Learning Japanese

[LiberLibri]

Originally Posted by bungmonkey

I think it sounds a bit better as well if you change "shuumatsu ni" into "senshuu no shuumatsu wa". The way you have it I believe is more like "(on/during) the weekend, blah blah", versus "last weekend, blah blah"

先週末 [せんしゅうまつ / sen-shuu-matsu] is a perfect word for the intention.

[bungmonkey]

Originally Posted by LiberLibri

先週末 [せんしゅうまつ / sen-shuu-matsu] is a perfect word for the intention.

I always figured that had to be a word, but whenever I looked it up in the dictionaries it came up blank.

[Animedevil]

Hey all! I haven't posted alot on this forum but well I thought I just had to share this and ask for some information! First of all i want to thank all the ppl contributing to this thread, I've probably read the whole thing and visited the sites linked.

I've been thinking, or no, rather my mind is set up on joining courses in Japanese, as there will be a 1st-time course held next month and a follow-up course later next year's winter/spring.
I'm currently on the 2nd year of "gymnasium" here (our equivalent for 2nd last year of High School I guess) and have loads of work to do and days from 8-17 , and the course is being held a 1 hour bus/train ride from where i live two times a week in the evening.
There is also another course starting the same time in a city closer to me, but the prices are higher, only once a week, quite more of "tourist" stuff regarding studying material of what i read about it, the follow up is not until autumn 2009, and the teaching is in English, not in Swedish , so I'm ready to take the longer route : /

The book used on the course I will (try) to attend to is "Japanese for Busy people 1 (romanized version)", and I'd like to ask if anyone has any comments whether it is a good one or not ? (I recall it being mentioned somewhere before).

It's gonna be alot of work but I really want to learn Japanese for future purposes and as quickly as possible, also I asked my classtutor if it earns me some courses in school and she said it does, so another plus! ( Got to ask if they could help me with getting a spot there heh )

Anyone more experienced who might want to share some advice? ^^
Thanks to all who bother to read this! : )

[tripperazn]

Originally Posted by Animedevil

The book used on the course I will (try) to attend to is "Japanese for Busy people 1 (romanized version)", and I'd like to ask if anyone has any comments whether it is a good one or not ? (I recall it being mentioned somewhere before).

It's decent and very commonly used in many countries as an introductory textbook. I suppose it's good if you don't have any background in Asian language. They start very slowly and use a ton of romanji.

It really depends on what your goals are. If you are going to visit Japan as a tourist, then sure. This book plus a phrase book will suit you well.

If you plan on understanding anime/manga, as many people on these forums seem to want to do, you need a harder textbook and a LOT of study. Probably Genki Vol. 2/3 if you really want an English textbook.

I still think that Tae Kim's Guide is the best Japanese resource, free or published.

[Tripp]

I enrolled in the Japanese class at my college and I'm really looking forward to it! Has anyone else taken this class at any other schools who could tell me what I've gotten myself into? My goal is to get into the study abroad program in Japan that they offer next year so I wanted some behind me.

[Mystique]

(Merging threads are so confusing when it directs you to page 1 instead of the original post that was merged into this one) x.x
Umm...
Treat it like any other language subject.
Be disciplined, be prepared to memorise like you've never memorised before.
Do your homework, practice, practice, practice and good luck ^^

Some braincells may kamikaze themselves cause the logic (initally) is so vastly different to english structure and grammar wise and every new grammar aspect may seem like too much to understand and you feel you're not getting anywhere.
But then you learn another new point, build on what you alread know and before you know it, your knowledge is increasing. ^^

Patience and persistance. ^^

I personally began with zero experience at university.... it was kinda hardcore and very academic and strict in its teaching, but man did i learn lots in a short space of time. x.x
So as a result, my outlook on japanese language is fairly disciplined and influenced by my lecturers. Each school/college is different, so you may experience different things

Eitherway, keep your focus and you'll be okay

[mg1942]

Originally Posted by Tripp

I enrolled in the Japanese class at my college and I'm really looking forward to it! Has anyone else taken this class at any other schools who could tell me what I've gotten myself into? My goal is to get into the study abroad program in Japan that they offer next year so I wanted some behind me.

