/jp/ - Otaku Culture

[Anonymous No.]

Started learning Japanese about two months ago. It's been rough, but is it really as demonic as people typically call it? It's hard, but English isn't easy either, I think.

[Anonymous No.]

Reported for off-topic bullshit.

[Anonymous No.]

[Anonymous No.]

Don't listen to lazy asses complaining "oh it is so hard I broke my penis trying to avoid fucking over this shitty language".
It just takes time and dedication. Much like everything else.

[Anonymous No.]

>>7333218
what's with that fucking image

[Anonymous No.]

>>7333239
Autism.

[Anonymous No.]

>>7333239
That's just Ritsu-chan being cute.

[Anonymous No.]

私は二ヶ月前に漢字が怖いと思ったけど、今本当に覚えにくくないと思う。
　まあ、時間を掛かたけど。。。まあ、大丈夫とおもう！

[Anonymous No.]

It's hard, just like learning any language is hard.

If you've actually been learning for 2 months you should already know this. Have you really been learning? These are the kind of questions people typically ask within the first week.

[Anonymous No.]

I didn't really start thinking of English as hard until I was like "whoa, lets try to translate simple Japanese sentences into English" and started wondering "how the fuck does English work?"

[Anonymous No.]

i'm moving to japan this winter. i'm worried about not knowing the language... >.<

i was thinking about acquiring a rosetta stone or something...

[Anonymous No.]

>>7333280
Buy a grammar book and use this
http://ankisrs.net/

Don't use Rosetta Stone.

[Anonymous No.]

>>.<
>rosetta stone

[Anonymous No.]

>>7333280
> >.<

Perfect Rosetta Stone customer. Here is a number of useful links for you:
>>>/soc/
>>>/gaia/

[Anonymous No.]

>>7333281

[Anonymous No.]

>>7333283
>>7333290
Not who you're talking to, but what exactly is wrong with Rosetta Stone? I'm curious.

[Anonymous No.]

OP here. Rosetta stone is a lol. Just get a traditional textbook.

[Anonymous No.]

hey guys, it always bugged me. You seem to hate that Rosetta Stone program. But why? what's so wrong with it? My friend uses it, should i tell her it's shit?

[萃香は、私の婚約者です No.]

Pirate the genki textbooks

[Anonymous No.]

I tried Rosetta Stone once. I guess the idea of user immersion is interesting, but I couldn't stand the fact that it doesn't explain a thing. I need definitions, grammar, methods and procedures, not just throwing random sentences at me and expecting me to learn through half-assed association.

[Anonymous No.]

>>7333310
Slow speaking, only has canned tourist phrases, no structural teaching of the language attempted, no system of learning the written language, speech recognition is absolute shit, repetition is non-existent after you clear a section, the pictures can sometimes be misleading.

Its approach doesn't work well with the language since the grammar in Japanese is totally different from English, yet it's very logical and valuable to know. If you spend a little time learning grammar it will get you very far. I imagine rosetta stone would work great for learning a related language (i.e. Spanish -> Italian) but going from English to Japanese requires more fundamental learning and all rosetta stone will teach you is some vocabulary in a very inefficient manner compared to just grinding a word list with Anki.

[Anonymous No.]

>>7333276
>how the fuck does English work?
It doesn't. At least, not very well. The number of exceptions is ridiculous, I'm glad it's my native language.

>>7333310
Different from who you asked, but Rosetta Stone fails hard because of the way Japanese works. It over-focuses on speech and recognition, which can be beneficial for some romance languages, but doesn't work so well for Japanese (or any Asian pictograph based languages for that matter).

[Anonymous No.]

>Japanese

Ahahahaha.
Faggot.
Learn a useful Asian language like Mandarin.

[Anonymous No.]

>>7333334
I live in America, both are useless.

[Anonymous No.]

OP, did you get in a time machine and go back 15 years when Japan is relevant?

Learning any new language like Japanese is always good. But learning Japanese is on par with learning French or German.

