Forum - View topicLearning Japanese
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lucentenigma
 Posts: 4 Location: apalachicola, fl |
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Hi all... Anyone out there trying to learn Japanese?
I want to learn but are not sure where to start (other than watching as much subtitled anime as possible). Anyone teaching themselves? What methods are you using? Thanks in advance.... Lucent |
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hizel
Posts: 18 |
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^^ this is my area of expertise.
First of all, what I did to help me start learning was surf the internet for anime fansites. It really works! A lot of fansites have pages on them with lists of Japanese words. That's really helpful. It's also helpful to watch subtitled anime and pay extra attention to what they're saying. If you already know a couple words and you understand how Japanese grammar works (which I'm not going to explain because it's all over the internet, once you start looking), you'll probably pick up a few words and phrases. Also, listening to songs and reading the translated lyrics helps, but you have to be sure somehow that the translation is correct because you can find some wrong ones on the internet (an easy way to find lyrics is www.animelyrics.com if you didn't know). I'm teaching myself how to speak Japanese by doing this and I'm doing really well. I watch anime but I also watch other Japanese tv shows, since I'm really intersted in Jpop and watching those is useful and I learn a lot. also, Anime Web Turnpike (www.anipike.com) has a links section for sites that have information about Japan and Japanese language. I use a lot of these sites. They're really interesting. I also suggest www.thejapanesepage.com. I'm using it to learn Hiragana now and I really like the site (and after I learn hiragana, it's Kanji time) Also, reading Japanese lyrics to songs on anime opening/endings and in Japanese music shows and in the books that come with Jpop cds from Japan and some anime soundtracks from Japan helps a lot with learning how to read and write Japanese if you've heard the song an maybe if you've read the romanized lyrics. I hope that this helped. |
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FlimJam
Posts: 62 Location: Houston, TX, US |
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This is another good site.
http://www.japaneselearning.com/ |
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CrackaJax
 Posts: 250 Location: Mount Olympus, Syracuse University |
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With all due respect to hizel, I don't think doing it online is the wisest idea.
I'm taking Japanese in college. My cousin taught English in Japan and now teaches it at a college in RI, and he agrees taking a course is usually your best bet. Unless you can pick up a language very easily, Japanese is going to be extremely difficult to learn by yourself. I remember how hard it was for my class to remember katakana after learning hirigana. If your local community college offers a course in it, and most do, take that. From there, I'd say get a study group together with some people, or if you're lucky enough to find a japanese speaking person who is willing to help you learn, do that. Japanese is difficult to learn on your own. I tried doing it online or solely through the books that you can find at Borders or Barnes and Noble. Those are great study aids for what a textbook can fill in, but you'll need someone who knows what they're doing to guide you along this process. www.thejapanesepage.com and www.kanjistep.com are two excellent resources for helping you out. Be sure to read this: http://thejapanesepage.com/readarticle.php?article_id=177 |
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Zalis116
Moderator
 Posts: 6897 Location: Kazune City |
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Other sites to check:
kanjisite.com japanese.about.com I've learned a lot of Japanese from anime and self-study, but it's not necessarily easy. It's helpful to get a few self-study books and other references like a dictionary, a grammar book, and a kanji book like "Essential Kanji." It is possible to learn a fair amount from listening, but I say this from a different perspective, since I've studied Spanish for awhile and know all the necessary grammar terminology--that makes it faster learning particles and other parts of Japanes when you know what things like direct objects, indirect objects, adverbs and relative clauses are and what they do. If you're unclear on this stuff in English, you may have problems with it in Japanese. You'll also need a decent flash memory and attention to detail for the kana and kanji. It's not impossible to learn, especially since many aspects are easier than other languages: the pronunciation is regular and predictable, and many aspects of grammar are simpler, since there's no plurals or number/gender agreement, no subject-verb agreement (i.e. no sets of verb endings for different people/tenses/moods like in Romance languages, or to a lesser extent, English), and fewer verb tenses. But if you can't take a class, you do need to find reliable resources in the forms of books or good online material, since anime Japanese is not always respectful/relevant/accurate. As was once said on a similar post, which of these phrases will be most useful in Japan? Which are most likely to be learned from anime? Which is least likely to be learned from anime? A) I'll definitely kill you, you bastard!!! (てめえを絶対殺してやる、！！!) B) I've loved you for such a long, long time....please date me! 私。。。ずっとずっと前から貴方のことが大好きです。私と付き合って下さい！ C) Excuse me, where is Shibuya Station? すみません、渋谷駅はどこにありますか Last edited by Zalis116 on Tue Apr 25, 2006 3:38 am; edited 1 time in total |
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AYA_Miyazaki
Posts: 1 |
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i dont think its easy to learn,although im a Chinese,which can learn Japanse a little easier^^
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abunai
Old Regular
 Posts: 5463 Location: 露命 |
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Dammit, man! I was drinking coffee in front of my PC when I read this! You owe me a new keyboard! 
