A Research On The Localization Of Chinese And Japanese Elementary Textbooks

China and Japan started to learn language from each other long time ago. Since Sino-Japanese diplomatic relations became normal, with economic development and the prosperity of tourism, the number of Japanese learners of Chinese language and that of Chinese learners of Japanese language has been rising year by year. According to statistics, as of May 2013, the number of Japanese learners of Chinese language had exceeded 2 million.As the number of Japanese learners of Chinese language increases, more strict requirements for the quantity and quality of Chinese textbook for Japanese are put forward. Though the Chinese textbook published by Japanese greatly outnumbers that by Chinese, the former is inferior to the latter because the former is too easy, targets only beginners, and is for specific function. Some scholars considered that the form of the Chinese textbook published by Japanese was far superior to that by Chinese. Some scholars also thought that the Chinese textbook published by Japanese was not scientific and strict enough.In spite of these defects, the sales in Japan of the Chinese textbook published by Chinese lags far behind that of the Chinese textbook published by Chinese. According to some scholars, the main reason is that the Chinese textbook published by Chinese fails to hit the point, and is not suitable for overseas educational environment. Thus, they call for the development of special textbook. The appeal for country-specific transformation and localization of related textbooks also increasingly rises. This article aims to research the localization of textbook based on the foregoing viewpoints.For purpose of this article, four elementary Japanese-Chinese textbooks were chosen, i.e. two elementary Chinese textbooks for Japanese(Dangdai Zhongwen(当代中文)and Chinese-Japanese Bridge(中日桥汉语))and two elementary Japanese textbooks for Chinese(Japanese of Everyone (大家的日语)and New Sino-Japan Communication Standard Japanese(新版中日交流标准日本语)(New Standard Japanese). The Dangdai Zhongwen (当代中文)and the Japanese of Everyone(大家的日语)are universal textbooks, and the Chinese-Japanese Bridge(中日桥汉语)and the New Standard Japanese(新版中日交流标准日本语)are special textbooks. The writer selected the four textbooks for purpose of objectively comparing the advantages and disadvantages of both kinds.This article consists of three parts. The first part states the reason and thinking of the research, and the summary of researches on the universal principles on compilation of Chinese textbook and the current situation of Chinese textbook in Japan made before in the academic circle.The second part is the main part of this article, which compares the local factors relating to phonetics, vocabulary, text, exercise, and culture of the four textbooks to figure out the level of localization difference of each one, and discusses whether localization is really achieved via the textbooks which are compiled to realize localization, and the respective advantages and disadvantages of universal textbooks and local textbooks on this basis.The third part comes to a conclusion, and proposes some suggestions for modifying universal textbooks for localization. The educational system characteristics of the country of targeted learners of textbooks and the bias error that most learners have should be taken into account, the learner-centered principle is supposed to be conformed to, what the learners want to get should be made clear, and attention should be paid to the learners’ difficulties and needs.Comparison shows that the four textbooks have their own advantages and disadvantages:the Dangdai Zhongwen (当代中文)is relatively systematic and scientific, but takes insufficient account of the particular conditions of Chinese teaching in Japan, contains too many vocabularies and presents too difficult grammar; the Chinese-Japanese Bridge(中日桥汉语)has taken account of the particular conditions of Chinese teaching, but is too easy, provides too superficial dialogues, and presents too little Chinese culture, insufficient to meet the needs of learners to make relatively complete communication with Chinese and learn about Chinese culture; the Japanese of Everyone (大家的日语)is functional, and is helpful to learners to rapidly learn to make daily communication with Japanese, but provides perfunctory entry-level knowledge, not suitable for self-learners; the New Standard Japanese(新版中日交流标准日本语)integrates scientificity, interestingness, communicative efficiency and pertinence, and is especially helpful to learners of Chinese native speaker, but is said by some learners to contain some examples inconformity to the conventional expression of Japanese.Therefore, the writer considers that universal textbooks and special textbooks have their own advantages and disadvantages, concerted efforts from both Chinese and foreign scholars are required to compile a qualified special textbook, and the particular teaching conditions and teaching habits also should be taken into account when promoting textbooks overseas. To sum up, it is not supposed to develop a great deal of special textbooks, but modify the universal textbooks based on the experience accumulated in the past years and the particular conditions of learners in different countries.