I want to start learning Japanese, but since I don't have Pimsleur money I need a method to hit it. Right now I have 'A Guide to Writing Kanji And Kana' Book 1 and 2, by Wolfgang Hadamitzky and Mark Spahn, and Living Language's 'Ultimate Japanese' (which is supposedly a VERY shitty book, but it was free and I'm using it for grammar/conjugation only.) I'm debating making flash cards as well.
So, how should I go about learning it? I'm sure just reading it won't be enough...
>>1
If you live in a large town, find out if your local university has a Japanese conversation club. University of Texas does, and it kicks ass. 3 hours a week of hanging out with Japanese people.
Learn kana in a week. Then move on to Kanji. You need 2,000 to be literate. Learn 20 a week, and in 2 years you'll be literate. It's hard, but just DO IT.
Learn grammar, talk to yourself all the time, and here comes the most important part
SKYPE MOTHERFUCKER. DO YOU USE IT. Seriously, if you're a white guy, there are like a billion Japanese honeys dyyyying to speak Japanese with a biggu dikku amerikan.
One of my friends literally met his Japanese wife that way.
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UKLukeEU2007-01-03 17:57
Mr >>1, I admire you. That post nearly made me teary eyed. I shal learn Hiragana and Katakana in like a week, it's piss eashy. And I'll learn Kanji after to, 20 a week you say? Sounds good to me.. I'll do it. The grammer bit seems hard, but I guess I can only but try. And yeah I use Skype, and yeah I know many Japanese people who wana talk to me. And yeah I met my Japanese girlfriend that way. Oh by the by.. I am not the dude who created this post, but the title seemed good.
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Anonymous2007-01-03 23:06
OP here.
Skimming through your two webpages, I can concisely say that they OWN. I'll read those NOW.
'University of Maryland University College has one of the largest Japanese language programs of any American university.' Too bad I don't gooooooo... I don't even have a car yet; regardless, I am now 19, dumb, and need to find out what I want to do before diving into a University anytime soon.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skype
Wow. Just...wow. I've heard of Skype from the whole Hal Turner business, but I'd never bothered to look it up. This is a must have.
Also, being Bix Nood, I think I fall under the biggu dikku category >:3
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Anonymous2007-01-03 23:08
P.S. I'm making flash cards as well. WISH ME LUCK!
Flash cards are very helpful, I would recommend them, also check Ebay theres a few ebooks for low prices if you want to check that out. apart from that grab yourself a dictionary, learn common words, then just learn the grammar and your in
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Anonymous2007-01-07 16:40
>>7 's kantango.com is interesting ! It works pretty well. Especially, its pronounciation is correct. The voice sounds a little sleepy for me because of the lack of accent, though.
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Anonymous2007-01-13 19:43
Op here.
So as I'm going through Tae Kim's guide here, I can honestly say that I actually feel like I'm learning a language. In school, I never really needed to study; I just knew how to memorize what answer goes to what question on a test, which simply doesn't work here. Kim's introduction is spot-on.
The only bad thing so far is I can no longer 'enjoy' certain mangas. I keep trying to read them and look things up! Well, it is practice I suppose. ~FAR~ simpler than news reports.
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Anonymous2007-01-13 19:47
This thread is HIGHLY relevant to my interests
*bookmarks*
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Anonymous2007-01-13 23:26
I picked up "The Idiot's Guide To Conversational Japanese" and despite the title, it's actually really good. While it doesn't go over any kanji, it's still very good for grammar.
Also, http://www.japanesepod101.com/index.php is a very good site. Start with the beginner lessons and go from there. Again, as it's a podcast, there isn't really any kanji or even hiragana or katakana, but, IMO, the grammar is more important anyway.
I should admit, that I didn't have to start from scratch, I took three years of Japanese in high school (albeit with a crappy teacher) had a year off, forgot a bunch of stuff, went to Japan, came back. And I'm now currently trying to learn new stuff, but both of those helped refresh some of the things that my teacher taught me, and even introduced some that she didn't but definitely should have.
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Anonymous2007-01-14 7:30
>>3
Where do you find the japanese people to talk with? I want teh dripping japanese honies :(
>>16
Should I look up a japanese white pages and randomly call people?
>>14
>>http://www.japanesepod101.com/index.php
This is a pretty cool site, I am downloading the mp3s and listening to them. I am finding it helpful, except for the first male japanese guy sounds like he has a cold and the 2nd female japanese sounds like she is deep throating the mic.
