learning japanese

[Anonymous No.]

Where does one start learning japanese?

pic somewhat related. Is it good? halp me /jp/

[Anonymous No.]

>>10092454
No.

[Anonymous No.]

>>>/lang/
>>>/archive/

[Anonymous No.]

Genki or Tae Kim's Guide, preferably both

Practice flash cards every day

Kanjidamage or Heisig for Kanji

Don't use Rosetta Stone

Don't use Namasensei

Don't make bad threads on /jp/

[Anonymous No.]

>>10092454

Too expensive

[Anonymous No.]

>>10092471

> Don't use Namasensei

Why? He's good at teaching kana.

[Anonymous No.]

This is a pretty good guide

[Anonymous No.]

>>10092471
This. If you can't do all of these at least focus on the don'ts.
In particular the last one.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10092482
Leaves out the Y sounds for katakana, doesn't teach you the obscure ones (ゑ, ゐ), doesn't teach stroke order (minor complaint).

Also the way he writes them looks like shit.

[Anonymous No.]

No. Pic related.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10092482
In the time you spent watching his unfunny videos you could have finished learning kana already.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10092482
Why would anyone need a teacher for kana?
You can learn this shit in a week using a chart with the romaji and the stroke order.
And please don't reply with something like "I did in 2 hours"

[Anonymous No.]

>>10092490

True...true...

I wish he would have taught what characters like ッ and っ meant as opposed to the full sized つ and ツ.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10092494
>Google IME
Wow this guide started wrong

[Anonymous No.]

Tagaini Jisho is a good kanji dictionary. It's not impossible for gringos to learn kanji, it's just very time-consuming and will test your reserves of tenacity and dedication.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10092491
>This is why older immigrates become shut ins and depend on their children so much.

That part always gets me.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10092504
I did it in thirty seconds.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10092509
he did. Too lazy to find the video. But he does make reference to "the little tsew" more often later

[Anonymous No.]

>>10092523
That's why it gets me.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10092514
But that's the only part that's actually true.

[Anonymous No.]

Namasensei taught me that baka is a noun

[Anonymous No.]

>>10092504
To be fair you can very well learn to read the kana in a few hours by skipping writing practice and doing realkana recognition drills or whatever. Depends how good you are.

Of course you'll need some sort of practice to truly assimilate them immediately afterwards so it might not count.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10092497
>>10092504

> I'M A STRONG INDEPENDENT JPSIE WHO DON'T NEED NO TEACHER

Some of us less fortunate do decent with a teacher. I apologize for being a retard and not being able to learn something on my own.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10092527
The method of "write each one 50 times in a set of 5 (all K sounds together, all N sounds together, etc)" works too.

Even though I'm the one who originally posted not to use namasensei, I did use him myself.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10092538
>Some of us less fortunate do decent with a teacher. I apologize for being a retard and not being able to learn something on my own.

If you're literally so retarded you cannot learn how to recognize what are (basically) pictures by their sounds, then a teacher won't help you.

A teacher cannot really make you remember things. Learning Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji will be *your* responsibility to remember them. All a teacher does in this instance is repeat it to you a few times.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10092538
>I apologize for being a retard
I guess I have to forgive you then.

[Anonymous No.]

日本語が出来るひとは出て来い!

[Anonymous No.]

>>10092511
What do you use then?

[Anonymous No.]

>>10092539
The reason he did those videos was to make light of learning Japanese.
Jumping into a language with a million squiggly lines to learn is daunting - unless you have a drunk white guy that has already done it to show that it can be done

[Anonymous No.]

>>10092579
Can't speak for that other poster but I use JWPce personally.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10092648
hipster

[Anonymous No.]

>>10092579
The microsoft one

[Anonymous No.]

You should start by reading VNs, they teach you good japanese.

[Anonymous No.]

So is Rosetta Stone bad for all languages or just Japanese?

[Anonymous No.]

>>10094140

Bad for Asian languages.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10092527

That's exactly how I did it. I don't see a reason to learn writing since I'll never manually write something in Japanese anyway.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10094106

Actually, a lot of Japanese do that. Dunno if it is just some kind of joke/style matter or a genuine mistake.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10094140
It's designed for easy European languages.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10092569
>出て来い

てめえ、命令形を使うな。本当に失礼だから。

[Anonymous No.]

>>10094199

It's designed for tourists who want to order a beer in Barcelona.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10094168
Not sure but at least it's a constant mistake, not a typo. Probably a style, yeah.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10094252

Jp keyboards have a button for each kana, so it's hard to imagine they'd write わ instead of は unless they actually wanted to.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10094168
There are a lot of places in Japan where it's written as こんにちわ and こんばんわ

[Anonymous No.]

