Learning Japanese

[Miko Miko]

HEY GAIIZ.

How effective is a conversation class? It's a 4 year thing, like uni, but it only covers the speaking side of things I believe. I don't think you learn things like reading and writing.

I can't afford uni though, that's the huge difference. I also don't have the right qualifications, so I'm counting on this to learn Japanese.

How effective is it?
Will they teach at least Hiragana and/or Katakana?
What will be my level by the time I finish it? - Like will I be able to hold a PROPER conversation whether it be over the phone, or in person about literally anything. Or will their be huge chunks missing like language lessons when I was at school.

[Alchemist007]

I can't say I know what that really is, but I would think they would at least point you in the right direction in getting to learn the written language, resources and stuff. I'd say go for it, at least you'd have something.

I'd at least recommend doing the reading/writing on your own if they don't offer anything. That way you have physical associations with the things you hear.

[warita]

Originally Posted by Alchemist007

A classroom and/or teacher imo is the best starting path for the language in general. By the end of it, you should at least come away with habits for continued learning. Other than that, I recommend reading my last post here.

For most people this is true, because they lack the necessary self discipline to study as they should. So they need a teacher, who will go through the exercises with them, give them homework and check whether they did it or not. It is simply a lot harder to be lazy, if you have somebody behind you making sure you study. Also, if you already paid for the courses, they it would be a waste to drop it, so that is an additional motivation.

If you however can force yourself to be motivated and study every day for lets say one hour, then self study is actually far more efficient way of learning a language.

I know this, because I learned english and spanish on my own. Especially spanish is my hobby and I managed to master the language in half a year. Admittedly, I invested a lot of time into it, I studied 2h every day and dedicated it a good part of the weekend. And thats pretty good for a person, who is not language talented.

[Alchemist007]

Did you consider that you are language talented?

[warita]

Originally Posted by Alchemist007

Did you consider that you are language talented?

Considering how extremely hard it is for me to learn another language, I would say I am not.

it isnt just a subjective feeling. I had plenty of comparisson in my school during language classes. Other people seem to pick it up relatively easy, I was sweating blood and failing in english year after year, until I decided to change that (mainly because my english teacher called my english a train wreck and said, that if I wont do something about it, he will have to give me a failing mark the following year).

Also, my brother and sister learn languages surprisingly easy too... how much I envy them, sigh.... they come after father in this respect.... and I after mother, who has never managed to learn a second language. Some people are just really bad with languages and they have to invest inhuman effort into learning it.

[ranran]

Originally Posted by warita

If you however can force yourself to be motivated and study every day for lets say one hour, then self study is actually far more efficient way of learning a language.

This I agree with. Its easier to learn a language, in this case Japanese, while doing it together with something that you love at the same time.
In my personal experience, I have taken 4 years of Japanese classes. But even with how long I've taken the class, I still can't confidently say that I became good at it.
I still suck at reading (God help me the kanji ;___; ) though I can have conversation in japanese just fine.

But after the classes ends, I ended up continuing to study Japanese all by myself to save money, by watching raw anime/dorama/concert, listening to seiyuu radio and reading raw manga/doujins, and to my surprise I feel that my skills grew quicker compared to back when I took classes. Its sad to know that, but at the same time it motivates me to keep on learning. Just little by little, day by day.

It's a struggle, but everything will be worth it in the end. Especially when you watch something and youre able to laugh and understand the jokes without the help of the subs.
You will be proud of yourself at that moment

[Qikz]

Originally Posted by ranran

This I agree with. Its easier to learn a language, in this case Japanese, while doing it together with something that you love at the same time.
In my personal experience, I have taken 4 years of Japanese classes. But even with how long I've taken the class, I still can't confidently say that I became good at it.
I still suck at reading (God help me the kanji ;___; ) though I can have conversation in japanese just fine.

But after the classes ends, I ended up continuing to study Japanese all by myself to save money, by watching raw anime/dorama/concert, listening to seiyuu radio and reading raw manga/doujins, and to my surprise I feel that my skills grew quicker compared to back when I took classes. Its sad to know that, but at the same time it motivates me to keep on learning. Just little by little, day by day.

It's a struggle, but everything will be worth it in the end. Especially when you watch something and youre able to laugh and understand the jokes without the help of the subs.
You will be proud of yourself at that moment

To extend on what you said, I never took any classes and started learning by myself, add playing games onto that and it's pretty much how I've learnt until now (I'm a third year student just I think). I found it much easier to learn while doing things I love and my skills grew much quicker than I thought they would.

[The Wild Turkey]

Hi

Hope its okay to ask this here instead of starting a new thread, but could someone please do a quick check on an email I'm about to send to my (Japanese) girlfriends father? I'm going to propose to her next weekend, but wanted to get his blessing first. I'm not particularly worried about him saying no as I know he is quite happy with me (in large part due to us both being in the same line of work) but thought it best to at least inform him first.

Anyway, if I've made any mistakes, could someone please let me know? I'm keeping it in hiiragana as that's all I really know at this point.

おはようございます。

わたしのわるいにほんごごめん。

[her name]わとつぐおきょかしてください

And in Romanji:

Ohayougozaimasu.

Watashino warui nihongo gomen.

