Learning Japanese

[Magin]

Yeah... we're going to have to see the context of those words. Some of them are words on their on, and they can also function as "indicators", and talking about indicators/particles takes up a post longer than what I'm willing to type

[Khu]

Yeah, if they're in between words, that's probably it ^

But context would still be nice.

[NoemiChan]

These is the song the two letter words are there....

http://www.animelyrics.com/anime/sha...hokunosora.htm

[Magin]

That figures; the words you found are a mixture of both actual words and particles

unfortunately, my Japanese isn't good enough to translate that song... I'm sure there's a fansub translation around somewhere if you look hard enough

But to take a brief crack at it: te, hi, and mi (I think) are all nouns- te is hand, hi usually is day, but I'm not sure what mi is.

Ni, ga, mo, wo, wa, and possibly o are all particles, aka the indicators I was talking about. Ni indicates the destination, i.e. the word before ni is the destination of the action that comes after ni (or later in the sentence). Ga is used as a "stresser", in that the word before ga is receiving the action of the word after ga. However, please note that I'm not 100% sure about this. mo is a particle that can also be translated as "also". wo is a particle that is similar to ga, except it doesn't stress, just indicates the noun that is receiving the action. and wa is the subject indicator; i.e. the word before wa is what the sentence is about. And o is an honorific that goes before a noun, indicating that the noun is of great importance

Or at least, that' my crack at things. I'm sure someone else can inform you better than I

[Simon]

Originally Posted by genjichan

These is the song the two letter words are there....

http://www.animelyrics.com/anime/sha...hokunosora.htm

Google offers this translation as the first result. I can't speak for its accuracy but if you already know some of the Japanese words in the lyrics you can work backwards to fill in the gaps.

Excellent choice of song btw

As an aside, romanised Japanese makes things harder to translate, not easier. Once you have an English title you can usually find the Japanese one with a bit of searching (Wikipedia can be good for this), then you can use tools like Google Translate or the wonderful Perapera-kun to get a least a rough translation.

[NoemiChan]

Can you also find a translation for these Shakugan song???

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKQ0DA0LIRg

[Khu]

Ah...

TL for Hishoku no Sora

TL for Another Planet

Seriously dude, just do a google search and you'll find em.

[Crazyotaku]

I'm learning Japanese for 3-4 months (In the last year i was learning Japanese without hieroglyphics) and now i know ~200 kanji and katakana with hiragana...
日本語が好きです。日本語はすごいですね．．．。

[Khu]

すてきでしょね？ ^^;

[Crazyotaku]

そうです．．．。
私は日本語が良く話せません　because　

Originally Posted by Crazyotaku

I'm learning Japanese for 3-4 months

I know too little grammar and my lexicon is too small (~400-450 words, may be).
Now I'm most learning kanji^^

[Simon]

Originally Posted by Crazyotaku

I know too little grammar and my lexicon is too small (~400-450 words, may be).
Now I'm most learning kanji^^

This is pretty much where I'm at, although my main problem is that I only study sporadically so I tend to forget what I've learned.

Grammar itself isn't that much of a problem - contrary to what most people say I actually find Japanese grammar pretty logical, at least once you learn to parse sentences "inside out". What I really struggle with, especially trying to read manga, are the little idioms: things written in kana that make no sense translated literally, so you're left wondering what's really being said. There are books that scratch the surface of idiomatic Japanese (Kodansha publish some nice cheap ones), but short of having access to a fluent speaker I don't know any good way to tackle this part of the language.

[Khu]

I learned basic Japanese grammar and vocabulary (subjects, position relative to another object, stuff like that) and I picked up the rest from anime. Meaning my grammatical understanding isn't very good, but my vocab's relatively okay for conversations. lol.

[Raiga]

Originally Posted by Simon

This is pretty much where I'm at, although my main problem is that I only study sporadically so I tend to forget what I've learned.

Grammar itself isn't that much of a problem - contrary to what most people say I actually find Japanese grammar pretty logical, at least once you learn to parse sentences "inside out". What I really struggle with, especially trying to read manga, are the little idioms: things written in kana that make no sense translated literally, so you're left wondering what's really being said. There are books that scratch the surface of idiomatic Japanese (Kodansha publish some nice cheap ones), but short of having access to a fluent speaker I don't know any good way to tackle this part of the language.

When people ask me if Japanese is hard I like to say, "It's not hard, it's just different. (Except the kanji which are hard however you look at it)." So yeah, I definitely agree that it's a very logical language, which is one of the reasons I love it. The structure is just so beautiful and elegant.

I sometimes have trouble with expressions as well, but you'd be surprised at how many you can find through a good online dictionary, wikipedia, or Google. Many are simply existing words used in a figurative or slang way, which a bit of context analysis and flexible thinking will often help you figure out the meaning of.

Another possible stumbling block is how informal spoken Japanese often slurs things over, drops syllables and particles, etc; that might be what's confusing you with manga, in which case you just need to know which spoken forms correspond to which formal forms. For example わからない→わかんない or ～てしまう → ～ちゃう or ～てはいけない → ～ちゃいけない and other such stuff like that.

