Learning Japanese

[Vexx]

I agree strongly with oompa loompa -- romaji rapidly becomes an insane crutch if you plan to get past the "50 handy phrases" stage.

Its good to know the romaji table so you know which romaji are "standard" but being able to recognize the sound of a kana on sight without doing the mental conversion is extremely helpful.

Always examine the japanese program you're about to enter and do not waste money on programs that depend heavily on romaji (unless you're just interested in conversational japanese and do not ever plan on going past the "tourist" level).

[RandomGuy]

Originally Posted by Vexx

I agree strongly with oompa loompa -- romaji rapidly becomes an insane crutch if you plan to get past the "50 handy phrases" stage.

Funny you should mention that; I'm currently working on breaking certain teachers at my school of the katakana-English habit, for similar reasons: kana makes learning basic vocabulary slightly easier because the kids don't have to learn the English sound system, but it becomes a crutch that well and truly fucks up their spelling, pronunciation, and listening comprehension, making anything even remotely resembling English fluency a nigh-unattainable goal. Sadly, a number of the teachers were taught like this, and don't think anything of propagating the travesty.

[nikorai]

Right, and learning kanji makes you take a completely different look on things. Let's take for example even some simplest kanji like 男 (man). If you look at it you instantly get an idea that it is not simply a man, but acually brute force for work on a rice field. 「男」という漢字は田と力から成り立っておるってことですね。

Speaking of learning japanese. My self-studies prove almost completely useless. Which makes learning so much needed 2000 kanji almost unattainable goal (c). It is also pretty hard for me to come up with my own phrases. I can understand something written or watch some anime without use of subtitles but that's almost all I can manage so far. I recently logged in to ai sp@ce game and bumped into a huge language barrier.
The idea is that I'll absolutely have to take some language courses if I ever manage to find free time.

[Samari]

I was thinking about finally devoting a good portion of attention to learning Japanese again. I did so in high school five years ago for about two years, but it's been a while and honestly I was a slacker back then. I mean I can basically "survive" at this point, but going to Japan this past summer really inspired me to finally finish what I once started.

So since I don't have a partner for the time being I was wondering if a good learning method is the popular site Japanese Pod 101.com. I was thinking about investing a decent amount of money so I can devote a good amount of time and effort to learning once more. Does anyone have any experience with this website? If so has it proved useful?

[lixuelai]

IMO it is best if you take a class with a real teacher. Nothing beats a real Japanese person teaching you Look around for local college classes.

[Samari]

Originally Posted by lixuelai

IMO it is best if you take a class with a real teacher. Nothing beats a real Japanese person teaching you Look around for local college classes.

Unfortunately I don't have that kind of time to actually travel somewhere.

[nikorai]

Ok, I'm bringing up this thread.
Speaking of learning japanese, last year I happened to buy a book of もえたん Methodology of English, The Academic Necessity. It is supposed to be an english textbook but I use it for back translation. In fact, the japanese here is quite difficult for me. For example, I wrote out about a hundred unknown words from the first few pages of it. More than that, each lesson in the book is tightly packed with english words and japanese equivalents. Say, the first lesson has 5 spread sheets of them. Surely, it is impossible to learn grammar with this book and the words are hard to memorize because under each english entry you can find a handful of japanese expressions which are used in completely different situations. To add to that, the english phrases sound quite awkward and have grammar and spelling mistakes in them.
Try to look at the phrase under "annual" -

アニメーターの年収はすさまじいです。
The english phrase is given as "the ... income of a ... cartoonist is incredibly low".
Why not simply 'an animator'. But what's more important, I'd understand this phrase in an opposite way. I think it should rather mean the income is awfully high. Correct me if I'm wrong but the kanji for 'susamajii' is the same as 'sugoi' and sugoi always has a positive meaning. Say, すごい人 would be 'a whole lotta people' and now that I end up using a bunch of money for medical bills I think can say something like 治療費に凄まじいお金を使ってしまう.

Also, I'd like you ask you what you think about combining learning japanese and chinese. I came across this book at amazon, it looks quite interesting to me. Though I'm afraid the pronunciation seems rather complicated.
http://www.amazon.co.jp/exec/obidos/...=AN1VRQENFRJN5

[lixuelai]

Something tells me it is not the best idea to learn Japanese from an English textbook aimed at otakus

They translated animator to a cartoonist probably because cartoonist is the more widely used word in English. If you tell someone that so and so is an animator they may not necessarily think of an actual animator and associate it with something on TV. However a cartoonist the connection is much more obvious.

As for すごい人 it is more like amazing person. Not sure how you would say an amazing number of people. I would probably just do たくさん人がいます maybe add すごい before it.

p.s. I dont know the exact meaning of 凄 but I'd guess it means cold or cool. So it would mean the job is very cold aka paying very little money. As for studying Chinese along with Japanese I think you will have some issues with distinguishing the Kanji.

[nikorai]

lixuelai
Ah, thank you for your reply.

cartoonist is the more widely used word in English

Well, I'm not the native speaker. I have a feeling I don't like the word.

As for すごい人 it is more like amazing person.