You should really learn Mandarin Chinese (or Spanish) if you actually want a 'usefull' tool for the future.

[Anonymous No.]

>>7333326
RS is a pretty shitty way to go about learning a language; you can do much better with a textbook that actually explains grammar and provides vocabulary definitions. RS makes a decent supplement to that kind of language learning, but learning purely by association isn't something anyone over the age of 5 should be doing.

[Anonymous No.]

がんばれー

[Anonymous No.]

>>7333352

You forget where you are? As if anyone here cares about learning things that are useful for anything aside from fapping to eroge.

[Anonymous No.]

>>7333352
Nobody learns languages out of perceived usefulness(which is bullshit anyway, China's advancement is unsustainable just as Japan's was and they have already stalled), they learn them out of self interest or because they're forced to.

[Anonymous No.]

>>7333334

OP here.

wo yijing hui shuo yi diar zhongwen yinwei xue le liang nian, keshi wenti shi zhongguo mei you ANIME suoyi zhongwen shi USELESS.

[Anonymous No.]

>>7333351
Right. It might be a bit bland sometimes, but learning the "old-fashioned way" is definitely more reliable.

[Anonymous No.]

What is useful about mandarin Chinese please?

[Anonymous No.]

>>7333334
>Asian lenguages
>Useful

Pick one and only one

[Anonymous No.]

>>7333366 implying zhongguo doesn't have subs for shit hours before yingguo does

[Anonymous No.]

>>7333371
learning the language of your Chinese overlords you amerifat

[Anonymous No.]

>>7333385 implying all Chinese don't speak English already anyways
It's the language of science and commerce; deal with it.

[Anonymous No.]

I just used AGTH, TA, and various online articles on grammar and vocabulary, and started playing eroge. It's much more motivational because you're basically trying to decode something, and the resulting sentences actually form a story.

[Anonymous No.]

>>7333384

implying riben doesn't have animu hours before zhongguo does

[Anonymous No.]

>>7333366
trans: i already learned chinese because i learned for two years. but problem is because china doesn't have anime so its useless.
why are you typing in pinyin?

[Anonymous No.]

>>7333385
>America's labor slave workforce
>overlords

China's economy is getting even shittier because American companies are outsourcing to other developing countries, anyway. Those yellows will be back to shitty rice farming and mud eating before long.

[Anonymous No.]

Learn the language you want to learn and don't listen to retards on the internet who try to tell you otherwise. Give advice and listen to it, sure, but don't get caught up in retarded arguments.

[Anonymous No.]

>>7333401
Probably the same as how some schools teach Japanese entirely in Romaji.

[Anonymous No.]

[Anonymous No.]

>>7333366
>implying zhongguo, taiwan and xiang gang dont release eroge commercially and their translation community doesnt behave like ixrec and moogy.

[Anonymous No.]

>>7333405
dude don't be haitin on eating mud
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3337cj4sJQ&feature=related

[Anonymous No.]

>>7333334
i'm a chinese, english is my 2nd language and mandarin is my 3rd. i've only started learning japanese off guidetojapanese.org.

will it work? or should i really get textbooks or pirate them?

[Anonymous No.]

>>7333405
sorry, but amerikkka is not the only country outsourcing their shit to other countries.

[Anonymous No.]

I need to say a few things here about Rosetta Stone (as someone who has completed all 3 levels and used other methods for studying):

1) It's 'writing' system is absolutely terrible and has nothing to do with 'writing' at all. You're better off skipping those lessons until they incorporate some type of tablet/writing pad into the program.

2) It is NOT intended to make you fluent in Japanese by your finish.

There's nothing that can do that for you.

I'll assume you're not ESL and out of HS: you've been informally studying English almost every day for the last 20 years, and ~12 of that is formal education. It's going to take a LOT longer than a few months for you to become anywhere near competent in ANY foreign language, especially without studying it 10 HOURS every day. Go into a kindergarten sometime and listen to the kids; even after several years of exposure they're stupid, and the HS kids can barely form competent thoughts. Granted, you'll have the advantage of a somewhat mature perspective and can probably shorten the time you'll need for understanding. However, it's going to take you YEARS of dedication and effort to learn another language, and you need to be prepared for that.

