Learning Japanese

I want to learn japanese in order to play untranslated visual novels. My question is if pimsleur is a good idea for me or not? It seems to be primarily focused upon audio, I am not sure if this will be a waste or essential in developing an understanding of japanese. I would like to learn japanese as fast as possible and this is my first time learning a new language so I am very lost. Thank you in advance.

Pimsleur would be pretty much the worst method for you, because it's 100 percent audio. You need to learn how to read Japanese.

Little primer on Japanese writing... there are 3 things you need to know.

1. There is a group of 46 "letters" named the Hiragana, which represent syllables. せ　is "se", よ　is "yo", etc. These are usually only 1 or 2 stroke each, and the only way to learn them is by rote memorization, as there is no pattern to them.

2. There are another 46 of these named the Katakana. These are the exact same in terms of pronunciation, but are used mainly for foreign loanwords. セ　is "se", ヨ　is "yo."


3. Kanji. This is the big one. You will need to learn to recognize about 2100 of these, also known as the Jouyou list. There are several ways to go about doing that, but the most popular way is to use James Heisig's "Remembering the Kanji" book, along with an SRS program. That stands for spaced repetition system, and it's a fancy way of saying electronic flashcards. I would recommend "Anki" for that, as would most people.

Disclaimer... when you are learning hiragana there will be a point where you get really frustrated and will despair at having to learn 2100 of them in kanji form later. This is not true, because kanji are set up in patterns and building blocks that make them easier to learn. You'll understand this more as you make your way through "Remembering the Kanji", assuming you go that route.

Tons of people have gone into this stuff in more depth... you can learn a surprising amount from Wikipedia. Good luck, and if you have any more questions feel free to ask.

If it is your first time learning a language, you're not learning it in an immersion environment or classroom, and you plan to focus on listening comprehension, you might be better off quitting before you start. Japanese is not a piss in the breeze, and some parts are harder for self-study than others. If you want to test yourself to see just how hard it's going to be, go to erin.ne.jp/en/ and feel out the skits.

Source: 3 years of college-level study, currently studying in Japan and unable to understand people when they speak at more than a light pace.

>>3

Classes are far worse than self study. They move at a glacial pace, and the only upside is that they take out the work of learning how to self study. Of course Japanese is tough, but there's no reason OP wouldn't be able to do it if he puts in the research and is dedicated.

I take it these posters are coming from /jp/?

I thought /jp/ was one of the image boards that was supposed to understand text boards and condensing threads...

>>5
Yeah I'm really sorry about that I saw the japanese general thread immediately after I posted.. I felt like an idiot and I didn't know how to delete threads on the text board. I was slightly drunk too. Anyways thanks you poster >>2

I have enough motivation and I don't mean to brag but I am a genius so I will learn this language very quickly. Thanks for all the hospitality even though I am a blatant new person and didn't condense, I know how frustrating that can be.

visual novels r for faggots

>>6
>I have enough motivation and I don't mean to brag but I am a genius so I will learn this language very quickly.
>I am a genius

You consider a primarily audio-based course as the base of your studies, which are done for the sake of reading anime games.

You post on 4chan. On top of that, without spending the 15 seconds it'd take to see if there's already a thread where your question belongs. You didn't even need to post, the same question has been answered inside and outside of the Japanese language thread again and again, which you would've discovered by spending a few minutes reading.

You want to learn Japanese as fast as possible, but have never learned another language, and yet think you'll be able to learn Japanese "very quickly". Your lack of ability to spend time to look for answers instead of just posting this shitty thread speak a lot about your motivation and lack of patience.

Getting to an acceptable level of Japanese fluency without immersion can easily take 1000+ hours. You'll never amount to anything.


tl;dr: >>1 is a faggot and this thread sucks

soyons nombreux,dans toutes les villes du monde, le 12 mai2012 et aussi le 09 juin 2012. montrons notre force ( le nombre), nous sommes legion. toutes les classes seront representees.il s'agira de montrer que nous exigeons un ghangement.  à propos mozilla firefox s'oppose à la mise en place de CISPA aux etats unis

There is no better way to learn *any* language than with the Assimil courses... it has less of a focus on grammar, more on "assimilating" it naturally, like a child. Three months of study will get you to a solid intermediate level! ;-)

Here's the link to buy the course:

http://www.assimil.com/descriptionProduitDetail.do?paramIdProduit=2124&paramIdMethode=2124

or you can do a torrent search:

https://torrentz.eu/search?q=assimil+japanese

:-)

[quote]I am a genius[/quote]
[quote]I took this IQ test online once[/quote]