So, what I was talking about is a phrase like this -
http://blogs.yahoo.co.jp/otabe017/22525501.html
それにしても参道からすごい人ですね～・・・ (人＝人出）
Still, lots of people on the road from the shrine.
Or 人がたくさんいます would do otherwise。
Same goes for 'susamajii'. I think we need a deeper research into the matter.

distinguishing the Kanji

Yeah, I've already noticed differences in word meaning.
Some examples from my recent discoveries:
用心　- intention, instead of caution.
At once is　馬上 (mashang/bajou) while in japanese it would literally mean "horseback"　（馬の上）. Chinese people probably had a feeling that the speed of a horse is close to teleportation.　
And it is well-known that 手紙 means toiler paper in chinese. When you look at it you can't help but think that japanese meanings are more refined.

[iLney]

200 more kanjis to go and I'm off to hunting Japanese sentences

Anyone knows of good sources of natural Japanese sentences along with translation? Grammar and vocabulary doesn't matter.

By natural, I mean the way real Japanese speak (too bad anime doesn't have Japanese sub ). I don't want to spend lots of time studying and end up saying "I'm a student" by "Watashi wa gakusee desu."

Ha, good thing I've spent all this time learning kanji and read books about Japanese culture

[Vexx]

Originally Posted by nikorai

Ok, I'm bringing up this thread.
Speaking of learning japanese, last year I happened to buy a book of もえたん Methodology of English, The Academic Necessity. It is supposed to be an english textbook but I use it for back translation. In fact, the japanese here is quite difficult for me. For example, I wrote out about a hundred unknown words from the first few pages of it. More than that, each lesson in the book is tightly packed with english words and japanese equivalents. Say, the first lesson has 5 spread sheets of them. Surely, it is impossible to learn grammar with this book and the words are hard to memorize because under each english entry you can find a handful of japanese expressions which are used in completely different situations. To add to that, the english phrases sound quite awkward and have grammar and spelling mistakes in them.
Try to look at the phrase under "annual" -

アニメーターの年収はすさまじいです。
The english phrase is given as "the ... income of a ... cartoonist is incredibly low".
Why not simply 'an animator'. But what's more important, I'd understand this phrase in an opposite way. I think it should rather mean the income is awfully high. Correct me if I'm wrong but the kanji for 'susamajii' is the same as 'sugoi' and sugoi always has a positive meaning. Say, すごい人 would be 'a whole lotta people' and now that I end up using a bunch of money for medical bills I think can say something like 治療費に凄まじいお金を使ってしまう.

Um.... its a comedy work, semi-serious. Not really meant for actual study. There's even a animated series that lampoons it (Moe-tan).

[nikorai]

OK, comments about equivalents to 'lots of people=huge crowds', and 'susamajii' are still very much appreciated.

Vexx

There's even a animated series that lampoons it (Moe-tan).

The anime actually comes up with some adequate english sentences.
The book, as I mentioned earlier, features quite a number of difficult words. My level of japanese is surely not high enough to read this book without checking the dictionary every now and then. I think it's a signal one needs to improve his language skills.

iLney

too bad anime doesn't have Japanese sub

If you mean you need the script for what they're saying, I guess you need a friend among fansubbers who you can ask to help you with translation.
Say, last year I was doing translations myself. So far I have script for episodes 4-13 from Da Capo II Second Season, episodes 2 and 3 of Nogizaka Haruka and Idolm@ster Live OVA (15 minutes long, extremely nice episode), Oretsuba Prelude (the first 20 pages).
Beside that, last year I participated in Fortune Arterial Translation Project. The game was released exactly on Jan. 30, last year. From my part I've contributed Sections 9 and 10. You can still find them by following this link:
http://scratchpad.wikia.com/wiki/For...an_Translation
The project seems to be pretty much dead. But now that I checked it, I can notice the main page has been updated. Our old discussion as well as information about recruting programmers has been deleted.

[iLney]

Yay, thx a ton!!!

[lixuelai]

Lol another good one is 泥棒. It literally means "mud stick" in both Chinese and Japanese. However in Japanese it also means a thief. I had a good laugh over it during Japanese class a couple days ago.

[onehp]

1)I've seen へ　and　と together like this

明日へと続く小さなsilhouette

What does it mean?



Thanks

[iLney]

I have a question:
なんできた？」
「バスできた。

How did you come?
By bus.

「なんできた？」
「ひまだから

Why did you come?
Because I'm free.

The two questions are the same... Or is there any mistake in those sentences? Anyone helps? Oh, and please tell me how polite those sentences are (PL 1, 2,3,4?)

[Kafriel]

The characters you've used for both questions are exactly the same, I suppose one thing can be interpreted as many?

[Rembr]

なんできた is a very lax use of words, so it can have different meanings depending on context.

Nani-de kita will imply what was used to come, which was simplified to nan-de. Nan-de will usually mean "why" as it is used in the second sentence.

But either way, there will be no problem communicating as long as context is well established.

[iLney]

Thank a lots. Can you help me with this sentence too?

ここには 新聞も ざっしも あります.

There are newspapers and magazines here.

I learn somewhere that "and" = "to." But I don't see it. And は read "wa" right? I guess that this sentence is quite formal.

[ganbaru]

You are not limited to ''to'', because you can translate ''mo'' by ''also''. And yes using alone as a particule, ''は'' is pronounced ''wa''