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Anonymous2007-01-14 14:58
If you have a psp load it up with mp3s of japanese lessons. you can also take make flash cards with photoshop or even mspaint. Install the japanese language onto your computer, you can do this via control panel>region and language settings. this wont change everything on your computer into Japanese. all it does is allow you to type the romaji and it out puts it into Japanese characters on your computer, you can also change back to english so you be stuck typing in Japanese.
This is also great for text based lessons. Take a screenshot, crop it then transfer it to the psp. I don't always have access to a computer and sometimes the computer chair isn't so comfy, so this makes it a great alternative.
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Anonymous2007-01-14 17:30
Sorry for being a dumbfuck sweabo, but what are flash cards?
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Anonymous2007-01-15 6:02
>>15
I met people to talk with via e-mail and messenger programs through www.japan-guide.com. There are a lot of Japanese people there looking for someone with whom to converse in English and Japanese, so give it a shot.
In a nutshell, they have a question (or a picture or kanji or kana or etc.) on one side and an answer (or the english translation or whatever) on the other side.
Also the book is was based on "A guide to remembering Japanese characters" by Kenneth G Henshall although I can't find that anywhere. I used to glance over that book for about 30 minutes every night or when I just fancied a break from whatever I was doing and gradually I consolidated a way to remeber the characters.
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Xosmi2007-01-21 11:31
if this is still relevant, i have pimsleur japanese complete in ogg format (levels 1,2 and 3, 90 lessons in total;) and i don't mind uploading this through some medium, be in torrent, though i've never made a torrent before, or a file host that allows files of at least 500 mb (the .rar package will be a bit smaller then 500 MB)
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Anonymous2007-01-21 11:58
I cannot recommend pimsleur as a starting point, to be honest I'd avoid them completely. Go with japanesepod101 and perhaps the nhk videos first at least. But unless you go to japan, you'll need to immerse yourself into various things such as tv/movies/anime/music.
For kanji it's probably best to get a book. Try finding a copy of "remembering kanji I,II,III" series, you can probably find the pdfs on the net if you know where to look.
>>27
jdrama is always shit.
Buy "minna no nihongo" instead, with the grammar books in your language, should give you a pretty good start.
and take a lesson once per week or so, you need to speak the language to learn it. going to japan for a month living in a hostfamily and going to a gaijin school helps you a lot too.
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Anonymous2007-01-24 7:07
Minna no nihongo is excellent, buy that the dictionary of basic japanese grammar and something like kanji power and you'll be set. The japanese grammar dictionaries are the shiznit. Also take it easy with the kanji learning, after a while it gets really confusing, especially when there a 8 fucking kanji for the same sodding word. Also read manga while listening to matching drama cd, it really helps. I am nihongo sensei so I know
Hey everybody. I just figured out that I have no real reason to learn Japanese. None of my old motivations apply anymore. But after having studied for a while, I'm left with a 'what if' feeling. So, are there any benefits to learning Japanese, like career-related or anything. I don't think I want to just quit now.
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Anonymous2007-02-12 14:54
>>38
a large amount of unreleased videogames, anime , superior hawwt girls, newest technology, and you will feel above any man
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Anonymous2007-02-12 16:23
Install east asian languages on your computer so you can read japanese sites
I'm learning it right now with a combination of Pimsleur level 1-3 (pirated zomg) and forcing myself to learn katataka, hiragana and kanji. I've memorized katakana and I'm learning hiragana. During class I write practice sentences in both (in english, just using Japanese characters...for now)
I'll probably either take an advanced course in it or find a speaker and talk to them in person more, if I ever get the chance to do either (living in the middle of nowhere has disadvantages)
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Anonymous2007-02-12 20:02
estoy realmente cansado de leer gente intentado parlar el japonese pienso que ustedes son unso nerds sin vidas por eso son llevados a aprender este idioma de las cuevas no tienen novia para poner sus penes aqui va para que reflexionen gordos gringos:
este idioma de las cavernas ya no existe, somos bastante civilizados para todabia andar hablando con un simbolito por palabra malditos ignorantes o es que no lo notan o es que el hentai los lleva a hacer estas idioteces que aprender japones para leer su manga hentai de mierda putos ignorantes aprendab lenguajes utiles como el español ya que cuando sus novias vengan de vacaciones a acapulco seguramente algunos negros la raptaran y violaran hasta que sus penes se paspen y la vagina de su novia de desangre y se ponga violeta y ahi ustedes tendran que hablr con los secuestrados y como le diran? hello i am kevin? o kawaii desu neeeee? ignorantes incivilizados de mierda
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Anonymous2007-02-13 4:44
total mente de acuerdo con vos. esta pinche mierda de lenguajes cuneiformes deberian de ser baneados de la faz de la tierra estamons en el siglo 21 y todavia con estos lenguajes sumerios cuneiformes es una aberracion
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Anonymous2007-02-13 6:46
>>40
You're on the internet. Get a microphone, a messenger program (MSN messenger is widely used in Japan) and go to www.japan-guide.com's language ads or something similar, and ask around for someone who wants to talk to you.