3) The program is excellent at what it is intended to do for Japanese: Help you parse spoken sentences. Rosetta Stone (at least for Japanese) breaks the speech into manageable parts, and helps with audible recognition; NOTHING MORE. ANYTHING else they teach you is to help facilitate that aspect, and you WILL need something else to teach you the rest of the language fundamentals.

TL;DR: Rosetta Stone's not intended to make you fluent by the end, just help you understand the spoken language because you're likely to have little contact with it before studying.

[Anonymous No.]

Mandarin is useless unless you want to speak to peasants.

Want to speak to actual useful people in China? Learn Cantonese and work in Hong Kong.

Oh wait, they all already speak English

Just learn Japanese for your Japanese cartoons.
No real reason to learn Chinese languages except for business, and:

>/jp/
>business world

[Anonymous No.]

>>7333328
Not to mention the program is build around immersion, but nobody is going to be on the program 24/7. Chances are they'll use it 2 hours a day at most. That's not immersion. 2 hours of Rosetta Shit a day won't get you anywhere. Babies don't spend 2 hours in Japanese and the rest of their day in English, and that's why it fails to teach you "as if you're a baby"

If you were surrounded 24/7 by Japanese? Sure, you'll pick up from immersion. You're not going to get so far with a spoonful a day.


As for OP, it's not hard. It's easier than most languages actually. The only real barrier is kanji, which you should clear out the way as soon as possible so you don't get intimidated. As painless as possible too. You can ignore on and kun readings when going through them, just associate a meaning and story with them and know how to recognize it. Don't focus too much on becoming a kanji professor or anything. Sometimes you forget, it happens, and that's fine. Native Japanese speakers sometimes forget their kanji as well, but they know how to recognize them if they see them. Kinda like how we suck at spelling sometimes because we're so spoiled by spellcheck, but we sure as hell know the word when we bump into it. Computers have made writing kanji easy, so the Japanese youth today forget every now and then.

I'm not saying you should just breeze through and don't even try writing them. Just don't waste time by nailing it into your head when you could spend it refining more kanji. Let anki handle your reviews.

Also, freaking read, seriously. You won't be able to read if you don't try. Don't think that if you learn enough you'll be able to open a page and it'll all make sense to you. You have to gradually get accustomed to casual Japanese in its pure natural form, used by natives for natives, while studying the robotic shit textbooks and such give you.

[Anonymous No.]

I think OP's at the "well grammar is pretty simple" phase. Wait till you reach the vocabulary/kanji memorization phase, then we'll talk

[Anonymous No.]

Just read http://www.guidetojapanese.org/learn/grammar

and then start playing eroge with AGTH.

If you want to write the kanji you could do Remembering the Kanji first, but that will probably take five or six months and completely destroy your soul, so you might as well just skip it.

[Anonymous No.]

I've tried Genki, but PDFs are really shit for the purpose and the books are retardedly expensive to actually buy. So I've been making do with Anki + KanjiDamage and reading Yotsubato raw.

[Anonymous No.]

>>7337027
25 kanji a day for about 3 months, not that hard and you have to learn it some time. Really makes things easier, and is only a mere fraction of the total time it'd take to learn the language.

[Anonymous No.]

>>7337041
Do you advise writing out the kanji repeatedly to try to cement them in your mind, or just Anki?

[Anonymous No.]

>>7337045
Both, but you need to write them out correctly. Most people think that writing it over and over while saying its meaning will cement it in, but really you're just wasting time because your brain stops paying attention after so many repetitions.

More on common mistakes (and how to correct them) here:
http://www.tofugu.com/2010/03/25/the-5-biggest-mistakes-people-make-when-learning-kanji/

Blog in general has some nice tips.

