Learning Japanese

[Spectacular_Insanity]

I'm korean, even if I don't know korean as a language. My ethnicity doesn't change.

[raikage]

I'm Chinese, and I only speak a tiny bit of Toisan.

[Rocl-Lee]

i have learned some words and thanks for your help

[kj1980]

Most Japanese just use romaji to type.

Input: わ by typing "w" and "a"
Input: た by typing "t" and "a"
Input: し by typing "s" and "i" (or "s," "h," "i" your preference in using kunrei or Hepburn romaji)
Press space bar: わたし changes to 私

[Potatochobit]

when i type romaji with a US keyboard most JP get offended its not in hiragana, Ha....

i wouldnt really waste too much time learning kanji. just learn the common ones. i have forgotten at least 70% of the ones i used to know; when you dont write letters and stuff it all just disappears from your memory slowly over time...

and there are quite a few online kanji translators u can copy and paste to learn them. looking up kanji in a book is also a pain if you dont really know how it works. but having a reference book to carry around with you is not a bad thing neither.

[Spectacular_Insanity]

That's why you should take a formal class. because Ito-sensei writes in kanji all the time, we're forced to know it. It's really the best way. She gives us way too much homework, which gets to be alot when I have 3 AP classes to do, but it's a fun class nonetheless. A few people dropped out this year, so now we only have 5 people, lol. It's barely a class. :P

[raikage]

There are so many homonyms in Japanese that I can't fathom trying to read without them.

Granted, I don't know that many (maybe 300 at best) but if a newspaper had to switch from kanji to all-kana it might double or triple in thickness.

[Shini_GamI]

Originally Posted by raikage

There are so many homonyms in Japanese that I can't fathom trying to read without them.

Granted, I don't know that many (maybe 300 at best) but if a newspaper had to switch from kanji to all-kana it might double or triple in thickness.

LOL, then that will make life even more complicated... Costs of the newspaper will get higher

[Kyuusai]

Originally Posted by Shini_GamI

LOL, then that will make life even more complicated... Costs of the newspaper will get higher

Either that or print will get smaller and sales of reading glasses will go up.

Kanji survives likely because the kana did not account for pitch differences that are used to differentiate words in normal speech.

Oh, well. At least I can use all these characters I'm studying in other languages, too.

[DingoEnderZOE2]

The only way I've known when it comes to Learning Japanese was 6 years of teaching myself. Despite what some people say when it comes teaching yourself a language that it doesn't help, it actually helped me out quite alot. By using the internet,manga,anime(it helped me recongnize words easier) and various books.

What came after that was a class in high school which didn't do much but help confirm that all my self teaching wasn't a waste because I aced the class.(Of course theres always more to learn and I'm looking forward to learning more.^_^) Currently I'm trying to study up on how to translate Japanese to English properly and efficiently with creative writing and proper grammar.

What other best ways to learn Japanese do you guys think there are?

[chison]

now a day i watch anime without fansub...

but even i can understanding most of the anime talking....
i still unable to read Japanese manga at all...

[Gibilterra]

For me,now,I can understand english voiced Ace Combat and Devil may cry without japanese sub.
It was difficult to understand english frequently and 6 years was needed to do it.
But now I can understand them and hope to make my english more and more better.

[martino]

Originally Posted by DingoEnderZOE2

What other best ways to learn Japanese do you guys think there are?

Watch anime all day long

Does anyone have a comprehensive site which explains all the honorifics(-san, -kun...) and when they are used. I know their basic use, but I would like to find out a bit more about it...

[Aoie_Emesai]

Originally Posted by Spectacular_Insanity

That's why you should take a formal class. because Ito-sensei writes in kanji all the time, we're forced to know it. It's really the best way. She gives us way too much homework, which gets to be alot when I have 3 AP classes to do, but it's a fun class nonetheless. A few people dropped out this year, so now we only have 5 people, lol. It's barely a class. :P

lol, 5 people, it was just like my physics class in high school. But i decided to take a japanese course for the heck of it, maybe i can understand some of my art books better now ^_^. Speaking and writing japanese are totally different.

[Spectacular_Insanity]

Oh, definitely. The funny part about Japanese is that the Kanji more or less is all from Chinese, so when I go into chinese restaurants, I see all this kanji that I'm sure means something completely different...

[rio]

Originally Posted by martino

Watch anime all day long

Does anyone have a comprehensive site which explains all the honorifics(-san, -kun...) and when they are used. I know their basic use, but I would like to find out a bit more about it...

maybe, wikipedia's info is good to see first i think.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_titles



and , this page is also good for you so i paste it.
This is about japanese 'pronouns' .'I' and 'you' are very important factors of japanese language and
those are closely related to persons ' character , position, situation and emotion etc.（especially character.）
so those are seen as very important things among japanese.

it also can be said in anime.
so the knowledge of the pronouns is a very good way to acquire and understand
japanese language and watch anime. ^^





http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_pronouns


p.s the pronouns of the list are only famous ones.
it is said that japanese 'I' 's number is over 100.
but you often hear the list's pronouns in most anime.

[teek]

I didn't bother to read the entire thread, but I am learning Japanese right now through a class taught by a native speaker. There's a bunch of things in the first posts that, compared to what I learned, are wrong. For example watashi is a neutral "I" so both males and females can use it. The issue is that because you watch anime, they're speaking in a more casual way so they tend to use the other forms. However, in class we're taught the way such that we won't offend anyone with the japanese we know.