[Qikz]

I've been learning Japanese for about 10 months now. I literally have no idea how many words/kanji I know, but I think I'm doing ok. My grammar still needs work as I keep forgetting really basic grammar rules where as I remember the more complicated ones. That'll all iron out eventually though. All I can do is just keep working hard and I'll get better every day.

After learning Japanese for this long, my brain is pretty much forgetting how English works. It's such a stupid language when you look at it as if it's some kind of foreign language (trying to use japanese as much as possible, so it makes me view English slightly different). Looking at English, I can understand truely why non native speakers find it hard to learn, half of it doesn't even make any sense!

[Simon]

Originally Posted by Raiga

Another possible stumbling block is how informal spoken Japanese often slurs things over, drops syllables and particles, etc; that might be what's confusing you with manga, in which case you just need to know which spoken forms correspond to which formal forms. For example わからない→わかんない or ～てしまう → ～ちゃう or ～てはいけない → ～ちゃいけない and other such stuff like that.

That's definitely part of it, although listening to dialogue in anime has helped there. As a really basic example, when I first started learning I had trouble with 〜けど. None of the references I looked at mentioned it. Then one day I came across けれども while looking up something else and behold, there was light!

Originally Posted by Qikz

After learning Japanese for this long, my brain is pretty much forgetting how English works. It's such a stupid language when you look at it as if it's some kind of foreign language (trying to use japanese as much as possible, so it makes me view English slightly different). Looking at English, I can understand truely why non native speakers find it hard to learn, half of it doesn't even make any sense!

I have this theory that every language has a "critical mass" point - once you reach it you can make intelligent guesses when you hit something new and unknown, although there will always be quirks and exceptions. Unfortunately English is pretty much all exceptions - and let's not even mention the spelling.

[Raiga]

Originally Posted by Simon

That's definitely part of it, although listening to dialogue in anime has helped there. As a really basic example, when I first started learning I had trouble with 〜けど. None of the references I looked at mentioned it. Then one day I came across けれども while looking up something else and behold, there was light!

Really? けど should be a pretty basic form that I'd expect most grammar books to have. けれども is pretty formal and usually used in writing as opposed to speech. What are you currently using to learn?

I have this theory that every language has a "critical mass" point - once you reach it you can make intelligent guesses when you hit something new and unknown, although there will always be quirks and exceptions. Unfortunately English is pretty much all exceptions - and let's not even mention the spelling.

I have similar thoughts; basically beyond a certain point it becomes much easier to learn more, since the new stuff you start learning is essentially built upon the foundation you already have, and as you said you can start guessing at vocabulary and even grammar points just from context. I actually feel like I'm going through a second such phase right now, since I've started taking formal classes.

English is essentially German with a French accent and a ton of other languages with smaller influences thrown in for good measure, the gaps in the grammar sloppily patched up, and the pronunciation and spelling an amalgamation of rules from different languages riddled with exceptions and special cases. It's a wonder so many of us are so fluent in it. XD

[Simon]

Originally Posted by Raiga

Really? けど should be a pretty basic form that I'd expect most grammar books to have. けれども is pretty formal and usually used in writing as opposed to speech. What are you currently using to learn?

When I started learning Japanese I did it completely the wrong way. Because I was learning on my own I took the same approach I take for learning programming languages - forget all the woolly tutorials, find The Manual and learn it from the ground up (this does actually work for programming languages: if you want to learn C properly, read K&R, if you want to learn Perl, read the Camel).

Problem is that natural languages are way more complex than artificial ones, so I was consulting grammar references that were far too advanced. I still rely on references too much, because typically I only hit the books when I have a particular piece of text to translate, but at least now I've found some more suitable for my level (e.g. the Japan Times grammar dictionaries).

One day I'll actually sit down and work through all the lessons in Genki or something equally sensible.

It's a wonder so many of us are so fluent in it. XD

Reading a lot of what gets posted on the net, I'm not so sure we are

[Alchemist007]

You really need to speak to people when it comes to human language. Especially in learning them; or goodbye fundamental integrity.

[Simon]

Originally Posted by Alchemist007

You really need to speak to people when it comes to human language. Especially in learning them; or goodbye fundamental integrity.

Yup. Ironically I've been learning Japanese pretty much the way Japanese kids learn English, and we all know how that turns out.

[jcdietz03]

I have been learning Japanese for a long time, 3+ years now. Haven't worked very hard at it though.

I watched a live stream of Kamen Rider OOO and Heartcatch Precure last weekend. They air on Asahi TV in Japan Sunday 8-9AM JST, which is Saturday 6-7PM EST (for those of you who live in the US).

I understood almost none of Kamen Rider OOO (I would say about 10%) and around 50% of Heartcatch Precure. These are the easiest programs to understand (they're for kids).

I watched a live stream of Star Driver and understood around 30%.

Some words can be understood from context, especially words borrowed from English. However, most words will need to be looked up if you are even able to hear them. I'm always too lazy to do this.