- abunai |
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kainzero
 Posts: 309 |
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If you want to learn Japanese, take a class. That's a must. It's VERY hard to learn by watching anime and listening to music. Sure, you're going to learn a few phrases and what a few words mean. but it will be impossible to learn how to construct sentences.
The only way to learn how to construct sentences is basically trial and error. By having a teacher, they can tell you how what you're saying is wrong, whereas with solo studying you can't really get a feel for it. You could also try reading lots of Japanese books (books, not manga) but there's a big difference in language when it's written and when it's verbal. And lastly, take your courses fully all the way to fluency if you can. Don't leave after one semester thinking, "Oh, I got my basics and now I can use anime for the rest!" Most of the time when I hear someone saying how they know Japanese from anime, they can only pick apart random words and end up speaking English in some Japanese accent as if they were masters of the language. That's just flat out embarassing. |
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hizel
Posts: 18 |
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I can't take any classes on it right now because there are none in my area that are for anyone and I'm 13. This is the easiest way for me to learn right now because I haven't found any other way. I must be pretty smart because I'm picking up on it easily. I am going to take courses in college, though.
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Nani?
 Posts: 632 |
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Don't assume so. Based off the experince of my teacher (Fluent in English, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, some knowledge of Russian and Ainu) westerners have an advantage with Katakana and Hiragana and about 15% of current Japanese vocab is Engrish. Also a lot of the chinese is old obscure variations. I suspect if your from Taiwan or Hong Kong your probably in better shape because of the continueing use of older Kanji. I agree the courses are the best source of actual learning. Interesting but not directly related, a good chapter on Japanese language history/ethnic origins look in Jared Diamond's book Guns, Germs, and Steel. All the Best, Nani? |
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dormcat
Encyclopedia Editor
 Posts: 9902 Location: New Taipei City, Taiwan, ROC |
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That's true. Native Chinese speakers have an advantage on kanji reading (a Chinese grade schooler can read more kanji than his/her Japanese counterpart) and onyomi pronunciation, but not the rest.
Please don't call THE CORRECT form of Chinese characters "old obscure variations." Premier Zhou Enlai promoted using simplified Chinese in order to educate vast numbers of undereducated peasants in the shortest time. It worked more or less, but it also has destroyed the aesthetics of Chinese calligraphy and has caused a lot of confusion when choosing appropriate characters for phrases, for in simplified Chinese many originally different characters were deduced to one simplified form. Back to the topic of Japanese: although native Chinese speakers could recognize over 80% Japanese kanji with ease, the rest are Japanese-specific kanji, some were derived from the oldest (and has been long-abandoned) Chinese characters, while some were created from scratch. A good example is the fourth kanji of Minagi TOHNO of Air, 遠野美凪. While the first three kanji characters are identical in Chinese and Japanese, character 凪 (nagi; means "calmness of windless;" note it consists a "stop" (止) within the outer peripheral (几) of "wind" (風)) does not exist in Chinese and has caused a lot of problem among fans, for not every fan could input and/or display Japanese properly. Some fans use 風 (wind) as a temporary measure, but ironically it means just the opposite. 