Are the JLPT1/2 vocab set decent to use after Core2k/6k? Or as long as I'm learning words any words are usually good? I'm looking to only read so I would think having lots of words is good.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10092494

This guide... is actually pretty decent. Much better than the other one. Add reading practice with VNs and you are good to go.

[Anonymous No.]

http://visualnovelaer.wordpress.com/2011/12/06/how-to-read-visual-novels-in-japanese-in-2-years-time
-step-by-step-guide-%E2%80%95-learn-to-read-through-vn-or-anime/

[Anonymous No.]

Just recently switched from visual mnemonics to verbal on Heisig. I realized that I wasn't really recalling the images, but rather verbalizing them, so I decided to cut out the "sit back and visualize" part, and just go straight to verbal. Seems to be saving a lot of time but I'm not sure if things will stick yet. Hopefully SRS will reinforce it enough. I'm at 1000 kanji right now and I can't stand the thought of visualizing for another 1000+.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10094470
It's amazing how some people spend an entire year just learning every kanji and then spend the rest of their lives, apparently, adding words they don't know to their Anki decks, and still call it "fast tracking."
I shudder to think what the slow and ponderous method would have looked like.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10094637
Learning a language takes time. You can get up to reading level in a language like French or something in a few months, but a language like Japanese that uses kanji throws in an large difficulty which makes it take longer. But still, a few months on kanji, a month or two on grammar, and some vocab and you can read. It's not that slow.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10094649
Also the slow and ponderous method would be taking college courses.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10094637
I disagree with the "add every word you don't know to Anki" nonsense. There are prebuilt decks. The idea of adding thousands of words manually makes me sick.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10094637
Memorizing kanji is like trying to memorize a page of a dictionary every day. You end up knowing tons of words, but it's slow and most of the kanji are rare anyway. It's more important to read actual use of Japanese to learn the kanji that are in common use.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10094637
People don't spend ,,the rest of their lives'' adding words to anki. Once you know enough common words you can start learning words just from context, the same way you learned all the words in your native language. It takes about a year or two to reach a level where you can stop depending on studying.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10094668
Many people have to learn them separately because they are such an insurmountable difficulty to them. If I had not been able to use something like Heisig I would have never been able to learn Japanese. Kanji were just too much for me. They all looked like nonsense scribbles and I couldn't distinguish them or keep them in my head without mnemonics.

[Anonymous No.]

Sometimes I wonder if the people that spend so much time arguing in these threads about which method is better actually know enough Japanese to be useful.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10094672

Sad thing is a lot of people don't realize this, thus they spend years and years learning the language and finally drop it frustrated because they can't make sense out of a multi clause sentence.

Stop analyzing the language, start practicing.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10094649
>Learning a language takes time.
Thanks.
>>10094655
Nah, college courses would have technically taken longer because you only do a few dozen hours per year. But in terms of time pissed away it wouldn't have been slower and it sure as fuck would have been less rigorous.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10094695
>Thanks.

You're the one complaining about a plan that gets you reading in a few months, faggot.

>Nah, college courses would have technically taken longer because you only do a few dozen hours per year. But in terms of time pissed away it wouldn't have been slower and it sure as fuck would have been less rigorous.

You don't know what you're talking about. College classes on Japanese are notoriously slow and useless.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10094672
>People don't spend ,,the rest of their lives'' adding words to anki.
You'd be surprised. Tae Kim and that alljapaneseallthetime faggot apparently do it to this day (well, Tae Kim doesn't really use Anki if I remember well, but the point is he keeps track of new vocabulary somehow.)

But you aren't "fast tracking" in any sense of the word by inputting thousands of flashcards over several years.

[Anonymous No.]

Learning vocabulary will always be an ongoing process. I see words in English occasionally that I don't know the meaning of, especially in advanced subjects. To have the vocabulary of a native you will need to know many thousands of words. You don't have to know that many to start reading, though, if you have access to a dictionary.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10094726
>But you aren't "fast tracking" in any sense of the word by inputting thousands of flashcards over several years.

Yes you are.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10094713
>College classes on Japanese are notoriously slow and useless.
Sure, but you know, if you take 2000 hours worth of college classes, which is roughly the amount of time that blog is asking from you (1000 hours before you even start reading anything), you'll be at least as good at reading by the end as if you had used his method, and you don't even have to skip shit along the way.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10094768
So why take classes? You can do it much quicker on your own. I don't want to be reading VNs in several years, I want to be reading them as quickly as I can.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10094713
>College classes on Japanese are notoriously slow and useless.
Learning from a native speaker who has many years of experience teaching a language is not useless. You will learn properly, not what some halfwit on youtube tells you is correct.

