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FredK: Hi Tamsin. Given the title, I would have thought the book was about invasions that are little known in the amateur community, instead of common ones. So is the title meant ironically, as in "amateurs don't know these as well as they think they do"?
Also, if you've had a chance to browse through the similarly titled "Josekis Amateurs Don't Know", is it, too, about tandard josekis?
Tamsin: Hi Fred. I've noticed Bill's comment. I may have got the title wrong - gomen ne! It's difficult to be sure because the 'Ama no shiranai uchikomi' part is printed in a normal font, while the rest is in boxes. Perhaps it's deliberately ambiguous? In which case, it could mean what you say, i.e., standard invasions that amateurs think they know, but don't really, or what Bill suggests, countermeasures that amateurs don't know very well. I feel a bit embarrassed - I had just assumed the 対策事典 part was a sub-title.
I have seen the joseki book in the shops, but I haven't looked at it yet.
Well, the same kind of ambiguity exists in English, as in Dictionary of Countermeasures to Invasions that Amateurs Don't Know. ;) Given the cover, your translation sounds right. But that may be the publisher's doing. After all, the amateurs probably know the invasions, but not the countermeasures.
As for Fred's suggestion that shiranai implies that they think they know, but really don't, my impression, when I lived in Japan, was that Japanese would tend to say wakaranai (I don't understand) in a lot of situations where I would say I don't know in English. I think that wakaranai would apply to the invasions, but maybe shiranai would, too. In fact, the cover suggests that, doesn't it?
John F. I don't think any of the above suggestions are right. Although N1 + N2 can be a case of N1 modifying N2, it can also be simple coordination (rather common in Japanese), i,e, A Dictionary of Invasions and Countermeasures. This book teaches (it says, not me) "how to invade" and "the proper responses". The ultimate aim is not even to learn how to invade or to answer, but to assign a "degree of danger" to common shimaris or post-joseki situations where amateurs tend to assume there is no danger (on either side of the fence).
Academics have written papers on this sort of parataxis in Japanese (with assumed ellipsis of to, ka or ya), which can be notoriously ambiguous. That may be why the cover designer split the phrase graphically. As it happens, it crops up in the title of another book I looked at today: Go no uta go no kokoro (Poems about go, and the soul of go).
Academics have written papers on this sort of parataxis in Japanese (with assumed ellipsis of to, ka or ya), which can be notoriously ambiguous. That may be why the cover designer split the phrase graphically.
But if your reading is the intended one, shouldn't the split have just "ama no shiranai" in normal text and "uchikomi" along with the rest in the boxes?