[her name] wa totsugu o kyoka shite kudasai

Hope that's clear enough.

[Mystique]

Originally Posted by The Wild Turkey

Hi

Hope its okay to ask this here instead of starting a new thread, but could someone please do a quick check on an email I'm about to send to my (Japanese) girlfriends father? I'm going to propose to her next weekend, but wanted to get his blessing first. I'm not particularly worried about him saying no as I know he is quite happy with me (in large part due to us both being in the same line of work) but thought it best to at least inform him first.

Anyway, if I've made any mistakes, could someone please let me know? I'm keeping it in hiiragana as that's all I really know at this point.

おはようございます。

わたしのわるいにほんごごめん。

[her name]わとつぐおきょかしてください

And in Romanji:

Ohayougozaimasu.

Watashino warui nihongo gomen.

[her name] wa totsugu o kyoka shite kudasai

Hope that's clear enough.

This should be in the 'translate this' thread, for starters and um..
I don't know how close you are with the father but the entire thing needs re writing

Watashino warui nihongo gomen.
The nuance of this would be like 'I've still got a long way to go with my Japanese but please bear with me'
日本語はまだまだのことすみません。

Not sure what you wanna say in the 2nd part
突然すみませんが[name]とプロポーサルしたいと思っていますのでプロポーサルする前許可を願いたいと思います。

Even then, this would be done in super keigo and asking for someone's permission wouldn't go in the English way of saying
'Id like to ask your permission for your daughters hand's in marriage'

But something like
'Could you do me the great favour of allowing me to marry your daughter'
It'd be written in the passive form in Japanese.

Anyways, I'm sure one of the natives or fluent lot will pop on here and write you something lovely, so wait a while but requests like this go in the 'translate this' thread.

All the best with the proposal

[The Wild Turkey]

Oops, I didn't realize there was a 'translate this' thread. If it belongs there better, could it please be moved?

[Urzu 7]

I read that there is the female name "Ruri" and the male form "Ru-ri". Would you pronounce the two differently? How would you pronounce the two? Also, would a male person with the name "Ru-ri" just write it as "Ruri" in most instances (when writing their name in English)?

[Kizoku Keenan]

can anyone recommend a great app for iphone or macs that can teach you japanese or specifically kanji? I mostly use my language coach for Nintendo DS but it only teaches you hiragana & katakana.

[Zakoo]

Hey guys, how do you do when you meet for the first time a new kanji? Totally no-existant so far, do you have a website with easy search or something?

[larethian]

Originally Posted by Zakoo

Hey guys, how do you do when you meet for the first time a new kanji? Totally no-existant so far, do you have a website with easy search or something?

I say 'Hi' to it, but maybe you want to post the kanji.

[Solafighter]

I got pretty much all Hiragana in my head in recognising and writing. Can someone recommend me some sides, where i can do some practise reading? To get better into the fluent reading by doing it, doing it, doing it and doing it. Thanks!

[Zakoo]

Originally Posted by larethian

I say 'Hi' to it, but maybe you want to post the kanji.

It's in general you see, i'm reading VN and I meet a lot of news kanji, I don't know their meaning, and of course I could search with the sound but when it's something alonside the sound "ha", I don't feel like going on a dictionnary and searching all kanjis that do this sound.

And if I could copy it, I would gladly and simply go on a translator seeing its sense, but I don't find the way to copy a kanji from a VN and thus can't even post them here to ask.

SO I wondered if there was a website that allows you to search them, based on general and recurent "graphical design", see what I mean?

[larethian]

Originally Posted by Zakoo

It's in general you see, i'm reading VN and I meet a lot of news kanji, I don't know their meaning, and of course I could search with the sound but when it's something alonside the sound "ha", I don't feel like going on a dictionnary and searching all kanjis that do this sound.

And if I could copy it, I would gladly and simply go on a translator seeing its sense, but I don't find the way to copy a kanji from a VN and thus can't even post them here to ask.

SO I wondered if there was a website that allows you to search them, based on general and recurent "graphical design", see what I mean?

Generally, you can use any site that supports multiple radical search. To do this, you have to learn the radical strokes of kanji, and you identify the radicals, which are categorized by the number of strokes, and select them.

Try this: http://jisho.org/kanji/radicals/

But you can screen-cap it and post it if you want.

[Honoakari]

@Zakoo: If you have Japanese locale installed you can just use the handwriting (or better said mousewriting) recognition utility that comes with IME.

Open up the language bar, go to IMEパッド -> 手書き, write the character that you don't know (using the correct stroke order), check up on the list to the right to see if your character was found and then insert the said character into your favourite dictionary.

Simple, right?

[Zakoo]

Oho nice one for the IME; I didn't know, thanks for the website too, it helps a lot.

[Zakoo]

Hello guys, again in need of you. Just a grammar basic I don't manage to get.

顔見られてる

The sentence was translated as "She's looking at me", but I don't understand why, the form -rareru is used for passive or ability, but in this example there's the -teru after, what does that mean?

My hypothesis was that since there's kao in front, the words to words translation would be "my face is being looked at" ( obviously it's ugly to put it this way but am I getting this right?) since there's the passive form + the form in "teru" which means the duration (a way of writing -te+iru faster?)

Thanks in advance.