Did you learn ひらがな (hiragana)　and 　カタカナ (katakana) through self-study prior enrolling? If not, Japanese will just eat too much study time away from other important classes, such as your General-ed courses and core classes for your major.

It took me 3 months to learn/memorize hiragana and katakana + its combinations through self study before I enrolled in 1st semester JPN. Do what I did and you won't have to stay up very late just to learn hiragana and katakana.

[bungmonkey]

Since we're on the topic of college japanese classes how far does the average beginner 1/intro course go? About how many kanji did you know at the end of the course and what were the most complicated grammatical structures you learned etc? I'm planning on taking some classes when I transfer to UF (not until next year ) I'll have self studied for a year at that point and figure I won't really gain much from the first class.

[Tripp]

Originally Posted by mg1942

Did you learn ひらがな (hiragana)　and 　カタカナ (katakana) through self-study prior enrolling? If not, Japanese will just eat too much study time away from other important classes, such as your General-ed courses and core classes for your major.

It took me 3 months to learn/memorize hiragana and katakana + its combinations through self study before I enrolled in 1st semester JPN. Do what I did and you won't have to stay up very late just to learn hiragana and katakana.

Wow, I wish I had known that a little while ago. I already started looking through my books and that seems like the first little bit is going to consist of learning the hiragana, then it will go on to the katakana and it looks like the rest of the course will focus on Kanji. Unfortunately, my course begins in about two weeks, so I won't have as much time to do so. Definitely going to start now, though. I hear my prof is really good for it too, so I suppose that that will help. I was just kind of intimidated since most people said it was a very hard language to learn. I already took spanish previously, so I'm not totally new to a foreign language, but that did not involve learning several different writing systems. ^ ^'

[Irenicus]

Originally Posted by Tripp

Wow, I wish I had known that a little while ago. I already started looking through my books and that seems like the first little bit is going to consist of learning the hiragana, then it will go on to the katakana and it looks like the rest of the course will focus on Kanji. Unfortunately, my course begins in about two weeks, so I won't have as much time to do so.

Like, can I say, me 2?

*goes and studies for five minutes, gives up, and will regret it later very much*

[Vexx]

Hiragana/Katakana //// make yourselves flashcards and spend an hour a day with them (or more) and you'll be in pretty fair shape once classes start.

Even *making* the flashcards helps in the memory process.

[Tripp]

I had actually considered doing that, My book has step by steps for most of the penstrokes that are necessary to make them, I guess I will end up doing that after all. It's the pronunciations that worry me about that. I wouldn't want to teach myself wrong on that and have to totally relearn the sounds/syllables.

[Autumn Demon]

The following two web pages show different stroke direction for the first stroke of 皆. Which one is correct and is stroke direction important?

http://www.yamasa.cc/members/ocjs/ka...a!OpenDocument
http://taka.sourceforge.net/current/kanji/J3327

[LiberLibri]

Originally Posted by Autumn Demon

The following two web pages show different stroke direction for the first stroke of 皆. Which one is correct and is stroke direction important?

It matters when you write letters with a writing brush. You write horizontal bar from right to left, and the line takes form like ◢. When written from left to right, the line looks like either ⇀ (still / tome) or ◤ (blow / harai). You will notice the difference when you take a blush, but need not to care if you cherish only ballpoint pens.

There can be several typefaces for a glyph. Depending on the design of typeface, the stroke direction might vary.

I am so used to blush that I often make unconsciously serifs even when I write letters with a pencil.

[KoiNoDensetsu]

This is a really nice thread! I'm surprised it's not stickied.

Does anyone know where you can get a tutor for Japanese if you're not a college student (like how the OP has. Or were they a college student, as well?)? I used to live in Japan and they had tutors there for people who had no knowlodge of the Japanese-languange (someone in my family had taken one of the courses), but I didn't take any courses because I didn't have the desire to learn Japanese at the time. I've tried looking for Japanese tutors in America, but the only courses I can find is for college students.