College courses are the best way to get started with any difficult language.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10094809
They will teach you the way that children in Japan are taught, basically. Is that best for an adult foreigner? Go find out. Maybe you'll be able to read some manga after a few years.

Generally college courses are quite helpful, but for Japanese it is not. Japanese is an exception.

[Anonymous No.]

Self-study master race reporting in

[Anonymous No.]

>>10094799
>So why take classes?
Fucked if I know, you're the one who brought them up.

>I don't want to be reading VNs in several years, I want to be reading them as quickly as I can.
Then you should pass up on that blog, is my point.
"Memorize half the entire dictionary by rote and you'll learn to read the language in two years!" is not good advice.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10094841
Memorizing kanji is not "memorizing a dictionary." Learning the kanji is more like learning how to spell using a very complex system. That's not an accurate description, of course, but I hope you understand.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10094823
Bullshit. Do you really think a professor, who's job is to teach young adults, will teach them in the same way as children? Look at some of the modern Japanese textbooks and you will find they use some of the same techniques that are found online. You also learn to speak politely, which is useful.

Do you actually believe it not useful to have interaction with a native speaker?

I can image classes taught by non-natives or bad professors to be less useful.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10094869
>Do you really think a professor, who's job is to teach young adults, will teach them in the same way as children?

Yes.

>Look at some of the modern Japanese textbooks and you will find they use some of the same techniques that are found online.

Things like Heisig or KD will never be found in a classroom. Heisig clearly states in the intro to RTK1 his method is not suitable for classroom use.

>Do you actually believe it not useful to have interaction with a native speaker?

Don't need classes for that.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10094845
>Memorizing kanji is not "memorizing a dictionary."
Well, that's true. That's why the fucktard who made that blog decided to make you memorize every word you come across too!
So you're memorizing every kanji, every word and their readings, by rote. Now correct me if I'm wrong but if you add all those you get pretty much all the useful information you can find in a dictionary. Hence you're memorizing a bloody dictionary.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10094894
Kanji isn't being memorized by rote. He recommended Heisig or KD, right? Those teach you through mnemonics.

And vocabulary learning is gradual. He doesn't tell you memorize 6,000 words before you read. You're going to have to learn words no matter what you do. It's part of learning a language. No way around it. Learning a language = memorizing lots of shit.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10094905
RTK and KD do teach you by rote. Aided by mnemonics, sure, but you're learning by rote.

>And vocabulary learning is gradual. He doesn't tell you memorize 6,000 words before you read.
He tells you to memorize every word you come across. Unless seeing a word once is enough for you to assimilate it (in which case you do not need any serious methodology, again) , that's essentially the same as picking them straight from the dictionary or a vocabulary list (which is what half of /jp/ is doing with the Core decks on Anki by the way.)

>Learning a language = memorizing lots of shit.
You do seem to love missing the point and stating the obvious, don't you?

[Anonymous No.]

>>10094949
Then what's the alternative? Osmosis? I tried that, but I don't think it worked very well.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10094876
>Yes
You're incorrect. Perhaps for the first couple of classes as you learn kana will be like a child. I think that's the same for all systems.

It's much easier to find interaction in classes. You also get facial cues that you won't get on Skype or wherever. You will also be corrected by a keen eye that has seen thousands of students. You will know when you make mistakes, something that you cannot get online.

I'm also talking about starting Japanese, as OP asked about. I stand by courses being the best way to start. Heisig or kanjidamage is a good way to continue after you have the basics down but you really need to know grammar and structure and all of that before jumping into kanji grinding.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10094954
>what's the alternative?
These days the problem isn't coming up with alternative methods of learning Japanese but weeding out the inefficient, unsound ones, now that every retard and most experts made a blog about it.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10094966
Wow, then surely it would be simple to provide an example of such a system. One that doesn't use rote, because that's bad apparently.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10094976
According to him, systems that use mnemonics are still rote. Guy is trolling.

[Anonymous No.]

>I don't want to be reading VNs in several years, I want to be reading them as quickly as I can.
Get ITH and TA. You'll be learning as you read.

[Anonymous No.]

Are there any decent language training software packages? I need to learn some basic conversational Indonesian because I own a company that imports herbal products from Indonesia, and it's good to be able to talk to the harvesters directly rather than speak to their distributor.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10095200
That is going to depend on the life expectancy of women in Vietnam. When was the last time you watched television?

[Anonymous No.]

>>10095215
I think the dialect is Malay, that's the one most of them speak; the ones I deal with are usually on the islands working on plantations or wild-crafting from jungles, like Riau, different parts of Borneo, and Sumatra

[Anonymous No.]

>>10095200
I'm Indonesian. Depend on the area, you need to be able to speak more than just Indonesian if you want to speak directly to farmers. And we have thousands of language across the archipelago.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10094292

What's wrong with these?

