/jp/ - Otaku Culture

[Anonymous No.]

hi jp/

How hard is Japanese to learn?

I got a good book on kanji. I only know English and a bit of French, however Japanese seems alien to me. At least when I was learning French it made some sense.

[Anonymous No.]

>>>/lang/ will answer your questions

[Anonymous No.]

Very hard. You should just give up now instead.

[Anonymous No.]

[Anonymous No.]

16 hours a day, seven days a week and you can read most of the stuff after two months.

[Anonymous No.]

>>7379046

Wait is this a troll?

So I don't need to learn 500 kanji?

>>7379036
Thanks

[Anonymous No.]

>>7379067
>Wait is this a troll?
you tell me

[­­wtH !HELLB/V.96 No.]

AJATT

[Anonymous No.]

>>7379092
Please don't use Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle here. They were ninjas and they are naruto and i don't like naruto. Please Cease.

[Anonymous No.]

>>7379046

I died laughing at that.

[Anonymous No.]

>>7379067
>So I don't need to learn 500 kanji?
That's right, you don't need to learn 500 Kanji!
You need to learn 3000.

[Anonymous No.]

>>7379118

How's your first week here?

[Anonymous No.]

>>7379046
this is funny because this is my method of learning Japanese.

[Anonymous No.]

>>7379046
>Katakana （ひらがな） and Hiragana （カタカナ）

This was suppose to be a joke?

[ブラキ ワキ No.]

http://hss-prod.hss.aol.com/hss/storage/aimtmpshare/5b59df6584e23c6cbb125b5767751450/wetcake.MP3

[Anonymous No.]

>>7379162
what...is this...?

pic entirely unrelated.

[ブラキ ワキ No.]

It's Brack from Cartoon Planet back in 1994.
It was the precursor to Space Ghost Coast to Coast.

[Necrobrotent No.]

>>7379191
I miss the brack show, it was so much better random shit comedy than crap like ATHF.

Hell I miss when moltar did Toonami.

I'm old.

[­­wtH !HELLB/V.96 No.]

[Anonymous No.]

>>7379124

3,000?

That is a nightmare.

[Anonymous No.]

>>7379145
Find something in that image that's correct. I dare you.

[Anonymous No.]

[Anonymous No.]

>>7379216
top right image

[Anonymous No.]

>>7379223
>Heisig

Hasn't this thread been trolled enough yet?

[Anonymous No.]

>>7379216
the fact that you need over 3000 kanji to be considered literate, and that they have multiple readings

[Anonymous No.]

>>7379232
even if going through the entire book isn't the most efficient way to learn (and of course, some people will argue that it is), its certainly worth going through the first couple hundred or so to get a feel for memorizing them in that way.

[Anonymous No.]

You better learn hiragana and katakana before kanji bro

[Anonymous No.]

>>7379232
what?

I always thought this books are good, atleast the hiragana/katakana is pretty good for beginners

[Anonymous No.]

>>7379223
also /speak? where is that magical board hidden?

[Anonymous No.]

>>7379299

I would guess on another chan, I don't know. I just saved it because it has decent actual advice.

[Anonymous No.]

>>7379145
This image is as old as /jp/

How do people still fall for it?

[Anonymous No.]

>>7379923
You would have to be a retard to fall for it either way.

[Anonymous No.]

Pick any VN and start reading with AGTH/TA.

[tripcodefag !vFQSuJMp/w No.]

>>7379046
>Learning the sylliballe syllabaries katakana (ひらがな) and hiragana (カタカナ) is optional until you can speak fluently.
So I can deduce that who wrote this is not fluent at japanese...

[Anonymous No.]

>>7381514
No shnot even going to finish
>>7379362
99

[Anonymous No.]

>>7379223
I do have "remembering the kanji" and it doesnt help even a little bit, it doesnt even tell you how to pronunce the kanji! just what it means, how could i need a book like that?

[Anonymous No.]

>>7379029
Just stick with French. Best language ever.

[Anonymous No.]

Japanese is way easier than French. French grammar gives a true meaning to the word 'bullshit'. And this message is from someone whose mother tongue is French.
The main difficulty of Japanese is the required memorization effort.

OP, disregard the trolls, read Tae Kim's guide (it's free) and practice kanji everyday.

[Anonymous No.]

>>7381582
>And this message is from someone whose mother tongue is French.

Speaking about the inherent difficulty of learning a language you've known from childhood yourself is the surest indicator you have no idea what the hell you're talking about.

[Anonymous No.]

Troll as much as you want, but Heisig's book is a gift from the gods. Listen to someone who actually learned Japanese and plays untranslated VNs, instead of fags who gave up after half a year.

[Anonymous No.]

>>7381603
>It took him more than six months to learn Glorious Japanese.

[Anonymous No.]

>>7381612
>I know 1000 words, I think I know Japanese

[Anonymous No.]

>>7381612
Hurr durr trololol the fastest I know of to near fluency is the AJATT guy that obsessed over it for 18 months.

>>7379029
Japanese isn't hard in terms of complexity, but it requires a shit ton of memorizing kanji readings and what not. I suggest you start by going through Heisig, yes it doesn't actually teach you any japanese but dealing with the kanji first will give you a huge benefit when you actually start learning real japanese. Go through heisig then do the core decks or sentences in a SrS combined with formal grammar study and immersion.

[Anonymous No.]

Takes about a year (or 6 months if you are really going hard at it), then you can really understand shit well enough to actually start learning quickly. Problem is maintaining interest. I found myself taking weeks off and shit. It's not a good idea to stop, ever.

Read jap alongside english TLs, read jap alone, skip shit you can't understand, read read read read read read read read read. (ask questions read guides use ALC for examples of shit you don't get etc)

Oh, and Heisig or Kanjidamage for kanji are great. Don't let any faggots tell you they aren't. The VAST majority of people can't just look at shit and remember it forever.

