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Old 02-01-2009, 04:40 AM   #192
Peter Goldsbury
 
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Dojo: Hiroshima Kokusai Dojo
Location: Hiroshima, Japan
Join Date: Jul 2001
Posts: 2,308
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Re: Transmission, Inheritance, Emulation 10

Hello Allen,

Since I use two massive Japanese monolingual dictionaries in book form (the 14-volume Kokugo Daijiten, and Morohashi's Dai Kanwa Jiten in 13 volumes), I have never felt the need to use Internet resources. However, the student who comes to check my Japanese always uses the Internet and always Google. He knows where to look much more than I do.

My student is now a university lecturer at Hirodai and for Column 11 we have gone word by word through O Sensei's discourses (the sections I chose to discuss) and this was a major learning experience. He confesses to know less classical Japanese than I do, but I think he is being polite--and has the native intuition that I lack. However, even he confessed to being stumped by some of O Sensei's kanji combinations and even more by the contents. You will see.

I am pleased that you have not lost your Japanese after returning to the States and I am very pleased that some AikiWeb members like Josh Reyer are serious students of the language.

Of course, I can see more clearly the constraints that John Stevens was working under when he did his translations of O Sensei's discourses. He made choices that I would not have made, but his achievement is remarkable, nonetheless. The problem for me is that he has given O Sensei in English the status of aikido Holy Writ and I think this is unfortunate.

Best wishes,

PAG

P A Goldsbury
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