[Anonymous No.]

>>7337045

Did you practice writing words in grade school? Be sure to get the stroke order right so you can write faster.

Also, I've found lrnj.com to be helpful with Japanese in general, although it's not as free as guidetojapanese. However, it seems lrnj's actually targeted at beginners, which helps. Just be sure to do all the story modes.

[Anonymous No.]

I wish Heisig would show the stroke order for every kanji. It would make life a lot easier.

I'm on kanji 2005 by the way. Should finish in a week or so. It was brutal.

[Anonymous No.]

>>7337062
He expects you to learn stroke order on your own, naturally, through the lessons until he's okay to let go of your hand. And it should work well with a few exceptions (which he gives stroke orders for usually).

The real problem I have with his book is using words that nobody is going to freaking remember or have an easy time making a story for because nobody uses those words.

[Anonymous No.]

>>7333410
I wish you had the rest of that page because I still don't understand the difference between は and が

[Anonymous No.]

スレ王だよ
前に言ったことを無視して、俺がチンこを吸いまくるからな
それより日本語をついに身につけてしまった
だからある整備員はこの意味がないスレを検索したかったら
全く構わないんだ
以上

[Anonymous No.]

>>7337080
ゴメンカミマシタ
検索じゃなくて削除と言いたかった

[Anonymous No.]

>>7337078
It's pretty simple, don't overthink it.
は emphasizes what comes after and が emphasizes what's before.

"What is your name?"
私はYOMAMAです。

Because they asked for your name, emphasize the name.

"Who is YOMAMA?"
私がYOMAMAだよ！

Because you're emphasizing that YOU are YOMAMA. They already know the name, they want to know who the name belongs to. Likewise, the other way around would be that they already know you're the person they're talking to, but they want to know your name.

[Anonymous No.]

>>7337062
Really? After a couple of hundred kanji you get a feel for the stroke order of new ones, atleast I did. If I encounter a new kanji I can write it out correctly immediately thanks to Heisiger.

>>7337074
Yeah some of the words he uses are very british and dry which makes remembering the word itself more difficult than the kanji associated with it.

>>7337027
Oh god this guy again. I will repeat what I've said before, nobody is going to learn Japanese just from bad engrish sentences translated from a VN. The kanji don't magically reveal their readings or meaning and you sure as hell won't remember any of them any time soon just by glancing at them every now and then.

[Anonymous No.]

>>7337088
It's good for learning if you turn the translations off and just stick with Jparser and that other one (Mcab or something). You can get furigana for kanji you don't know and easy copy+paste access for stuff you need to look up.

[Anonymous No.]

readthekanji.com

You won't necessarily be able to write in "correct" stroke order but stroke order is only a pneumatic device. Once you learn 左 and 右 start differently, you'll see how pointless it is. Learn how to write radicals and you'll be fine.

[Anonymous No.]

readthekanji.com

You won't necessarily be able to write in "correct" stroke order but stroke order is only a mnemonic device. Once you learn 左 and 右 start differently, you'll see how pointless it is. Learn how to write radicals and you'll be fine.

[Anonymous No.]

>>7337027
>destroy your soul
What?
I've been doing RTK for 2.5 months and I'm like 50 words away from being done.
Shit is a breeze.

[Anonymous No.]

>>7337107
Of course it's a breeze, seeing as Heisig doesn't actually teach you anything.

[Anonymous No.]

>>7337088
AGTH =/= Atlas. Using AGTH just means that you can read stuff in Japanese and without having too much trouble looking up kanji you don't know. While it's probably inefficient to try to learn new words only through reading, I think it's vital to start reading long before you have a studied enough vocabulary to never need a dictionary.

[Anonymous No.]

If you know the kanji for words like 纏める and 躊躇う, you've wasted your time. Focus on conversation and actual thought processing. The Japanese themselves put too much emphasis on kanji: "Oh! You know some obscure kanji, you're so fucking smart!". In reality, it's like memorizing math formulas, people will think you're smart but once you go off the deep end, it really has no practical purpose.