Should it be こんにちは?

[Anonymous No.]

>>10095716
Yes, it should be こんにちは (or 今日は).
But こんにちわ is pretty common. It's just a stylistic thing really.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10095746
> こんにちわ is pretty common.

Common like people on the English internet being illiterate has rendered the word 'lose' "stylistically"? (as in "damnit i dont wanna play u at Call of Duty I always loose")

> It's just a stylistic thing really.
No, IT'S WRONG. See above.

[Anonymous No.]

Am I on /jp/?

[Anonymous No.]

>>10095746
It's called a typo.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10095815
>No, IT'S WRONG.
Of course it's wrong, didn't I just say that?. That doesn't preclude it from being a stylistic choice.
Some people deliberately write こんにちわ, despite knowing that it should really be こんにちは. I'm pretty sure people only write 'loose' instead of 'lose' because they don't know any better. It's a different situation.

>>10095818
Yes, you are.

>>10095820
No, it isn't.
Well sometimes it probably is, but other times people do it intentionally.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10095658
What would you say are the few main dialects of Borneo? I import a lot out of Kalimantan.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10092579
the one that came with Windows.
here are some of the shortcuts for those who don't know them yet:
ALT+~= ひらがな
from hiragana ALT+CAPSLOCK: カタカナ
from Katakana CTLR+CAPSLOCK switches you back to Hiragana.

On a related note how do I get furigana in Openoffice?

[Anonymous No.]

I want to learn about succulent female japanese feet.

I want to be in a room full of cute japanese feet(with their bodies still attached to them) that are filled to the brim with them.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10092471
i agree

[Anonymous No.]

>>10095871
Oh I thought わ was only spelled as は when it's an article, like in the case of 私はblahblah
neat

[Anonymous No.]

http://vocaroo.com/i/s1wClE3alSHd

私、ホモです。優しくお願いします。

[Anonymous No.]

>>10098918
I dont trust you. Over my vast experience with listening to livestreams of japanese people talking I dont think you are japanese.

I need more samples so I can hear your accent

[Anonymous No.]

>>10098918
kawaii desu

[Anonymous No.]

>>10098940
You're such a faggot. Japanese people come on /jp/ sometimes. What does it matter? You act like they're some rare species or something. Fucking weeb.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10098949
They are a rare occurrence. Any real japanese would never come here.

Thats like if there was a site called niggerchan or spickchan. No self respecting person would set foot in there because it would literally be full of shit which is what this place is to them and they have every right to think that.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10098940

http://vocaroo.com/i/s0OEhEZA0kOf

>>10098941

どうしお

[Anonymous No.]

>>10098966
>Any real japanese would never come here.

Wrong. See this is what I'm talking about it. You're acting like they're some kind of special person. Get fucked, weeaboo.

[I'm drunk No.]

>>10098971
They are glorius Japanese of the highest order dont get me wrong.

But the majority of them know better than to set foot here.

I am FULLY aware that we get them on here from time to time but it is simply not a common occurrence.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10098981
It's not like it's ZUN or some creator of something we like. If that person is legit it's just some random person. It's not a big deal.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10098969

Why are you whispering into your mic? Are you afraid your family will find out you're a fat otaku fuck?

You're not native Japanese. Deal with it.

[I'm drunk No.]

>>10098969
I am pretty sure you said something along the lines of "but I dint claim I am japanese"

Even with my experience of listening to japanese talk I could eventually hear that you werent japanese with a subtle accent. but even my baka gaijin ears I am sure the japanese could figure that out right away

[I'm drunk No.]

>>10098985
I know it isnt a big deal. I think what spurredthis was because I thought the vacroo guy speaking japanese was trying to fool us by thinking he was japanese and I was looking through is ruse which in fact he was not trying to be like that in the first place

[Anonymous No.]

>>10098969

一度間違えた。

http://vocaroo.com/i/s0jgaihQbtL6

>>10098989

Talking loud is for bullies.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10098848

は is not an article but a topic marker. You use it to mark the sentence focus. Japanese has no arcticles.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10099214
He probably just misspelled particle by accident.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10099214

Introducing a topic, is more accurate, as the primary function.

[Anonymous No.]

So here's a stupid question. At what point do I have to stop worrying about forgetting Japanese. I'm about 11 months in and I keep having this feeling that if I don't study every single day I'm going to forget everything.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10099891
Once you can read.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10099964
I can read right now. The point is I dont have to study English to remember it.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10099891
You will forget most of it if you're not listening to your denpa.

[Anonymous No.]

Go to #l/a/nguage on Rizon. Look at the topic and ask for advice.

