/jp/ - Otaku Culture

[Anonymous No.]

Will these books help me learn japanese? How long will it take me on a 2-3 hour daily routine?

[Anonymous No.]

You can't learn Japanese.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10975701
>How long will it take me on a 2-3 hour daily routine?
you'll be nearly fluent in ~1 year.

but good luck keeping up that sort of pace without amphetamines.

[Anonymous No.]

These books are quite good, even with a few mistakes in them. However, to learn using them by yourself is rather difficult. They're more teacher's books.

I have them and still refer to them sometimes. Though, I use them as references for teaching.

You will definitely learn something, but I would suggest that you use your time and go to school, if possible. Otherwise, try and work with somebody else using them.

[Anonymous No.]

Google Tae Kim. Most English books try to transpose Japanese into English directly: as a result, they present half-truths and misinterpreted rules. The abundant use of -masu form is an example - who learns a FORM before you learn how VERBS work ?

[Anonymous No.]

Just say fucking desu a lot, it isn't hard.
And remember it's dess not desuuu
The nips will think you're a pro

[Anonymous No.]

Sorry to jack the thread, but how much do you it would cost to study in Toudai (undergraduate) per year? Living expenses and shit included.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10975846
I'm not going to say abandon textbooks. I heavily recommend the ones published by Japan Times (Genki, Integrated Intermediate, Japanese Through Dialogues, Authentic Japanese, Nihongo Through Newspaper Articles) but due to some issues that may crop up with how Japanese is often taught in an illogical way, I think it's best to read through Tae Kim before working through textbooks. I don't mean study it thoroughly, but just give it a read through, try to understand it, and take what you can from it. Textbooks will make more sense if you do this as you'll understand the logical position of things.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10975718
>you'll be nearly fluent in ~1 year
Don't lie to him bro, you're just hurting him in the long run.

OP: I studied 2 hours a day and became fluent in 4 months. If you finish reading the genki books, you're halfway there!

[Anonymous No.]

>>10975881
Also I'll clarify that a few of the primary reasons I think you should still use textbooks are 1. they include workbooks or exercises for you to do so that you can use the language yourself in a more controlled way, rather than just fumbling around. Genki has an answer key thankfully. 2. Audio material - the Japan Times textbooks I mentioned all come with mp3 cds and listening to them as you go through will help you build up your listening skills along with your grammar,. 3. Exposure to real life situations and conversational methods. You may not actually go to Japan to use these, but it will still help you to have experience with them so that you'll more readily understand them in media.

[Anonymous No.]

Sorry to jack the thread, but how much do you think it would cost to study in Toudai (undergraduate) per year? Living expenses and shit included.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10975899
I think generally the best advice you can give is not to disregard textbooks but also not to be heavily reliant on them either.

Best practice in my opinion is obviously to move onto native materials (who cares how simple) since they're generally more interesting and more useful when you have the basics down.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10975718
Realistically speaking it will take about 700 days to become fluent (JLPT1 with decent speaking) if you study 3 hours per day. And your memory better be amazing. And you better live in Japan for a few months too.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10975905
Living in Tokyo will be reasonably expensive. I'd take a quick guess (without doing your budget for you) at around $2,000 a month. Not so expensive, but if you don't have an income, it's kind of hard. As for school related expenses, I have no clue, sorry.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10975899
Honestly, I think listening comprehension is almost worthless at the beginning. It is MUCH easier to pick up once you already have a decent vocabulary base, and if you watch anime and play VNs you'll get plenty of practice naturally.

At least, I think it barely helped me at all when I started out. Maybe if you need to hear the word to remember it it could help you.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10975907
Yeah obviously you should also be using native materials insofar as you're capable. I just think there's a kind of attitude here that textbooks are bad. And yes there's some truth to that, but their primary failings can be obviated by reading the first half or so of Tae Kim.

[Anonymous No.]

http://grammar.nihongoresources.com/doku.php

What are your thoughts on this? Better than Tae Kim's?

[Anonymous No.]

>>10975916
So probably 40k per year? Fuark.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10975929
Yea, but really not so bad. I'm guessing high as well. I would suggest living out of Tokyo and getting the train. You will save a lot of money that way. You could even get that down half by looking around in Saitama and the like.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10975922
I think it's just that people associate textbooks with classes, which ARE bad. That, and textbooks are kind of long, so people would have a tendency to stay with beginner material too long, when the best thing you can do for your japanese is to get to "real" japanese as fast as possible.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10975918
Well everyone's different. Personally I have some trouble with listening, even in English, so I considered it very important. If something doesn't work out for you, drop it for something else.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10975937
I'll agree that classes are generally bad. I've heard people talk about having studied for years at a university and not being able to even read manga.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10975942
The uni has cheap accommodation available too, but it's probably hard to get in.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10975937
One of the reasons classes are so bad is because they hinder students by making them learn kanji the traditional way. They can study for years and not know all of the jouyou kanji even. It's pathetic and severely hurts their ability to read native material.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10975953
Probably because I'd imagine in classes it's a combination of:

Being stuck with textbooks and the like forever
Not really learning much Kanji at all
Not actually spending that much time learning (I mean really, how many hours a week would you spend studying if you did this at university?)