[Anonymous No.]

>>7337113
Gives you the tools to recall kanji by memory, as the book says in the title. Gives you a general meaning for it that's actually useful sometimes (though unfortunately not always useful). After RTK I was comfortable reading books in Japanese even if I didn't know readings, because usually the kanji meanings I had in mind would give me a very accurate clue of what's being said. I didn't have to look up everything every 5 seconds and break my flow. Reading is boring like that, you want reading to be fun. If there's a word that stands out, you kinda feel when you should stop to look it up.

[Anonymous No.]

>>7337120
Which is why that won't be too much of a problem, because you'll be using natural Japanese written by native speakers for native speakers. If the kanji isn't important, you won't see it much, and you'll eventually realize you shouldn't care about it. If it does appear, then you'll hold onto it.

That isn't a problem unless you're the type that doesn't actually try reading real Japanese and has their nose in textbooks all day.

The ones that think "I'm not at the level to read yet so I won't try" and keep mindlessly grinding. They'll never be at the "level" like that.

[Anonymous No.]

>>7337130
>The ones that think "I'm not at the level to read yet so I won't try" and keep mindlessly grinding. They'll never be at the "level" like that.
Yeah, the only way to get good enough to read is to practice reading.

Even for simple stuff like mastering vocabulary, after you have encountered a new word you want to learn, the best way to memorize is to find it again while you're reading.

[Anonymous No.]

One problem with westerners learning japanese in specific is that while learning the kana, they are lured into thinking its simple, as kana have similar stroke counts and there aren't that many. Then they get to the kanji, not only are the kanji innumerable, but complexity varies, from 2 strokes to 10, not to mention any single kanji have several meanings, which can make them confusing.

[Anonymous No.]

>>7337159
当たり前ことの名人

[Kudryavka !!wEyYEw5OlKU No.]

>>7337120
>躊躇う
That actually gets used with an annoying frequency in a lot of VNs. Real useless kanji are stuff like 韮, 莞, or 奎.

[Anonymous No.]

>>7337202
>>躊躇う
I think Steins;Gate always had the furigana when it used it.

[Anonymous No.]

>>7337181
>Name person of things before the hit
What.

[Anonymous No.]

>>7337216
>this is what happens when you just memorize the meanings of kanji and nothing else

[Anonymous No.]

>>7337120
>躊躇う
its not like thats hard to remember or anything. you just go "oh, i see the 足 radical twice"
a lot of those ones are really distinct, so you can learn them instantly once you know the word itself.

same with 彷徨う、蝙蝠、朦朧　etc

[Anonymous No.]

Learning Japanese is one hell of a grind, if you're the type of person that can't obsess over things you're probably better off not attempting to learn it.

[Anonymous No.]

>>7337223
Actually if he drops either the koto or the no particle that would be grammatically correct I think (atleast according to Tae Kim).

[Anonymous No.]

>>7337234
当たり前　= obvious, 'duh',
当たり前（の）こと　＝ obvious things
名人　＝　master, expert

[Anonymous No.]

>>7337223
That's the joke, captain obvious.

[Anonymous No.]

>>7337246
Stupidity is not a joke.

[Anonymous No.]

>>7337117
I already have ACTH set up, but how would I go about getting the readings for unknown words? I imagine it's some kind of program similar to Atlas.

[Anonymous No.]

>>7337249
Neither is you're face but that doesn't stop anyone from laughing at it.

[Anonymous No.]

>>7337276
Maturity levels are off the chart here.

[Anonymous No.]

read this!

[Anonymous No.]

>>7337294
Salt and pepper

I hope to God he knew that though

[Anonymous No.]

>>7337304
delicious

[Anonymous No.]

>>7337304
yes i know it, but 99% of all people I will meet in my life don't know this.
A buddy of mine can read it and is often amused when someone with "a cool chinese tattoo" walks by and doesn't have a real sign or some other nonsense