My recommendation is to start by learning Kana with Anki. After that, I would read through grammar books while grinding Kanji.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10099891
eroge, all day, every day

[Anonymous No.]

Rosetta stone got me a nice start. I'm finishing my second semester of Japanese in college in 2 weeks. I'm near fluent but this is because I have been in Japan for extended time. It isn't that hard at all.

[Anonymous No.]

I just woke up today. I feel like shit again for not
knowing Japanese and that I will never be able to play all those glorious VNs out there. I want to cry, but I just can't. I feel so miserable. I don't go to high school anymore cuz of bullying, so I just spend all my days inside my room watching animu and mango, but I'm scared, what if I'm wasting my time watching animu/mango when I could take advantage of all my free time and learn Japanese instead? I want to go to a Japanese course and have Japanese classes but I doubt that will ever happen, also I'm 18 yo. am I wasting my youth? What the fuck should I do guys? Please someone answer me... please I need advice.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10100586
Just learn the language faget, you'll be starting two years earlier than I did.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10100586
I think the time has passed we do not get back, but you are still young, if you want to do, we should work as long as you can. I think may be difficult to study japanese for English-speaker, it's possible if you have enthusiasm. sorry, I can`t advices you... becaause english is so difficult for me...

[Anonymous No.]

>>10099891

You don't have to study every day, but you should try encounter it every day, even if it is only a relatively small amount.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10100656
how old are you now and how did you learned the language?

>>10100670
nihonjin aishiteru ;_;

[Anonymous No.]

>>10101497

You can figure out his age through simple arithmetic. You have all the data you need.

頑張れ。

[Anonymous No.]

>>10100586
You should just kill yourself. You are making all of us upstanding nihongo learners look bad.

[Anonymous No.]

Every time I learn a new kanji I feel I'm cheating because I'm Chinese and by being Chinese I don't have to learn to memorize much of anything other than the pronunciations 80% of the time.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10101584

English speakers know several thousand words the second they learn kana.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10101593
Not really. Katakanized versions of most loanwords are horribly misfigured.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10101593
This guy speaks english and chinese. The two languages the Japanese plagiarized.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10101610
After seeing a few examples it's quite easy to get a grasp of how Japanese transliterates English words. Really, as long as you can recognize words like "kekki" when you hear them, you'll understand when you see them written.

Although some of them are still hard to figure out, especially the shorter ones.
Oh and the difficulty is much higher for people who aren't english natives and may not know the exact English pronunciation.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10101816
good question.
also why does it spell out "chi"?
>>10101850
they only plagiarized the written language.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10101866
It's the first hiragana from her nickname, durr.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10101861

It's particularly easy for people who are exposed to many different accents, as they're used to hearing the same word with somewhat different vowels.

>>10101866

A lot of the kanji nouns were made of various Chinese dialectal readings mashed together with the tones removed.

Completely incomprehensible to any Chinese person now, though.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10101904
>Completely incomprehensible to any Chinese person now, though.
Depends on where they’re from. The thing with Chinese loanwords in Japanese is that they are from different dialect locations depending where and when they were imported. Like, in Mandarin, 二 is pronounced er, not quite like in Japanese. But in Shanghai, it’s pronounced ni.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10101940

A lot of it is based on Chinese dialects that don't even exist anymore, though. And, as I said, the tones were removed, so there's a 5+ vowel ambiguity, not to mention the consonants aren't the same either.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10101975

He's directly quoting me.

Please don't abuse the ``please do not abuse this function'' function.

[Anonymous No.]

I'm currently enrolled at a Japanese language school in the Tokyo area.

I got my foundation in the language at my local branch of the Japan America Society in Houston, Texas. Classes were reasonably priced (around $130 for 8 or 10 weeks, I think. It's been a few years).

It was 2 hours once a week in the evenings. I learned kana, some simple vocab, and went through all of Genki I and about half of Genki II.

I really enjoy Genki as a beginner book. The explanations of grammar are fairly easy to understand.

After that, I moved to Yamaguchi-ken to work at an eikaiwa. Didn't like being a teacher, so I moved back to Texas. Then I started saving a shit-ton of money to afford the language school I'm at now here in Tokyo.

Being in the classroom environment 3 hours a day, 5 days a week, has been just what I need. I'm learning 2 - 6 kanji a day with anywhere from 10 - 30 words a day based off those (or words related to our grammar exercises). We also get pronunciation practice. There are classes of all levels and was given a placement test to find out where I stand.

Is all of that necessary to learn the language? Definitely not. A friend of mine is incredibly passionate about learning the language. Other than a year of community college classes, he's entirely self-taught and his Japanese is probably around N3 level... and he's studied for about 4 years.

