Judging about Foreign Language Literature

[RobertJasiek]

badukJr, it would be an exaggeration to say that I could judge about Asian literature as a whole. I have diagram-read hundreds of Asian books and quickly looked through the diagrams of thousands of Asian books, as I have seen them at European retailers, at European go players, in German libraries or in Asian stores. Those Asian books I have seen are not exactly representative because a few better books have been mentioned during the last two decades that I did not see in stores. Real world bookstores (not only go book stores, but I see the same for common real world bookstores, even the big ones) appear to have a tendency of underestimating their potential customers' interest in contents-heavy books. So it is possible that there is slightly higher percentage of interesting books that I cannot access.

Having diagram-read hundreds and seen thousands gives me a good overview on those books I could access at all.

A very great percentage of those Asian go books is diagram-only, diagram-heavy or diagram-with-only-short-diagram-related-texts (as can be identified by a high density of diagram references, move references, symbol references, explicit sequences in the short texts next to the diagrams, visual text structure). Another rather great percentage is likewise, but has chapters with very short introductions, and all diagrams of a chapter show the same topic (such as vital point killing or under-the-stones play). Only a small percentage (at most 10%, probably 5%) of the books have text-heavy parts at all. Only in case of the latter, chances are significant that I would miss part of the contents.

Hence, although I cannot reach the completeness of text understanding of somebody being able to read a foreign language, my overview is pretty reasonable.

[HermanHiddema]

Robert, starting new threads for every post to get around a posting limit is not OK.

[daal]

Robert, starting new threads for every post to get around a posting limit is not OK.

Perhaps better to make such points privately.

[Bill Spight]

Robert, starting new threads for every post to get around a posting limit is not OK.

WTP? What is the problem?

Yes, Robert has a legalistic mind, and has apparently found a loophole.

But he is not hijacking any other threads, and people do not have to respond in Robert's threads. I submit that the only problem at this point is in the mind. We can wait and see how this plays out.

[oren]

Hence, although I cannot reach the completeness of text understanding of somebody being able to read a foreign language, my overview is pretty reasonable.

You like to have numbers and facts and you state your overview is reasonable. Have you verified it's reasonable? It would be interesting to know what percentage of your guessing of the text is correct.

[xed_over]

Robert, starting new threads for every post to get around a posting limit is not OK.

we have a posting limit now? Is this documented somewhere?

[p2501]

edit: OT

[HermanHiddema]

Robert, starting new threads for every post to get around a posting limit is not OK.

we have a posting limit now? Is this documented somewhere?

http://senseis.xmp.net/?RobertJasiek%2FDiscussion#toc3 bottom of page.

[badukJr]

Real world bookstores (not only go book stores, but I see the same for common real world bookstores, even the big ones) appear to have a tendency of underestimating their potential customers' interest in contents-heavy books. So it is possible that there is slightly higher percentage of interesting books that I cannot access.

I agree with you there. Any skill based literature is stocked in beginner level only for most things, like language, coooking, woodworking, etc. It seems that their strategy is to grab people who are in the bookstore without a purpose and will decide to impulse study something.

However, I don't believe your overview is very reasonable and is in fact flawed. This is because your experience is incomplete. The fact is that most of the books you see are in Europe. The majority of those will be diagram heavy because they are brought into Europe for the consumption of people who are not well read in the book's language. It would not make sense for someone from Hungry to buy text heavy books in Chinese from China if he cannot read them. Therefore, diagram-heavy books are preferred.

Please stop making this comparison until you've visited Asian bookstores in Asias and read the text in the original language with comprehension.

[RobertJasiek]

oren, the point of understanding a go book in a foreign language is not to understand word by word but is to understand the core of the taught contents. (Elsewhere I described how I started as a 5k with that.)

badukJr, I wish the most go books of those I have seen I would have seen in Europe. The most I have seen in Tokyo and Seoul, and their mixture was as described.

[oren]

oren, the point of understanding a go book in a foreign language is not to understand word by word but is to understand the core of the taught contents. (Elsewhere I described how I started as a 5k with that.)

I completely agree with this. I would like to know what percentage of time you get the core contents right. You like facts and numbers.

[badukJr]

[quote="RobertJasiek"
badukJr, I wish the most go books of those I have seen I would have seen in Europe. The most I have seen in Tokyo and Seoul, and their mixture was as described.[/quote]

But, you have not read them, have you? How can you get an understanding like that?

[RobertJasiek]

badukJr, when parsing go books in, say, an Asian bookstore, I recognise
- a 20k level pure problem book within at most 5 seconds,
- a series of such books quickly,
- pure game collections by seeing nothing else than actual game sequence diagrams in a book,
- pure problem collections by seeing nothing else than problems in a book
etc.

and what remains is about 5 ~ 10% of books, into which I need to look more carefully to recognise their nature, intended reader strength and overall contents. Would you or everybody above beginner level not distinguish quickly the easily identified types of books mentioned above? (Ok, Alexei Lazarev 6d was a bit impressed when he saw my speed of identifying for me uninteresting books within seconds, so maybe I am indeed faster at that than you might imagine:) )

[xed_over]

Robert, starting new threads for every post to get around a posting limit is not OK.

we have a posting limit now? Is this documented somewhere?

http://senseis.xmp.net/?RobertJasiek%2FDiscussion#toc3 bottom of page.

Oh my gosh! That's just silly.