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Anonymous2007-02-13 12:18
>>43
I'll give that a try, I'm on a college LAN and the speed sucks, so Skype doesn't work at all. MSN isn't encrypted afaik so it might be a bit faster. Or I'll just try it when I'm at home.
I don't think I play enough games to justify learning an entire language. I don't even watch tv, let alone anime.
>>Super cute girls
Fix'd
Technology sounds interesting. Aaand you lost me with that last part.
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Anonymous2007-02-17 15:19
Everyone ITT is an idiot. Buy the Yookoso book (search Amazon)/take classes. It's expensive but it's worth it.
Speaking Japanese is much more useful than writing kanji, and learning kanji as you use it is infinitely more useful.
I find it funny that there are always so many people who give advice in English talking about how they "know Japanese" on this board but whenever a "let's talk in Japanese" thread comes up only 1 or 2 people actually post intelligible sentences.
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Anonymous2007-02-18 10:50
>>52
Maybe they're off proving their skills to 2chan and 2ch. Showing Japan's finest what the English speaking world's finest can do.
God help us all, we're doomed.
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Anonymous2007-02-18 11:50
1). Learn to speak some of the language first before you learn to write it.
- Be able to give a detailed self-introduction including things such as name, age, star sign (useful), what nationality (as in which country do you hold citizenship, not what background your family is), where you live, what you do with yourself (for example, student - include major, builder, waiter, chef and so on, teacher/professor/lecturer - include specialty), your hobbies, and often it's useful to include a reason as to why you learned Japanese. While you'll never say a self-introduction this long, you're grouping together the main bits of information that make you who you are, and they're much easier to remember.
- Be able to express your likes and dislikes.
- Naturally, if you're a beginner you should also learn how to ask what a word is in English.
- Numbers/days/prices/times.
- Of course learn the cultural aspect in which the above points are used. For example, you almost never use the word hate, you need to determine who your ingroup and who your outgroup are. Learn some basic grammatical structures: wa + desu, object + o + verb.
- Learn basic tenses (desu/deshita, masu/mashita).
- Learn negatives (dewa arimasen/ja arimasen).
- ONLY LEARN DESU AND MASU. DO NOT USE DA OR RU FORM! As a beginner you won't know the intricacies of ingroups and outgroups, so just speak with everybody using the same level of politeness. Better safe than sorry.
2). Learn hiragana and katakana. Continue learning vocab and sentence structures.
- Learn the exceptions in hiragana (for example, "wa" topic marker is written with は and "o" object marker is written with を (type "wo" into the keyboard to get it).
- Stroke order is important. If you write these in an incorrect order you will probably write these incorrectly.
- Ensure everything you do now is in kana. Make sure you learn a lot of gairaigo (borrowed words) so you can also use them. But ensure you still use a lot of kango/jukugo/wago.
- Pick up adjectives. Enhance descriptions of things you do/see with adjectives.
- Learn に verbs. Verbs that indicate direction (iku/kuru/noru/hairu/etc).
- As with before, don't bother learning da/ru forms yet, stick with desu and masu.
By that point you should be able to read and write basic Japanese sentences that: describe fact, indicate action, add colour with adjectives, indicate direction of a person or a thing, describe yourself, write all of this in the two phonetic scripts.
While it doesn't sound like much, to master that you'll also have to pick up a large amount of vocabulary.
Once you've reached that point, you can go off and start learning kanji. You should also consult your textbook (the one you've been using to get all the info for the above from) and follow its instruction on grammatical structures from then on.
As for kanji and vocabulary? I suggest you get hold of the one hundred kanji that you're expected to know for the Japanese Language Proficiency Test Level Four (nihongo nouryoku shiken yon kyuu/にほんごのうりょくしけんよんきゅう/日本語能力試験四級). Take it, once you pass, move onto level three vocab/grammar/kanji and master those. Once you pass three there's a rather big gap between 2-kyuu and 3-kyuu. If you can pass 2-kyuu you're doing very well. If you pass 1-kyuu, you're a natural.