If you want to get an office job in Japan that requires speaking Japanese, you'll really want to pass JLPT N2 or JLPT N1. In which case, learning 2,000 kanji is a necessity (at least until you pass, then you can forget a lot of them), as well as lots of random words you might not ever use.

If you want to learn for your games, anime, manga, drama, etc., then learn kana, learn grammar, and study words that you want to learn.

[Anonymous No.]

>started studying Japanese during a school break
>school has started again and I can no longer work at the pace I was happy with before.

Fuck this shit, I learn so goddamn slowly now.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10102162

Just see it as a refresher course, and see if you can speed-run it without error. If the school allows it, you should also be able to test into a higher class; talk to your professor about this as an option.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10102174

I'm not actually studying Japanese at school, my problem is that the other stuff I'm studying at school eats up a fair bit of time so I have less of it for self-learnery.

I live in the UK, there's like no good options for actual Jap courses here.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10102092
>I'm learning 2 - 6 kanji a day
You're paying a 'shit-ton of money' and that's all you get for it? I don't know whether to pity you or to point and laugh.
Also, 4 years of studying and only N3? I'm sorry to break it to you but you and your friend are literally morons.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10102178
Understandable, then; keeping a healthy schedule and mental state is really important for full-time uni. Burning out is a real possibility (and expensive as hell, if you're an Amerifat).

Just keep up on the flash-cards, so you can get back into the swing of things when you have the time.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10102092
>If you want to get an office job in Japan that requires speaking Japanese, you'll really want to pass JLPT N2 or JLPT N1
You'll probably want to try being reborn again as a Japanese person too as they're certainly not going to chose some red neck over a native speaker of the language they're dealing in.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10102092
>studied for about 4 years
>around N3 level

[Anonymous No.]

>>10102199

Getting a job in Japan is nigh impossible at the present time anyway; the economy of Japan has a labor surplus. The best route one could take would be having some sort of specialized masters, JLPT 2, and to find a job as a consultant for some firm.

Given the economy, I think it would be easier to get TESL and a teaching associates, go to one of the developing countries in the Indochina region, and just vacation in Japan, instead.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10102228
>>>/v/

[Anonymous No.]

>>10102228

I'm not trying to be a douche, but could you please post something (with editing to preserve your anonymity) to back this up?

Your hospital bracelet, if you kept it, would be perfect.

[Anonymous No.]

If you live in POLANT STRĄK, then you should start with Waneko's "Kana na wesoło", then what >>10092471 said.

[Anonymous No.]

I think you guys take Japanese too seriously too much.
If you go to japan and say japanese one word,almost japanese people understand what you want to say.
have a large vocabulary.is good.
You should learn the reading and writing and the grammar later.
I`m live in japan　for 26 years, but I may not yet understand Japanese.
Let me go easy on myself.

from 26years old.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10102405
doesn't sound like you are familiar with English either.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10102425

>hurr durrr
>le 7th grade reading comprehension

He is Japanese

[Anonymous No.]

>>10102405

Most people in every country usually don't know the grammar of their native language.
It's a lot harder to learn for foreigners if they don't study it though.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10102405
I don't want to speak to filthy japs like you, I want to read profound philosophical visual novels like
>>10094106

[Anonymous No.]

>>10102460
go back to le /reddit/.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10102489

>le 7th grade reading comprehension
>cant understand ironic usage of le

[Anonymous No.]

>>10102331
Kana na wesoło's shit (waneko's also shit), you can learn kana on realkana.com or something, because it's not that hard. I recommend Mów pisz i czytaj for grammar, but it's only for beginners.
Waiting for Tae Kim book :3

[Anonymous No.]

>>10102494
I used it ironically in the post you're quoting.
You were not using it ironically in the post I was quoting.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10102405
sorry I misunderstood you
>>10102460
sorry I assumed he was a North-American living in Japan or something

[Anonymous No.]

>>10102186
hey, don't bully faggot

[Anonymous No.]

It really depends on what is used to learn a new language. There is much criticism against Rosetta Stone, but it's really not that bad. It is random and difficult at first, but that's the whole point that RS is trying to get across, and that's the full immersion process (and I think it does it pretty well). Of course, when learning a language, using one source to learn from is not enough to attain a good basis. Rosetta begins with a very confusing way, so that's probably why some people don't like it. It's all about sticking with it, and using your own brain to try to understand. It will be very worth it in the end^^! Lol. But whatever you may choose, OP, I believe in you! ;)

[Anonymous No.]

>>10102849
>^^! Lol
>;)
fuck off

[Anonymous No.]

Heyyyy, just trying to be nice here? You can use emoticons, too!

[Anonymous No.]

>>10102405
me lovu japnu

[Anonymous No.]

>>10102852
>>>/a/

[Anonymous No.]