[Anonymous No.]

>>10975967
There's nothing wrong with learning them the traditional way though. In fact it's better because you can start reading quicker.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10975957
Yea, remeber that racism is alive and well in this beautiful land. Although, if you're american, you'll get that everywhere. Just remember that unless you speak fantastic Japanese, you'll probably have to pay more everywhere. Not many landlords will let you rent their place, full stop. So, you may have to find a specialty place. That costs more.

Perhaps try and find somebody already living there that you can live with. That will keep costs down even more. You can live there very cheap with sacrifices and searching.

I often make living in Japan sound bad, but it's not so bad. Just don't expect it to be easy.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10975977
It's far slower in the long run. It's better to just get it all out of the way quickly and then you can proceed in your studies without being hindered by it. They're graduating people from universities who don't even know as many kanji as a Japanese high school student.

[Anonymous No.]

N1 holder here, you should study everything all the time. Classes are shit by the way.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10976028
I wish I had certifications.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10976002
You don't even need to learn kanji though, just pick them up naturally through words / reading.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10976070
Personally I found RTK useful since it made things a lot less abstract when trying to remember vocab and the like.

It feels like a bit of a futile grind when actually doing it but I guess I don't have the memory to try and just remember vocab from nothing.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10976070
To most foreign learners they are meaningless scribbles that they have to either write over and over ad nauseum or have some mnemonic to remember. Also one needs to learn to write them if you have any interest in actually being literate, as I assume university students have.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10976092
Yeah trying to go into vocab without knowing kanji beforehand was impossible for me.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10976095
>actually being literate
Translation:
>If your goal is to meet some arbitrary standard of what you think qualifies "knowing a language" rather than trying to immerse yourself in the language and actually learn it

Which describes university students perfectly. They probably think passing JLPT means they're done learning too.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10976115
You're right, being able to write a language is some arbitrary nonsense standard that people don't actually need. If you don't want to learn how to write, more power to you. Not responding again because this is getting stupid.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10976128
I'm assuming that he was more getting at the point that it's sort of questionable how useful it is to be able to hand write these days.

Unless you're planning to move to Japan or something I can't really think of a decision where you're going to handwrite; even in Japan I'd imagine it would be rare.

Personally at least it came along with doing RTK, acts as a memory aid and it's a nice feeling either way being able to write things out by hand.

[Anonymous No.]

I finished all the genki books, studied some extra kanji and passed JLPT N3 no sweat.

I haven't even touched any other textbooks, I probably should but my current level of japanese is fine for every day use.

I live in Japan and work full time to support myself, kill me, please kill me. If I can't be a NEET I don't want to live in this world.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10977938
That's really unfortunate but at least you live in Japan. That's every weeb's dream.

[Anonymous No.]

Old by a person who is a mermaid. Also, mermaid is from Dieselmine, which is usually the worst possible way, followed by Sekibanki. I suspect might be the point of the screen, she will try my best to read both traditional Chinese and literary Chinese (similar but with all the rape would destroy her as you don't need to go to the brains ability to see more uploads tomorrow.

[Anonymous No.]

I don't want to make a new thread so I'll ask here. What's the best way to emigrate to Japan for someone who's from eastern europe (not russia)?

I suspect that learning the language is the first step but will I be able to find a job there? I don't have much money so I wouldn't be able to keep myself afloat for long period of time and I don't think they'd care about my degree because it's from a no name university.

Is living in Japan impossible for someone like me?

[Anonymous No.]

>>10975701
Get a teacher to help you with those book or you will not have a clue to what you are doin' lol. I got dem genki books as well, but I wasn't a cheap ass to buy the first edition. I recommend one Chapter per week bro, just take it easy

[Anonymous No.]

>>10985375
thanks alice

[Anonymous No.]

>>10985383
geez, I-its not like I did it for you or anything...b-baka

[Anonymous No.]

>>10975967
>>10975977
whats the traditional way?

i remember people taking mandarin in high school and they barely had very basic conversation and written skill ('hello. my name is... how are you?)

[Anonymous No.]