Given that, I really do think that if you want to speak and communicate japanese in a "good" or polite way, you should take a formal course so that you can learn the language correctly. For example, after reading some of the posts here from people that claimed to have learned english from television shows and the like, you notice that while they can communicate, they're doing so at a much lower or less formal way than is possible with the language. No one bothers to correct their english because they get the point and in fact, many native english speakers will think they're coming off as being rude or uneducated when really they're just using what they learned. I imagine it is no different if you want to go the other direction (an english speaker that wants to learn a foreign language).

Another benefit is you can ask questions regarding the subject and get a better definition or translation of the phrase's meaning. When you learn on your own, if you make a mistake, you don't know that you've made it whereas if you make a mistake in class, you are instantly corrected.

I saw some comments about kana and kanji and while I agree that learning the writing system is important, I don't agree that English speakers learning Japanese should be forced to learn the kana as the first week of the course. My course, however, is focused on communication while most university courses for a degree are for study of the language.

For example, when I took French at the university level, the course was geared towards grammar and reading because by the end of the 2nd year, you were expected to be able to read an article or book in French. After that they could start teaching you about literature in addition to the language. This is analogus to regular English courses American students take in school. At the elementary level, you start by learning basics of the language and grammer. After that, they start forcing you to read books and study literature. For myself, I'm not so much interested in learning literature, but I would like to be able to learn the language and culture.

Now my course is titled "Japanese for communication" and we are not required to learn the kana within the first week. We are required to be able to recognize each hiragana by the end of the first course. So we still learn kana but it is much easier on the student because you slowly transition from the roman alphabet system to the kana system. I like it better because as we are tested on the hiragana, words written using hiragana are given and we are expected to write the roman equivalent. In doing so, you begin to associate the symbols to words which helps reinforce the relationship in your memory whereas if you just memorized the entire kana right away, those relationships wouldn't get into your head quickly because you're stumbling too much or making too many errors in the process.

Like I said, my course focuses on communication so most of the time in class is spent listening and speaking. I find this very helpful because we may say the same phrase many many times and maybe change a noun 5 times yet the rest of the phrase remains the same. For example, on the first day we learned how to introduce ourselves. First we said the phrase as a class a few times. Then each person in the class (roughly 15 people) stood up and said the phrase again. Then after that we said the phrases a few more times! Later, we learned "kochira wa" and guess what, we went around the class introducing ourselves yet again!

You never get that at a university level course because they go at a blazing speed. I find that what I learn in this course, although is much less, I understand what I am saying better and when I hear it said, I can quickly understand and pick up the phrase.

Finally, some have made the claim that they don't need to learn another language because it isn't practical to their everyday life, and while correct, I don't agree that there is absolutely no point in learning another language even though it isn't practical.

The study of foreign language is a requirement of most high school and college curiculum because it widens your knowledge of other cultures and language foundations. Without learning another language, you will go on thinking that the language you know is all that's needed when really the language you know shares similarities with other languages.

Take for example nouns and verbs. Every language has some form of them. In school they teach you things like that. But they don't teach you any further. So let's go on to things like verb tenses. English has several tenses in addition to the standard past, present, and future tenses. There are also other forms like the imperfect which are present in other languages like French (imparfait). In english I can say something like "I ate a lot" vs "I used to eat a lot." The former means at one point in the immediate past I ate a lot of something while the later means in the past, I consistently ate a lot for a period of undetermined time--this is the imperfect tense. Either way, the languages have different ways of expressing this information and you would never have guessed it unless you really studied the language or compared it to a foreign language. I find learning these tidbits helps me express myself even better in English because now I'm forced to understand language at a whole new level.

Besides, the U.S. is probably the only place where "educated" people can only fluently speak and understand one language. Everywhere else they're at least forced to learned English fluently in addition to their native language. Be a little considerate and attempt to learn some others even though you may not achieve a fluent understanding.

[Spectacular_Insanity]

^^ I agree with everything in this post.

Except for the French stuff, cause I know nothing about it. I take Spanish and Japanese as my only two real languages.

[martino]

Originally Posted by teek

Besides, the U.S. is probably the only place where "educated" people can only fluently speak and understand one language. Everywhere else they're at least forced to learned English fluently in addition to their native language. Be a little considerate and attempt to learn some others even though you may not achieve a fluent understanding.

You can sort of count UK into that category. When I came to Edinburgh I started learning French and I thought that the course was poor. After four years of learning I couldn't really see many people that could put it on a CV as a language that they learned. And most people dropped it anyway the next year when it wasn't a compulsory subject("Why do we need to learn another language when you can speak English anywhere").
In Slovakia(my home country) I learned English in three years flat, and was able to use it very well(as were my classmates). And as addition we had to learn another language.

It is always good to know languages. You never know when they come in handy.

//d'oh, I went kinda off topic there... gomen

[SSJiffy]

Sono hito wa toshokan ikimashita.
That person went to the library.

Are wa momo desu ka.
Is that over there a peach?

Ganbatte kudasai Koshi-dono. Ganbatte kudasai Koshi-dono. Ganbatte kudasai Koshi-dono.

Are those correct, any better way to state them? Also, how would I go about stating the month (~gatsu), day (~yoobi), and present time (gogo/gozen ~ji), all in the same sentence?