/jp/ - Otaku Culture

Sup, /jp/ what do you do to keep yourself motivated in learning japanese?

I need ideas as for some reason, I feel like not studying right now.

I'm learning those ol kanji, atm I use anki and smart.fm that use time based systems so I don't try and review items early because it will mess up the process.

What other options do I have for learning Kanji at long sessions at a time?

Okay /jp/ I have a problem. My Kanji conversion windoms 7 is fucked up. And I don't know how to fix it.
Example: Typing わるい gives no automatic conversion for the whole thing.　
いたい=遺体，異体、板井、位タイ　but no 痛い　(but I can write 痛 by typing in 痛む）.
What the fuck how do I fix this shit? This is annoying as hell.

Is there any difference If I skip the JLPT level 5 test and just take the level 4?
I mean, if I pass the level 4, does it count as passing level 5 too?

Why does Kanji exist?
There is a Hiragana equivalent for every Kanji. Why don't Japanese ditch the Kanji and use instead their Hiragana equivalent?

/jp/, I'm having a problem getting Japanese text and such installed on my new laptop. Windows 7 Home Premium.
I can read it, but I can't type it or in programs it's just garbled gibberish.
Been trying to follow the help window's help instructions, but they only help versions that I don't have, and the discs that I have are only for reinstalling or upgrading, not just installing a language.
Oh and applocale doesn't work, saying I'm missing something, but it doesn't tell me what.

Any help would be appreciated

What's the best way to remember kanji/reading/writing?

What did you do, /jp/?

Firstly, I am not fluent in Japanese yet, but I do plan on going back to school and fully learning Japanese (including Kanji).

What I'd like to know is:
Aside from cultural preservation and space savings in books, what reasons are there to keep the Kanji system? Many of the other asian nations have overhauled their writing systems and seem to have done well.

what kind of kanji would a person from japan paint if they were doing calligraphy on paint canvas. long story short i need to help a buddy replace some paintings his company bought.

Because I'm a hopeless loonix-faggot nerd, I just spent the last hour figuring out how to get Japanese input working on a linux box WITHOUT pulling in an input method through gnome or kde.

Most of the guides on the internet are pretty much useless, they're either tailored to a particular distribution that handles generic internationalization in its own specific way, or they are about getting Japanese working under a popular desktop environment like GNOME and KDE. But the truth is that you can get an IME working in a generic way using the "XIM protocol." It will work with any window manager and desktop environment, and most GUI programs, and it can work on Linux, BSD, Solaris, and even weird old proprietary UNIXes.

Here is how you do it.
1. If you have no Japanese fonts (Already installed on most Linux systems even if you don't otherwise have Japanese support, but you can never be sure...), get some.

2. Install SCIM. Your distribution probably provides a package called "scim" or "SCIM", otherwise you can download the source code from http://scim-im.org

3. Install anthy. The package is probably called "anthy." Otherwise build from the source at http://sourceforge.jp/projects/anthy/

4. Your distribution's "anthy" package may bring scim-anthy with it. If it doesn't, or if you compiled from source, install the package "scim-anthy" or compile this: http://sourceforge.jp/projects/scim-imengine/downloads/29660/scim-anthy-1.3.1.tar.gz

5. Run the program "scim-setup" and make sure that under the "Japanese" menu in the section IMEngine -> Global Setup "anthy" is checked

6. Add these lines to your .xinitrc and/or .xsession file, before the part that loads your window manager:
export LANG="en_US.UTF-8"
export LC_CTYPE="ja_JP.UTF-8"
export XMODIFIERS=@im=SCIM
export GTK_IM_MODULE=xim
scim &

7. Restart X11.

Done. hit "ctrl+space" to toggle Japanese input on and off.

Hey /jp/, I've never been here, but this seems like the appropriate board to make this thread in.

I'm in 3rd year Japanese at college and I'm trying to become proficient enough to play through games in Japanese. I'm at the point where I can understand basically all the grammar I see, I just lack a huge amount of vocabularly and Kanji recognition.

Should I just study the Joyo Kanji list first, or play through a game and look up Kanji as I go?

I never come on /jp/, so I'm not sure, but I can imagine this topic will get flamed, if it's even read by anyone, but I'll still try anyway. I wanna learn Japanese, and since this IS /jp/, after all, I thought I'd come here to see if any of you kind anon know of some useful resources? Thanks for any of the helpful responses

Anyone else going to take the JLPT next month ?

i have not been able to find any Japanese language instructors in my area. anyone have any experience with any language books or software that can help me learn?

My philosophy teacher, who was lecturing on medieval Japanese Buddhism and Shinto, forgot the medieval Japanese word for "human". Supposedly, it translates as "thinking reed".

I shuffled through a few online dictionaries (even Breen's) and didn't find anything. Although I'm not fluent in Japanese (or Chinese for that matter, I've only taken two semesters on that), the etymology of Asian languages interests me. Anyone have a good place to start for delving into this area? I mean, the modern words for I, you, etc. (Watashi, Atashi, Kimi, etc) in Japanese are supposedly fairly recent, and only came into use around WW2, if I remember correctly (or maybe it was when Japan opened its borders?).

I'm pretty ignorant on this stuff at any rate, surely someone can explain this shit.

Hello /jp/ I need help learning japanese! halp

Hi there /jp/

i'm lloking for a complete kanji online dictionnary, as the one I was using seems to be down.

http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/cgi-bin/wwwjdic.cgi?1R

Snekyu :)

Tell me this

is it possible to read japanese(kanji) above borderline retardation speed?

I mean holy shit

There are so many kanji characters, and they aren't easily recognizable like hiragana/katakana.How do you even keep up with titles on the TV or reading lines on a japanese RPG.

Is there a trick to it or just read/write/repeat the same character until its fucking burned into your brain?