- where I may have had one
too many drinks- I'd woken up in some pretty weird places, but I hadn't
been drunk the night before, and I certainly hadn't gone to any parties.
In fact, I didn't even remember going to sleep!

A decent opening.  Draws in interest.

I shook my head and stood up, trying to orient myself.  When I looked

Orient?  Please tell me that wasn't a pun.  ^_^;;;

[...]

I was almost relieved to see something relatively out of place streaking
towards me- a young woman, with strange tattoos on her forehead and cheeks,

Uh, streaking has a meaning of running around naked, you know...

When I read this, I was under the impression that the goddess was Urd.
She's the only one I can see streaking (in the naked sense or otherwise).
Belldanandy is usually more...  demure.

Maybe you should note her hair color?  It *does* differentiate her from
all the dark-haired people around Mr. First Person.

[...]

My speechlessness ended, but I was still rather shocked.  "What are you
babbling about?  Where am I?  What's going on?"

Speak louder.  That always helps.  ;)  "DO!  YOU!  UNDERSTAND!  ME?!"

The woman's smile fell the rest of the way into a careful, somewhat neutral
expression.  In English good enough to be native, she asked, "Don't you
understand Japanese?"

Unless "Huh?" is a Japanese word, I think the goddess would have been
clued in much sooner that First Person didn't speak Japanese.  After all,
you said the goddesses know all languages at birth.

[...]

"You could say it's in my nature," she said matter-of-factly.  "I and my
sisters were born knowing every language in existence.

Awfully convenient.  I know some professors that would die to ask them
about Etruscan...

[...]

"I don't think I've given you my name," I said, looking around.  "Hi, I'm
Jonathan Desaix... um, what's going on?"

I think you should provide the Japanese pronunciation for Desaix.  ;)
[de se i e ku su]?

[...]

"So, in other words, if I want to ever see my family or friends again, I
have to set this guy and this girl up, right?"

Nicely put.  :)

Belldandy gasped.  "Oh, dear- I hope you don't really see things that
hopelessly.  The Ultimate Force, which is what brought you here, is now
working on making sure that this mistake turns out for the better for you.

Does the Ultimate Force have anything to do with happiness?  I only know
about OMG what I've read from Studio Proteus, and in the latest ish,
Belldandy was worried that Keiichi's wish would bring him *unhappines*.

[...]

With that, she left the room.  I looked at the sheet of paper she had given
me.

"Desaix-san:
I'd rather wait until I can talk to you in person before teaching you full
phrases or sentences, but while I take care of other things you can study
some vocabulary.

You just lost me on willing suspesion of disbelief.  She pulls out a paper
that basically continues her conversation?  Huh?

[...]

akusento-- accent [ack sen toe]
amachua-- amatuer [ah mah chu ah]

Unfortunately, you need to establish a pronunciation guide before
you can start listing pronunciuations.  Does "ah" have a short a,
or is it what would be an a with an umlaut in most dictionaries?

I see you're trying to use words, where possible, to be unambigious,
but it's not really helping for me.  When I see a pronunciation
guide, I expect letters to have consistent meanings and pronuncations.

Only English words *don't* have consistent pronunciation.  So I get
confused.  I see words, but my brain is trying to parse phonemes.

[...]

"Of course- I'm a goddess, I can't lie," she explained.  I didn't really
believe that, but decided it was best not to say anything at the moment.
"Now, the two people you are supposed to act as matchmaker for are Ranma
Saotome and Akane Tendou.  They are high school students at Furinkan high
school, and they both have been harassed by various suitors to the point of
never trusting anyone of the opposite sex."

This is when I'd normally throw this fic in the trash.  It's nothing
against what you're written so far, but I am naturally repelled by
self-inserts where the character solves Ranma's problems.

Is it possible to hide F.P.'s real job until we get further into the
fic?  Is it even necessary for F.P. to know the nature of his job?
Belldandy could just say that he has to help Akane solve one of her
personal problems.  We could assume it was anger, or cooking, and
not necessarily setting her up with Ranma.

[...]

[Please repeat these parts aloud, and again after our hero repeats
Belldandy.  Yes, it will be repetitive, but that's part of how you're
supposed to learn it]

"Please speak these parts aloud... after... repeats Belldandy's words."

I dunno.  Nothing personal, but I'd never call the First Person character
the hero.  :j  Protagonist at best.  Main Character?

"Mas [Mahss]," she began.

"Mas," I said.

"Mas," she repeated.

"Mas," I said again.

"Masen [Mahss sen (sen rhymes with hen)]"

"Masen."

"Sumi [Sue me (not literally- I can't afford it)]

"Sumi."

"Masen."

"Masen."

"Sumimasen [sue me mahss sen]," she said, finally finishing the word.

"Sumimasen."

I'll assume there's a reason why the ends of the words are being
pronounded first.  It confused me.

This is where the fic falls apart for me.  I think your success with
your tapes is *because* they were tapes, and not textbooks.
Unfortunately, we have the textbook, and not the tapes.

Languages are ultimately spoken, so learning from text is hindering,
at best.  We don't have Belldandy around to correct *our* pronunciation.

I glossed over the rest.

I'm not sure what to say.  I'm tempted to call this a lost cause, but
I'm sure that's my prejudices talking.  I doubt it would help anyone
learn what you've learned.  I do think, however, that writing this
would be a good help to *you* in remembering what you've learned.

I think this project would be better suited for a web page.  Instead
of your pronunciation giude, each japanese word could be clickable, and
play a sound of the word.  The impact would be *much* better.

As for the story itself, I think the learning Japanese to help get closer
to the characters is a novel (and good!) idea.  Unfortunately, I would
try to avoid making it sound like a story where the SI solves everyone's
problems.

That, combined with the dry reading of the repeated foreign words would
make this too unbearable.

Good luck with this!  Later,


Doug

----
Douglas MacDougall                  "You were nicer when you were evil.
http://www.dougmacd.net/             Cuter, too.  Definitely more sexy!"