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Azathrael
 Posts: 745 |
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That's misleading information. I was born in Korea so my first language was Korean but as of now I'm more fluent in English than Korean. I've been trying to learn Japanese by watching anime but so far I've only picked up about 50 or so vocabulary words and some minor grammar stuff. The one thing I did learn while trying to learn Japanese grammar was that if you try to translate Japanese into English the grammar is often screwed up. One example of this is that Japanese doesn't have the preposition "of". It's not "the power of the gods", it's "the gods' power" if you literally translate Japanese. Additionally, that also goes for Korean. It was MUCH easier for me to translate Japanese into Korean than Japanese into English, as the grammar and even some of the words are similar because they both descended from Chinese. Also, I have an extra advantage over westerners by knowing Korean because most of the Japanese pronounciation is directly associated with Korean pronounciation. If you compare a Korean (I don't know about other Asians) to a westerner who've both never heard of Japanese before, a Korean will have an easier time pronouncing words like "kitto" (Korean: 키또) or "onsen" (Korean: 온샌). I got a little carried away because the idea of westeners having more of an advantage over other Asians in learning Japanese was so silly (I was literally laughing out loud). It's just common sense. I've learned in Korean history classes in elementary school that Koreans helped develop the Japanese language (believe it or not), but the one real fact is that both Korean and Japanese are from Chinese, which obviously would make it easier for the 3 nations to learn each other's languages easier than any other foreigner. |
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Necros Antiquor
 Posts: 571 Location: Funny in a car crash sort of way |
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Well, you're not going to be able to get a good handle on the language until you reach college, in my opinion. However, you can try to start learning the stuff that's below the basics, which is what I'm currently doing. Listen to as much of the language as you can, so you can get an idea of the pronunciation and the general flow of the sounds. When I went to visit Japan, my mom tried to listen to some of the basic conversational CDs I was listening to for basic phrases (like "where is [insert place]?") and she had a very difficult time because the words sounded to alike and too fast for her to hear correctly. Your ear needs to be trained a bit. Any anime will do, just listen to the sound. You could also try conversational CDs like what I did. There's probably a lot to choose from. You won't learn much, but if you get dropped in Japan, you would at least be able to tell them you're an American and you need to get to a certain hotel. Also, try learning how to convert English words into Japanese words (r=l, adding vowels, that stuff). I know it's not the most advanced thing you could do, but when I needed to ask a maid in a Japanese hotel for another small hot springs towel, it helped that I knew to pronounce towel as "tow-ru" and that "ko" meant small. (I was pretty proud of myself for asking for that towel, and I bragged about it to my other friends on the trip for days. 
If you want to try to get a jumpstart on learning the actual language, there's not many options before you get to college. If you are looking for something fun, try this: Project LRNJ. It is a free English RPG called Slime Forest Adventure game in which you fight slimes (once you are carrying some money with you) by typing out the romanji (English characters) of the katakana and hiragana that appear above the slimes. It's kind of difficult, but if you're into games, it's probably the best thing you could try, until you get formal courses. I'll admit right now: I do not claim to be proficient in Japanese, and I have very limited knowledge of the language, but I'm just trying to lay down the most basic of basics so that when I get to college, I can learn it more easy. |
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ShellBullet
 Posts: 1051 Location: I hit things, with my fist. |
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Are you sure of that? With the popularity of anime learning Japanese is becoming more and more common as a recreational class. If you live near any kind of college I can pretty much assure you that there is at least one Japanese exchange student making spare change by teaching Japanese on the side. The only problem is finding them, look at any kind of "University extension" or "adult learning center." You could also check if a highschool nearby offers Japanese as an elective, if it does, you may want to find out who teaches the class and see if they teach outside of school. Even if you could learn Japanese by yourself, I would recommend taking a class. It's a great way to meet other people interested in the language and practicing speaking to actual people is invaluable; and that's something you won't get from any tape, no matter how good it may be. |
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urashima-san
Posts: 6 Location: N.Y BITCHES |
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i heard that a good way to learn is with the instant immersion computer program. has anyone tried it? is it really good?
http://www.languagequest.com/home/product.php?prodCode=IIJS&lang=Japanese |
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