[Anonymous No.]

Heisig is terrible and has nothing to do with actually building vocabulary, /jp/ is infected with mindless groupthink on this subject, its adherents all spout infomercial-style testimonials ad nauseam 24 hours a day, you don't need to know kanji upfront for the same reasons that you were able to learn English without memorizing all Greek and Latinate morphemes in advance, the characters in isolation have variable meanings and readings and are useless in themselves, people who engage in directed study of kanji do so by broken analogy to the Roman alphabet where it's practical and necessary to learn every character in advance, or to Chinese where the logograms are actually useful by themselves, studying Heisig in advance of the rest of the language is sugar-coated rote memorization with no immediately useful application and is thusly an application of one of the empirically proven worst learning techniques possible.

[Anonymous No.]

My method for learning 5000+ words, 2500+ kanji and starting to read untranslated stuff:

0. learn hiragana/katakana. practice a lot.
1. Torrent this series
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let%27s_Learn_Japanese
It will teach you basic grammar, it's a very good substitute for actual classes.
2. Heisig
Fucking do it. It's boring, it's a pain, but it's a must.
3. guidetojapanese.org
Advanced grammar. If the guide is too short for you and need more examples, try some of the books like Genki. Don't waste too much time on grammar books, though.
4. WORDS WORDS WORDS
Get Anki, and start your word list. Go to iknow.jp (formerly smart.fm) and register. Their program costs money now, but you can see the whole word lists for free. Go and leech it, it's an extremely good list with example sentences and such. Put them into Anki. While reviewing your flash cards, it might help your memorization if you actually write out the words on a piece of paper.
5 (you should actually do this anywhere during the other stuff to make it less boring). Start reading Japanese stuff. My method is running a VN in two windows, one translated, one untranslated. Advance a line in the Japanese version, try to translate it on your own, put unknown words into Anki, then advance the translated version by one line, compare your work, note errors.

[Anonymous No.]

>>7381661
Without knowing kanji you can't do shit in Japanese. Also comparing kanji to the alphabet is just retarded, because kanji are logographic and thus contain no inherent phonetic value, which means you will have to memorize them all if you ever plan on using them.

[Anonymous No.]

>>7381679

Kanji are word components. Saying you can't do shit in Japanese without kanji is like saying you can't do shit in Japanese without words. That doesn't rationalize cramming them all upfront. Learning kanji compounds is the process of building vocabulary and learning the language. Incidentally, you can do much more with actually vocabulary than you can with whatever imagined knowledge you'll have from dicking around with RTK for a month and a half.

>Also comparing kanji to the alphabet is just retarded

No shit, your reading comprehension is absolutely terrible.

[Anonymous No.]

>>7381679

Kanji are word components. Saying you can't do shit in Japanese without kanji is like saying you can't do shit in Japanese without words. That doesn't rationalize cramming them all upfront. Learning kanji compounds is the process of building vocabulary and learning the language. Incidentally, you can do much more with actual vocabulary than you can with whatever imagined knowledge you'll have from dicking around with RTK for a month and a half.

>Also comparing kanji to the alphabet is just retarded

No shit, your reading comprehension is absolutely terrible.

[Anonymous No.]

>>7381695
Oh really so morphemes aren't composed of phonemes which in turn is basically the alphabet? Are you even aware of the meaning of the term 'morpheme and 'phoneme'? I guess not, and judging by you bigoted inflammatory response I can safely assume you never even bothered given Heisig a chance or just gave up on it because you lack dedication and neurons in equal parts. Cramming the joyou kanji up front gives you a considerable headstart because you'll be familiar with the chinese meaning and writing of all the kanji you'll encounter in most textbooks.

[Anonymous No.]

>>7381720
>Oh really so morphemes aren't composed of phonemes

No, they're not. Morphemes are the smallest reducible units of meaning. Phonemes are units of sound. No relation.

>phonemes which in turn is basically the alphabet?

what

>Are you even aware of the meaning of the term 'morpheme and 'phoneme'? I guess not,

what

>I can safely assume you never even bothered given Heisig a chance or just gave up on it because you lack dedication and neurons in equal parts.

I can safely assume you never even bothered studying Japanese vocabulary in a sensible fashion unencumbered by Heisig's stupid gimmick a chance or just gave up on it because you lack dedication and neurons in equal parts.

>Cramming the joyou kanji up front gives you a considerable headstart because you'll be familiar with the chinese meaning and writing of all the kanji you'll encounter in most textbooks.

>the characters in isolation have variable meanings and readings and are useless in themselves
>sugar-coated rote memorization with no immediately useful application and is thusly an application of one of the empirically proven worst learning techniques possible.

[Anonymous No.]

>>7381720
>Oh really so morphemes aren't composed of phonemes

No, they're not. Morphemes are the smallest reducible units of meaning. Phonemes are units of sound. No relation.

>phonemes which in turn is basically the alphabet?

what

>Are you even aware of the meaning of the term 'morpheme and 'phoneme'? I guess not,

what

>I can safely assume you never even bothered given Heisig a chance or just gave up on it because you lack dedication and neurons in equal parts.

I can safely assume you never even bothered giving studying Japanese vocabulary in a sensible fashion unencumbered by Heisig's stupid gimmick a chance or just gave up on it because you lack dedication and neurons in equal parts.

>Cramming the joyou kanji up front gives you a considerable headstart because you'll be familiar with the chinese meaning and writing of all the kanji you'll encounter in most textbooks.

>the characters in isolation have variable meanings and readings and are useless in themselves
>sugar-coated rote memorization with no immediately useful application and is thusly an application of one of the empirically proven worst learning techniques possible.