>>10102849
>Rosetta begins with a very confusing way, so that's probably why some people don't like it.
People don't like it because it's no more effective than all the other 'immersion' courses (pimsleur, et cetera) despite being absurdly expensive.
Also because it's popular.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10105606
Immersion courses suck, anyway. An hour or two a day isn't immersion.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10105636
Yes, that too.

[Anonymous No.]

god dammit, you fucking weaboos, learning the language isn't that hard. All you need to do is learn a few words a day and have some one teach you the grammar. But more important than the words is the grammar. If you have the grammar down you can just add words onto it. Pretty fucking simple. Memorize the important kanji, like "EXIT" or "money". I have lived in japan and I did perfectly fine with 2 years of study.

[Anonymous No.]

日木入は八力だ。

[Anonymous No.]

>>10106613
>木

ドアホが来たｗｗｗ

[Anonymous No.]

>>10106653
いじめないでください

[Anonymous No.]

>>10106613
japan - land of the rising trees

[Anonymous No.]

how come i see people suggesting that you should use text grabbers+machine translators with eroge for learning japanese?

i thought the point of learning japanese was to get away from the wheelchair and walk on your own

[Anonymous No.]

>>10106833
As long as you use Jparser which only displays the compounds and particles it's all good.

Mainly used for learning vocab for the people that don't want to grind too much while having some fun.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10092482

I'd been learning for a month when I tried Namasensei, even I could see he wrote あ wrong within the first few videos.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10092504

I did it in 1:59

[Anonymous No.]

>>10106833
Are you serious?
It takes a long ass fucking time before you can stop using text grabbers. There will ALWAYS pop up some compounds that you can't read or understand, unless you grind the HELL outta them.

The sole purpose for using them is to be able to get a better grasp on the sentence structure, hardass figurative expressions that you wont understand for shit + vocab.

[Anonymous No.]

I wish there was a language I wanted to learn

[Anonymous No.]

>>10106898
Create your own language. Then you can pretend to be special

[Anonymous No.]

>>10095746

Does anyone ever use the kanji for konnichi because that'd make it exactly the same as kyou?

[Anonymous No.]

>>10098966

I'd definitely visit Australiachan

[Anonymous No.]

>>10107241
Yes, sometimes. It's certainly not the only instance where there are two possible readings for a particular word.

>>10107246
... you mean auschan.org? Don't.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10107261

I didn't think anyone would understand what country I was referring to if I said Auschan, no one acknowledges Australia ;_;

[Anonymous No.]

>>10106898
have you tried Klingon?

[Anonymous No.]

>>10094292
>>10094168
How do you know that someone who typed 今日は meant to say "きょうは..." and not "こんにちわ"? I, for one, thanks the 今日わ overlords since they make it clear that they mean to say the latter.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10107505
Context you stupid fuck.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10107505
Well こんにちは is pretty unambiguous...

Also what >>10107510 said, but he shouldn't bully.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10102162
I have a full time job and I've finished Genki 1 and 2 in about 6 months, doing 1 chapter a week. Currently doing Tobira.

My spoken Japanese is shit though, because I'm studying alone and I'm too shy to speak in Japanese with the native people I usually speak to.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10102527
>Waneko shit

[Anonymous No.]

>>10107505
How do you know that someone who typed 刀は meant to say かたなは　and not とうは? is 刀背 pronounced とうはい or　みね? Is 刀田さん called かたなたさん or　とださん? And poor 刀祢さん, is it たちねさん, とうねさん, とねさん, or とうやさん?

I hope you got my point.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10102229
Best way to get a job in Japan is to work for foreign company that has offices and Japan and try to get yourself shipped over. If you are fluent in Japanese and have useful skills you will obviously be considered.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10102092
lol, this is what people in Japanese classes actually think

[Anonymous No.]

it's pretty fucking annoying to see microsoft IME flashing icons in my taskbar every single time i switch focus between windows.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10108528
then change the default language to japanese

[Anonymous No.]

Doing grammar drills, can you use ように like this?
そんな風に踊っているように、笑われるよ

[Anonymous No.]

>>10108739
What does ように mean again?

[Anonymous No.]

>>10108781
like; as; as if
小さい猫の声ように、・・・
"Like the voice of a small cat..."

[Anonymous No.]

>>10108794
you have to use のように if it's after a noun (or a na adjective apparently). ように alone is used after verbs and i adjectives.

