2011-10-04, 00:58 | Link #21 |
18782+18782=37564
Join Date: Sep 2010
Location: InterWebs
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You could use animu to familiarize yourself with the language. Japanese games are a better source though (the ones that are voiced) because you have both text and sound. Memorizing every hiragana is mandatory, though I'd say katakanas aren't as important.
As for kanjis. I find that it's fine even if you don't memorize them. It's better to "recognize"/ "familiarize" kanjis, because believe it or not, sometimes you can know what a Japanese sentence means without actually knowing how to read it.
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2011-10-04, 02:01 | Link #22 | ||
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Join Date: Jul 2010
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without a good foundation in grammar, the meanings can be totally off or opposite, but easy recognition does help speed reading. my 2 cents is that, anime is not such a good media, unless you already have some foundation in grammar and really pay attention. otherwise you will just end up learning fixed phrases. and others have pointed out the politeness and other stuff. on the other hand, with a decent starter vocab (a few thousand words) and grammar foundation, it can accelerate your learning, by giving you more context examples of words you already learnt, expanding your vocab implicitly, and increasing familiarity of things you already know. |
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2011-10-04, 03:37 | Link #23 |
絶対領域に嵌り過ぎた。
Join Date: Mar 2011
Location: Trendy Backwater
Age: 38
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The only thing that the anime helps in learning Japanese is in which situation you use certain words or how often do you use those words provided that you have the basic knowledge of grammar since Japanese language have two different words with same meanings. Also anime can help with familiarising yourself with the language, maybe a bit. What I noticed is that whereas in anime, the characters speak much slower than how the natural speakers are supposed to speak. And I just realised that I pretty much repeated larenthian said.
I think that's fine for people learning Japanese for hobby or non-educational purpose but if you are thinking of living there or being more involved in Japanese culture, it's more than necessary to learn those Kanji. Just by recognising the Kanji, it's mostly impossible to read a Manga without furigana. You need to memorise a few kanji to recognise the pattern. |
2011-10-04, 07:43 | Link #25 |
Senior Member
Join Date: Oct 2006
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Like a few others have mentioned, using anime directly as the source of learning Japanese is not a good idea, using it as a supplement however is pretty okay. One way to know that you're making progress on listening is to listen to those drama CDs and see if you have any understanding of what they're saying. I say this because watching anime RAW gives you about 20-50% understanding just from the visuals alone, listening to drama CDs tests your knowledge of tone and context of the situation from the voices. This was how I knew I was making progress on my Japanese after studying it for 6 years in high school when I started testing myself to see if I knew what the characters were saying without any visual aid.
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2011-10-04, 08:17 | Link #26 | |
18782+18782=37564
Join Date: Sep 2010
Location: InterWebs
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2011-10-04, 11:08 | Link #27 |
絶対領域に嵌り過ぎた。
Join Date: Mar 2011
Location: Trendy Backwater
Age: 38
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I'm curious but can I ask how long did it take you to recognise kanji by reading VNs? I guess this really depend on people to people. I can surely recognise few hundreds Kanji but most of them are confusing. Yeah, as for people who learns solely from anime and VNs do exist but for most people, teachers are definitely recommended.
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2011-10-04, 14:40 | Link #28 | |
18782+18782=37564
Join Date: Sep 2010
Location: InterWebs
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2011-10-04, 15:47 | Link #29 | |
Also a Lolicon
Join Date: Apr 2010
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I would say memorizing kanji is very useful. Its critical for reading anything beyond stuff aimed at people just learning the language with any acceptable level of efficiency.
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AGTH + Hover over translations of words Faster than looking through a dictionary by hand for the words you don't know. I think most manga with furigana tend to be for kids, thus simpler less interesting plots and characters on average. VN's ftw. |
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2011-10-04, 16:32 | Link #30 |
The Voice of Reason
Join Date: Feb 2010
Location: The Netherlands
Age: 47
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It helps building a general understanding of the language, and you can probably recognize some words or even complete sentences after a while. Still, to fully learn Japanese, do a language course (or even several, with increasing difficulty), go to a school where they teach it or read books about it.