もう一つある。日本語を勉強する英語圏の人々は大抵、丁寧語や敬語などの違いや使い方に困っちゃうじゃん。おまいも「ウチ」とか「ソト」とか難しいって言ってんだなぁ。礼儀作法の概念って本当にそれほどわかりづらいことなのか？アメリカ人だって、誰に対しても「Sup dude, how's it goin?」とか言わねーだろ？ｗｗ英語でも「敬語」なり言葉あるじゃん。あんまよく知らない人や同僚の先輩とかに話し出すと「Hi, how are you?」とかそんなような言い方を使うんだろ？日本語でその言い方を「丁寧語」っていうんだ。それだけ。そんな難しくはないだろ？
Actually, no. Someone else translate and tell me if a native Japanese wouldn't laugh their ass off.
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名無しさん＠沖縄2007-02-19 8:25
>>56
Actually, it makes perfect sense. It's not polite language, and it's slightly slangy, but I think any Japanese person would feel that it's natural speech.
>>55
You're right... Being polite and using polite speech is easy no matter what language you speak, but Japanese and English go about it in different ways. In English, it's all about which words you use and how you say them. In Japanese, it's about using special forms of regular verbs. The difficulty isn't in being polite; it is in learning how to select the correct verb form to create the polite speech. While it's not hard (as you said), it's just a difference that takes a little bit of getting used to.
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Anonymous2007-02-20 22:47 ID:AYY5knJg
>>57
Ok, cool. Just making sure, what with stuff like this floating around. http://dis.4chan.org/read/lang/1170766547
Though I lol'd, it's weird finding trolls in a foreign tongue.
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Anonymous2007-03-25 19:45 ID:VwxI2LF4
Has anyone ever heard of making a kanji worksheet?
THANK YOU for this! The more quality resources, the better. I think the author tended to over-complicate some aspects (verbs, part II), but being written with a more linguistic approach, it's understandable.
Well, it's official. Anyone named Kim is a god at teaching Japanese.
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Anonymous2007-04-15 3:45 ID:ypnhVhz3
Pimsleur = SHIT
Pimsleur is seriously a piece of shit. Buy any books from Kodansha or Tuttle.
>>78
Отче наш, сущий на небесах! да святится имя Твое; да приидет Царствие Твое; да будет воля Твоя и на земле, как на небе; хлеб наш насущный дай нам на сей день; и прости нам долги наши, как и мы прощаем должникам нашим; и не введи нас в искушение, но избавь нас от лукавого. Ибо Твое есть Царство и сила и слава во веки. Аминь.
Japanese is the official language of Japan. It is called "Nihongo" in Japanese. Japanese script has been adopted from the Chinese language. The Chinese script was modified and three different scripts of Japanese were created. The language is written by combining three scripts whose names are Hiragana, Katakana and Kanji. In olden time, Japanese was written vertically. In addition, it was written from right to left and would start from the very last page to the first page. In other words, from back to front. However, in modern times this system has been changed and is written in the normal way.
You can learn how to read(with pronunciation) & write(with stroke order animation) & example words "Hiragna" with cute Manga illustrations at following site.
>>96
Except of course books are still right to left for the most part, and many pure novels are written top to bottom. The words themselves are always left to right, however.
For you, op, I'd recommend genki or japanese for everyone. The tapes for japanese for everyone are available on the pirate bay.
Kanji is harder to focus on. Both of the aforementioned textbooks include some kanji, but of course not the full amount in any particular order.
If you feel you have a grasp of the Japanese language, I'd recommend using actual Japanese kanji learning books for schoolchildren. They progressively teach meanings and readings instead of bombarding you with everything at once. Only a basic grasp is required, as short example sentences are given. You write the kanji ten times, then do the prewritten test at the end of every unit. The order is structured by grade and difficulty by the education ministry or whatever, but it does not teach by radical only, like kanjidamage does.
Kanjidamage is your second option. It teaches kanji by radical so, in theory, the kanji you learn can all stick in your mind longer due to the similarities. However, you are bombarded with ass-tons of information. Your choice. It's not easy.
Also do not do heisig's remembering the kanji. It's very roundabout, in my opinion.
When should you begin to study native material? I am almost through Genki 2 and I feel that mangas are so hard that they are almost a waste of time because I have to look almost every single word.
What's wrong with that? I learned most of my vocabulary by looking them up and writing them down as I read novels. Although there are "Core 2000" decks or whatever for Anki if you'd rather just memorize a bunch of words.
Regarding the original question: as soon as you can.