>>10108739
I don't think so. There's basically three ways to use ように:

first is comparisons/metaphors/whatever you want to call them:
時は飛ぶように過ぎる, time is flying by (literally: it's passing (so fast) like it's flying.)
うだるように暑い boiling hot (literally: so hot, it's like (I'm) boiling.)
猫のように, like a cat

second is "make sure to do this":
汽車に間に合うように急げ hurry up so that you may catch the train
if it seems weird for ように to be used like that, think of it as "do this in such a way as to make that happen" or more simply "do it like you mean it".

and the third is "seems like":
驚いたように見える, looks like you're surprised, you seem surprised
面白いように思います I think it looks interesting.
間違っているように思える you appear to be mistaken.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10108927
Oups, you're right. I messed up with the の.
正してくれてありがとう。

So 先生がおっしゃるように　means "As a teacher would say..."?

[Anonymous No.]

>>10108927
I'll try again:

3歳の子供が話してるように、日本語で話してしまってる

"Sadly, I speak Japanese like a 3 year old child"

[Anonymous No.]

>>10108927
On the other hand, you can use "よう" outside of these expressions. よう simply means "a way, a manner" of doing or appearing, and may be followed by に (or な) as necessary. That's where those expressions came from in the first place, but it's a good idea to separate ように as an expression and よう as a noun/adjective.

そのような顔, that kind of face
あのような人, people like that
そのように言うな, don't say it like that
このように考える, think like this

notice how here, よう is used from the beginning.

So anyway, to go back to your example, you should use:
そのように踊っている, dancing like that or
そんな風に踊っている, dancing in that fashion
but not with ように at the end.
そんな風に踊っているように、笑われるよ could mean something like "I laughed as if I was dancing like that," which could make sense in some contexts but I don't think that's what you were trying to say.


sorry for being long

[Anonymous No.]

>>10109012
Don't apologize, I'm grateful for the help.
勉強になった！

[Anonymous No.]

>>10108973
You're relying on the English sentence for the structure too much.
残念なことに、3歳児の様な日本語でしか話せない。

[Anonymous No.]

>>10108951
>>10108973
Those are more or less correct except you should use の instead of が
子供の話すように, because it's "the way of speaking of a child" literally. Maybe using が would mean "the way that child was speaking just now", but try to avoid that.

Even better:
子供のように, so you don't have to repeat the verb later:
日本語で、子供のように話してる, in japanese, I talk like a child

[Anonymous No.]

>>10109059
And yeah, I didn't even consider the proper way to say things, merely if they were using and reading ように in a logical manner. Experience will tell them how they should express themselves later.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10109059
>>10109072
Thank you both.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10106653
You have to be really stupid if that's the only thing you notice.

>>10108528
You can hide the "advanced options" so the only icons you see are the "JA" one and the あ one.

>>10105606
Rosetta works for languages like German and French. Not so much Japanese, because it isn't effective to learn that language by repeating "The girl is drinking" over and over without understanding the theoretical basics behind the Japanese language.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10106653
曰木悟を話す！

[Anonymous No.]

>>10109072
This is wrong. が is more natural here.

[Anonymous No.]

Bumps still working?

[Anonymous No.]

>>10106833
If your end goal is just to be able to move, then you'd better be staying in that wheelchair.

[Anonymous No.]

Is it so bad to at least use Rosetta Stone to learn basic nouns and verbs?

[Anonymous No.]

>>10124040
I don't know if I'd say it's 'so bad', but it doesn't seem to have any sort of advantage over other methods. At best it's inefficient.

If you're actually paying for it, then it's stupid.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10124080
Oh no, I'd never pay for anything, especially if it's educational. I guess I'll heed the guides posted already more than anything, but I was just wondering since I already have Rosetta Stone installed

[Anonymous No.]

>>10112623
You have to be really stupid if you thought that's the only thing I noticed.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10124090
The audio section is decent in the fact that it has slow clear easy to understand audio that would be harder to find in traditional media. Not there's already a bunch of other alternatives, but If you have it you can use it.

[Anonymous No.]

if you're going to use rosetta for pronunciation you may as well just make cards with proper kanji/kana w/o romaji and add softalk clips.

[Anonymous No.]

It starts here *unzips*

[Anonymous No.]

>>10124040
>>10124080
even an (Ex-)Rosetta stone employee admitted that is isn't really all that optimal for japanese

>It was designed around Spanish, as far as anyone can tell. Chinese has less complex syntax than Spanish, so it works. Arabic is not necessarily more complex, but it is radically different. You cannot use a method that works for getting learners to intuit Spanish conjugations to get them to intuit Arabic conjugations. So for Arabic, it just doesn't effectively explain verb weakness (defective, hollow, assimilated, and doubled verbs), derived forms, or verbal nouns. Similarly, Turkish is an agglutinating language, and RS just doesn't handle it well. Japanese for similar reasons, but also their refusal to address anything other than a very stilted, over-polite register.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10126054
source

http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/urxjv/iama_former_rosetta_stone_employee_who_speaks_8/