>>10985569
The traditional way is learning characters by order of frequency. Problem with this is, some frequent characters are "built up" of several simpler but less common characters. That's like building an airplane before you even learn to build an engine.

Another time-waster is drilling characters and hoping they eventually stuck. The WORST thing you can do with Chinese characters is just drill them, write them over and over, hoping they eventually stuck. It'll take you forever and it's so error-prone. NB: you SHOULD practice writing out the characters, preferably quite a bit even, so that you get a feel for writing them, but you should NOT use writing them as a method of getting to remember them.

The key is to use memory techniques. This isn't all too uncommon to see, but it's rarely systematized well. James W. Heisig developed a good method. Look up his book, Remembering The Kanji (there should be a free sample which teaches you the method).

[Anonymous No.]

What's the quickest way to learn enough japanese so I can read stuff on exhentai?

Just a few things:
-I have 0 self motivation
-I'm poor
-I've attempted to learn japanese twice and quit two weeks and four weeks in
-I don't like workbooks
-I don't like work

What do? My penis is an important thing to me, and I want to make it the happiest it can be.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10986696
>I have 0 self motivation
Don't even bother with it then.
>I'm poor
Not an issue
>I've attempted to learn japanese twice and quit two weeks and four weeks in
Like I said, don't bother with it then.
>I don't like workbooks
Not an issue
>I don't like work
Don't bother at all.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10986706
But I figured that most people here would be in the same situation, since we're all neets, right?

[Anonymous No.]

>>10986696
Don't bother. Learning a language is hard work and requires tons of study.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10986710
I'm NEET but I have the motivation to learn things that I want to know.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10986710
>since we're all neets, right?
No. Unless you want to be part of a special club.

You need motivation to even attempt to learn a language. There is no easy-way.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10986715
>>10986717
I feel so betrayed right now. I'm going to masturbate to untranslated doujins, cry that I'll never see them translated, and then go to bed. Just wanted to let you know, if you cared.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10986717
Most people who have motivation to learn things they want to know take part in education and training.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10986730
Work and school feels like I'm forced to do something. If I went to school for Japanese I wouldn't want to do it anymore. I can only do productive things on my own.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10986733
Don't go to school for Japanese. Do it at home.

I take a class and it's not that great. You go by the syllabus so it's very slow. Or fast, depending on how fast you pick things up.

It's also class based, so you do a lot of talking. This might be good or bad, depending on your style of learning and your goal. I don't care about talking, so it's pointless for me. Of course, classes may differ. Mine is just shit. A semester for 6 chapters of Genki 1 second edition.

[Anonymous No.]

What's a reasonable number of characters to learn every day to get through at a brisk pace but also be realistic and improve chances of retention? I started my language journey today and learned the first 10 hiragana (written 50 times each, quizzed on Real Kana and all that shit) I kinda want to keep pushing and take advantage of a frankly rare motivation but I'm scared I might burn myself out and/or start pushing this newly acquired information right back out of my head

[Anonymous No.]

>>10986742
Learn the kana in one day. Don't take it slowly for that.
Once you learn them all, just go on realkana and do it for a few hours/minutes. The time doesn't matter. The continuation does. Do it for (yourchoice) of time every (yourchoice) hours. 10 minutes every hour? 1 hour every 6 hours? Up to you, your dedication, and your learning capabilities. Do that for a week or less and you will have it drilled in your head.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10986742
Heisig's kana book teaches all of them in 6 hours and you'll remember them as long as you review.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10986775
Heisig's mnemonic sucks.

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Memorizing_the_Hiragana
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Memorizing_the_Katakana

[Anonymous No.]

>>10986733
Have you ever heard of self-employment? Online course study? Downloadable training course modules? You can do most of EET things on your own at your own pace.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10986733
I lose all productivity when I treat it as work

[Anonymous No.]

>>10986823
Subjective. They worked fine for me.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10986823
Using mnemonic for the kana is horrible.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10986842
Every day I fear that someone will find out that I learned Japanese through a method /jp/ didn't approve of.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10986914
If it works for you, good job. But really, the mnemonic doesn't matter for kana, so who cares if someone's book has horrile mnemonic for them.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10986914
I am trying to learn Japanese by using an online dictionary and a machine translator to read things. If I ever reach fluency it will have been by the most worthless and time-wasting method in existence.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10986929
At the least read through Tae Kim.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10986929
>If I ever reach fluency

Don't worry, you won't.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10986937
I started. Then I stopped. I detest the style of writing in which a textbook author refers to "I" and "you." I will occasionally look up grammar when I confuse myself, which is often.

