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...
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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.