Alright, I’m finished The ending surprised me a bit, I didn’t expect ピュー太 to just…disappear like that lol.
I think this book was a really good introduction and took away some of my fear of technical terms in kanji. Unfortunately, life happened and I rushed through some parts towards the end and skipped the fun facts in the margins, which is a bit of a shame since those contained more advanced facts about computers.
My favourite chapter was the one about supercomputers, that’s a topic I didn’t know much about before but got really interested in now and started reading some more about it
One thing I kept wondering about: was this book sponsored by Fujitsu, or are they just the poster child of the Japanese IT industry? They were brought up a lot lol
Thanks for sharing. I agree, lots of useful terms from a Japanese learning perspective and lots of Fujitsu praising. But as you already mentioned the book is supported by the Fujitsu group.
That’s cool to hear.
Awesome. Did you by any chance catch up if they succeeded with their goals for 2020 (~p.93)?
As for my feedback about the book...
I like: from a Japanese learners perspective the book is absolutely beginner friendly. A lot of reoccurring grammar patterns and repetition of vocab terms and expressions.
I like: that there are multiple situations when vocabulary terms are explained in Japanese → great opportunity to try some J->J flash cards
I like: from a CS perspective there is a great variety of topics touched. Therefore, a great variety of vocabulary terms are introduced that help to get started with any of those topics.
I like: the (end)user centric approach. Computers are a big part of our everyday life and not a “nerd” topic anymore.
I wish: they would have presented the topics in a more reflected way addressing different aspects of them. I do acknowledge that a company might want to take their chances and advertise about the achievements they’ve made over the years and decades. But addressing and praising only the 便利 parts is a very narrowed and one-side view, I think.
I wish: they would allow the same goals and hopes for all kids and let go of certain type of stereotypes. To be fair, they did a great job in balancing out both kids during the journey. Unfortunately in the epilogue they set different limits for what boys and girls are supposed to dream of.
Therefore, for Japanese learners that wish to dive into some computer related terms and expressions I can recommend the book. Especially to get started with tech terms. Due to the embedding in different everyday life topics their will be enough items people might already know → no need to look up every second word only to understand a sentence.
For people who don’t have any tech background on the other hand I would not recommend the book. Mainly because of the first of my two “I wish” points.
Apart from that, the book seems to be suitable for either intensive or extensive reading.
For those who are interested: I added a short bonus lesson about 「量子コンピュータ」. It’s a ~6 min manga reading video clip with a knowledgeable cat explaining their pet owner what this type of computer is about. Same as the topics in the manga the topic is covered on a very high (superficial) level. It gives you some of the basic vocab items related to this subject, though.
something new you’ve learned from this book
loads of new vocab. That an empty bubble is used as a place holder. Learned about kei super computer and it was/is in the top. That japan has a lot of large number names(although i wonder how ofthen higher numbers are used because non technical people don’t use high number and technical people tend to use scientific notation).
something that really surprised you, or
That fujitsu financed this manga(i haven’t heard of any children’s book from IBM or microsoft).
something you don’t really agree with
haven’t read anything controversial so not much to disagree with.
The ending surprised me a bit, I didn’t expect ピュー太 to just…disappear like that lol.