And there is another, perhaps more helpful way. I learned English through a combination of watching a lot of cartoons (which weren't subtitled or dubbed) and by having my Dutch aunt send me English-Dutch letters from the USA. I think I could speak and write English fluently when I was around 10 years old this way, and I was virtually unsurpassed in my language skills for a very long time (and still am, as far as my relatives are concerned). If you can find someone in Japan who is willing to correspond with you in both his and your language on a regular basis (my aunt would send me letters at least once a month), you could have a basic understanding of the language relatively quick*. Still, do not expect to master Japanese (or any language) in a few months or so. I needed 5 or so years to get my English to the point where it is now and you must practice (reading and/or writing) the language on pretty much a daily basis, else you will take even longer, or might not even master it at all. And as said, start at the basics. No use in trying to translate words if you don't know how to write them in Japanese. Learning hiragana is a must, I'd say learning katakana is also pretty much mandatory, seeing as how Japanese has lots of loan words. Once you know that, move on to kanji. Usually, by that time, you'll have learned to recognize a few and what they mean. *I forgot to mention that it probably helps if you ask him/her not to write kanji right away, else you won't understand any of it. You could try and ask to have him/her write in romaji or hiragana first and work your way up from there.
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2011-10-04, 19:30 | Link #33 | |
tl;dr
Join Date: Jan 2009
Age: 32
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Keep in mind that even up through high school, students are still learning kanji. Anything not aimed exclusively at young adults and higher is likely to have full or at least partial furigana. Ask them to write kanji with readings. Romaji is a crutch that should be discarded as soon as possible, and reading all hiragana is a massive pain.
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2011-10-04, 19:38 | Link #34 | |
Also a Lolicon
Join Date: Apr 2010
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[QUOTE=takalina;3792803]
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My fav is CLANNAD. It has an English translation that you can refer to if you get stuck (which if that happens a lot, you probably haven't learned enough of the basics for it to be a useful supplement.) AGTH is a useful tool that hooks onto the text on the screen so you can ctrlcv unknown words into a dictionary and stuff like that. |
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2011-10-04, 21:36 | Link #35 |
Obey the Darkly Cute ...
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Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: On the whole, I'd rather be in Kyoto ...
Age: 66
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There are english translations of Visual Novels (VNs) for fairly cheap at j-list.com if you want to get a feel for them. Be aware the site sells a truckload of adult products from Japan in addition to the Totoro-happy whatnot.
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2011-10-04, 23:26 | Link #36 | |
Junior Member
Join Date: May 2010
Location: Lost in my messy room...
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Though I must admit the we were surprised our project got accepted as the "Supervised Teaching Practice" we must go through in order to get our teachers licenses. ^^' |
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2011-10-05, 00:36 | Link #37 | |
Actually an Alligator
Join Date: Nov 2008
Age: 28
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[QUOTE=Random32;3792977]
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2011-10-05, 09:53 | Link #38 |
Senior Member
Join Date: Sep 2006
Location: Suburban DC
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I would not use anime to "learn" japanese before I took formal classes and conversed with native speakers.
It's good for supplement, like songs or movies or any other media. Remember don't just watch anime read the news watch movies too. However, you wouldn't tell japanese to learn English JUST by watching Pulp Fiction or Looney Tunes would you? |
2011-10-05, 11:51 | Link #40 |
♪ ~ ♫
Artist
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I actually "learned" quite a bit of English from watching Cartoon Network as a small kid. Believe it or not.
Had no idea what the characters were saying at first, of course, but after several years of observation (and a vocabulary in my tiny hands), I got a nice headstart on my fellow kindergarteners and classmates. Obviously, it's just casual talk, nothing formal, which you still need to learn properly along with the general rules. There's no way around that. You DO need a teacher/book to tell you WHY or WHEN. I'm certain the same can be applied to Japanese, or any other language out there. You get a small vocabulary in your head from anime, along with some pronunciation. Some common sense in source material selection is required though. Hiragana/Katakana/Kanji on the other hand, that's an extra beast to tame.
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