/jp/ - Otaku Culture

>>3454576
Practice.

uh, study more? that's a common problem with every language. I studied Spanish for like 6 years but still couldn't understand shit in conversation because it felt like everyone was talking at a hurricane pace. thankfully VNs have the text that will wait for you.

>>3454582
No shit sherlock. What I'm asking is "how". Vocab is easy enough, just make notecards. Speaking, however, requires me to be able to tell when I'm screwing up pronunciation which, for obvious reasons, I'm not the best judge of. If I was I wouldn't have pronunciation problems.

Listening is an issue because I don't really have any way to practice that aside from short audio clips from the book, but those are only good for a few listens.

>>3454593
Stop wasting your time taking classes, that's your first mistake.

>>3454593
Talk to a japanese student/teacher/person
That's pretty much it, have fun

>>3454593
Read VNs.
Watch TV shows.
Read books.
Talk to someone who knows Japanese.

>>インタネットで日本語を助ける！

>>3454593
Seems pretty simple. If you are having a problems reading fast, read more (consider a game like pokemon, no kanji.)
I don't see how you can have issues with pronunciation. It's very simple.
For listening just try watching shows, listening to people speak more. Try to repeat sentences, even if you don't know what they mean.

As long as you can pronounce the 5 vowels correctly, you shouldn't have much trouble pronouncing pretty much anything in Japanese. The romanization of hiragana is all phonetically straight-forward.

So you can't really understand native speakers after studying the language for five weeks? That's pretty normal. It should probably take you a lot longer to pick up on normal conversational speech. Just keep working at it is all I can say.

>>3454612
Yeah, I'm surprised about the pronunciation as well. You'd think a language with only five vowels and significantly less consonants than English would be easy to pronounce, but apparently for me not so much. I think the big problem there for me is that I get tongue tied really easily with this language. Also, the "R" sound and ふ send me for a bit of a loop.

I dunno, I just seem to have a really thick accent from what I've noticed by comparing my speech to all the Koreans and Chinese in the class. That said, at least I seem to be better off than the other Americans in there.

>>3454576
Immersion is the best way. It takes a couple of weeks but then you start to catch on quickly.

>>3454631
I guess they do have that light sort of R that rolls like an L. After listening to the language for a while you should pick it up.

>>3454631
When I was in a class, the international students were probably the worst at pronunciation aside from the one white guy in front of me.

As for pronouncing the ra,ri,ru,re,ro I can't really say. There are lots of guides or info given on the internet. A lot of people say it sounds very similar to the mexican 'r'. ふ should be pretty easy. Just make sure your lips don't touch and you aren't trying to say it as if it were an F.

I feel like the underage train just whizzed passed me this year with all of these freshmen proclaiming their underage on the board.

I say that because I'm a third year student. I would not dare take a Japanese class at my college unless it was a non-language class. Japanese students at my school are either black, chinks, con girls, or white future English teachers. And those classes are packed so no-one else gets in.

This guy I know who is the only non-oldfag high power level guy I have seen didn't even try to get in. And he said he wouldn't mind being a voice actor. He ended up taking Russian of all languages.

practice.

practice, and time. don't expect to understand native speakers in your first year... or your second

>>3454576

I took Japanese for three years in college and still couldn't get some of that shit down. I was only able to really communicate after I actually spent a few months in Japan.

Don't worry if it just doesn't "click" yet, keep practicing.

(and if you get the opportunity, immersion is key)

>>3454738
>immersion is key

This. You'll pick up the language pretty fucking quick when no one around you speaks English.

>>3454576
>Thus far it's pretty easy...

Hate to tell you bub, but it gets a lot harder after the basics.

Watch Japanese TV, even if most of it is shit.
Watch Japanese movies.
Listen to Japanese podcasts.
Make Japanese friends and skype with them/chill with them in real life.
Listen to Japanese music.
You get the point.

らりるれろ: Repeat "la li lu le lo" to yourself. Then practice a rolled r from Spanish, Finnish, etc. Then try and flick your tongue when you do la li lu le lo. It should come out as 1/3 L, 1/3 R, and 1/3 D.

ふ： Pretend you're blowing out a candle. Or say "who" with a sliiiiiight hint of an f. Very slight.

Hope that helps.

Google Tae Kim.

>>3454738
>immersion is key

Yes it is. People wouldn't complain that Japanese is so hard to learn if it could be approached like most other languages; Spanish is a prime example. If you go live in central or south America for a while, you'll come back fluent. If Japan weren't so god damned xenophobic, more people could do this. It'd take longer due to the character difference, but it'd be much easier than listening to a professor drone on about it for 3 hours a week over a period of 4 1/2 months.

VNs for kanji
Anime for voice comprehension
Skype for talking

Worked for me, never been in any jap classed.

>>3455330
>classed.

Didn't help you with your English.

>>3455330
and where am i supposed to obtain japanese people to speak to on skype?

>>3455377
Beg on 2ch