Also, now that I've invested this much effort and identity into trying to bail out the Titanic with a spoon, I want to see it through to the end.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10986949
If you want a more comprehensive grammar resource you should get the three grammar dictionaries published by Japan Times. There are download links in the archive if you search for Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar. The other two are Intermediate and Advanced.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10986953
But if I read a grammar guide, I lose.

Okay, enough of that shit attitude. Thanks for the recommendations. I'll probably start reading through them the next time I run into a wall, which will probably be tomorrow.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10986965
Yeah, they're not meant for studying straight through, they're reference dictionaries. They're great for when you run into something you don't remember or understand, or you want more information on something. They go into a lot of detail.

[Anonymous No.]

Would it be easier to learn japanese if your first language is something like Spanish or French?

[Anonymous No.]

>>10986974
It's easier for Chinese people.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10986982
Do Chinese characters have the same meanings in Chinese and Japanese?

[Anonymous No.]

>>10987025
Plenty of times, yes. But not always.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10987025
>>10987317
Regardless, they're able to write, recognize, and distinguish between them fluently. Kind of like how an English speaker knows the alphabet of other languages already, though of course this is an issue compounded much further in Japanese as its writing system is so complex. Chinese have a large head start here.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10987856
Not really. People who don't know kanji are just afraid of them, they really aren't very hard, and they're easy to get used to. A Chinese speaker has maybe 1 month of study on an English speaker, which isn't that much when it will probably take a year or two to get to a good level.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10976028
JLPT is so last season. You should aim for the kanji kentei.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10988235
This troll is getting old.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10986710
You are basically asking if you can learn Japanese with zero effort.

The answer is fucking no. Did you really need someone to tell you that?

[Anonymous No.]

>>10988277
What's the troll exactly?

[Anonymous No.]

>>10988235
Chinese people have like a full year of study on an english speaker. Remember that they don't just know the kanji, but that tons of words are from china. And that the on readings are often similar to the chinese pronunciation.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10988351
That's not true at all. All they have is a couple general meanings for some of the kanji, and the ability to tell apart radicals easier. Chinese won't help with pronunciation at all.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10988395
They have instant character recognition and a shitload of vocabulary that only needs to be somewhat overhauled. You might as well claim that Mandarin speakers and English speakers will find it equally hard to learn Cantonese. It's just not true. Where they will have to struggle is learning a grammar system that isn't retard easy.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10988395
People here that have had experience with international Japanese learners have claimed the opposite, and I remember a Chinese teacher telling me that in his class in China, it was always Japanese students that got the first place so it appears to work both ways.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10988334
"Kanji is easy if you think it's hard you're just scared"

"Going straight to vocabulary is the only way to learn, no people have actual difficulty with kanji"

"Studying kanji is a waste of time when you could be actually learning Japanese, learning kanji isn't learning Japanese"

"I read after one week and you all spent months before reading"

"Heisig a shit xD a real shit XDDD"

There, I summed up everything you were going to say in this thread, so now you don't have to do it. You're welcome.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10988462
Oh forgot one

"Learning to write is a useless skill, stop wasting your time. Being able to write is an arbitrary standard of literacy."

[Anonymous No.]

>>10988411
>>10988424
Someone who did RTK book one only would probably be a better starting place than a native Chinese speaker. There are tons of kanji that are only used in Japan, and as for pronunciation, it won't help you for 95% of it. It's really not a huge advantage, they are completely different languages, in the same way English and French are different languages. English speakers would probably be at a slight advantage towards learning French than an asian learner, but it's still a completely different language.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10988560
You're an idiot and wrong. Just stop making a fool of yourself, please.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10988462
"Opinions I don't agree with are trolling."

[Anonymous No.]

>>10988591
They're trolling when they're continually used over and over to disrupt discussion and create arguments over those points. Also if you can't see how several of them are blatantly stupid then you're probably one of the retards that keeps posting that shit everywhere.

[Anonymous No.]

べんきょ
べんきょ
おにがいします

[Anonymous No.]

>>10988602
They're used to disrupt discussion because opinions on how to learn aren't universal and bad ideas shouldn't be left uncontested. I don't agree with any of those statements because they're over-simplified strawman representations of the the actual arguments, but even if they weren't, "trolling" is more productive than calling people trolls and retards because you don't like what they have to say.

[Anonymous No.]

Hey guys, why does Japanese even have kanji? Why don't they just do everything in kana? It would be a lot easier.

[Anonymous No.]

Cool timing. Following /int/'s sticky I recently started studying with Namasensei's videos, how inefficient am I being?

[Anonymous No.]

>>10988635
Because it's a sound-poor language with many homophones.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10988643
Then how do Japanese people talk to each other?