Currently, I'm using hesjapanese.com to learn Japanese. It's a really good site and has things like virtual flash cards (and print out cards, as well) and animation to show you how to draw the characters (though, it doesn't have all of the characters available with animation). It's a little bit of an Engrish site, though.

So far, I've learned approximately 60%+ of the hiragana characters shown on hesjapanese. I've been studying for a few weeks now (some days I've been too busy to study).

[bungmonkey]

What's the best/least weird sounding/most common way to say that something must be done? I've read I think 4 different ways to do it.

kusuri o nomanakucha (ikenai/dame/naranai) (girly/kiddish sounding?)
kusuri o nomanakute wa (ikenai/dame/naranai)
kusuri o nomanai to (ikenai/dame/naranai)
kusuri o nomanakereba (ikenai/dame/naranai)

[richvh]

~nakucha is just a contraction of ~nakutewa; there's one for ~nakereba as well (~nakya.) Neither are girly/kiddish, they're just informal. Dame's pretty casual; it's most likely to be used (so I understand) with one of the contracted forms.
"ないといけない" is giving me the biggest numbers on Google.

[Strahan]

I just starting taking Japanese lessons myself. I hired a tutor for private lessons. I've tried web sites, books, tapes and software and I must say having a fluent speaker teaching you is so much better. If anyone happens to be near Baltimore and wants to learn, I can hook you up with him.

Anyway, the first thing I did was learn hiragana. I figured when I was hunting for a tutor that on my own I'd at least learn the two basic writing systems. Took a few weeks, but it wasn't that hard. I wrote a website that I can use to practice with to learn hiragana and katakana. Made it very handy. I need to put some polishing touches on it then I'll post the URL in case anyone wants to check it out.

As mentioned before, prepare yourself for some rigorous memorizing hehe. I'm swamped in a sea of information, but it's very enjoyable!

[LiberLibri]

Originally Posted by bungmonkey

kusuri o nomanakucha (ikenai/dame/naranai) (girly/kiddish sounding?)
kusuri o nomanakute wa (ikenai/dame/naranai)
kusuri o nomanai to (ikenai/dame/naranai)
kusuri o nomanakereba (ikenai/dame/naranai)

Though they are interchangeable in the meaning, each of them has different implication about the situation and speaker's background.

>nomanakucha

young, soft, casual, girly

>nomanakute wa

mature, formal, calm, intelligent

>nomanai to

also soft, young - middle age

>nomanakereba

solemn, often seen in legislation [you shall do...]

Similarly, dame is the frankest, naranai is formal, and ikenai is intermediate.

I feel it unnatural if a 5-yo child says "kusuri o nomanakereba naranai", or an aged gentleman does "kusuri o nomanakucha dame" unless given any special condition. It is often used to depict characters' personalities in fictions; e.g. you can expect a girl has a very rigid character if she prefers "-nakereba naranai" expression.

I cannot tell which would be the best without knowing your gender, age or the situation. But "nomanai to ikenai" does not sound risky in any environment.

[Kyuusai]

Two questions from me today!

Firstly:
The greatest lack I find in Japanese dictionaries is the lack of pitch notation. So much effort in memorization is utterly wasted when I must re-memorize--or when I simply don't recognize--a word because I've previously only encountered it in text (and therefore do not know the proper pitch for each syllable).

Are there any Japanese dictionaries that contain pitch notation? I am not necessarily looking for anything written for English-speakers (I'm pretty sure there is no such thing, as I've only found one textbook's vocabulary sections aside). A native Japanese dictionary is fine, if such a thing exists.

Secondly:
I'm curious as to what titles or honorifics might be used to refer to and address religious ministers in Japan. Since I'll be working with Christian ministers in Japan, I'm most curious about Japanese terms appropriate in such context (in English we would generally use "Brother"/"Sister" or "Reverend", except for church leaders who are addressed according to office, ie "Pastor", and Catholic priests who are addressed as "Father"), but I'd also be interested in knowing what is appropriate for ministers of other religions active in Japan.