Advice on learning japanese?

[Feba]

I had a long post here, but I realized it was way too close to tl;dr, so I summed it up.

-I know plenty of you have learned Japanese
-Something yesterday told me I should learn Japanese. Mental condition? Possibly.
-I'm looking for advice (and maybe a little encouragement) from the people mentioned in the first bullet
-I'm looking for (Ubuntu/Linux) programs to help learn Japanese
-Has anyone here done JET? I'm thinking about it some, seems interesting.

[InuTrunks]

Re: Advice on learning japanese?

I'm a 3 year Japanese student (going on my 5th year of school, 4th year of Japanese), and let me tell you, it's hard. Very hard. If you want to start, check out about.com's website they ahve a very nice starter section there. From there, you're going to want to pick up Kanji and Kana Book One. (Start by learning how to write Hirigana, and Katakana, followed by Kanji). While using this book, you're going to want to pick up a Japanese Text Book, and the Work Book that goes with it.

Since you're doing self study, I'd get the CD's that cmoe with it as well (I can rip these if you can't find them).

The text book I've used for 3 years now is called "Yookoso" (welcome). I can't find my workbook, but it's the Yookoso! workbook that goes with it.

ISBN for Text Book: 0-07-072336-2
ISBN for Kanji and Kana Workbook (not the one for the text book): 0-8048-3392-3

This book (kanji and Kana book 1) is amazing. If I can find my handouts from my freshman year in Japnaese, I'll scan them in for you (really helped me learn the sounds).

best of all, don't give up, it's really hard, but keep with it, and you'll be doing well. You won't be able to understand all of it, but try to repeate what they say in the anime out loud, this will help you in terms of speech.

Also, when reading (and studying) read everything ALOUD, repeate everything on the cd's ALOUD. If it dosn't sound right to you, say it again, and again, and again, untill you can say it.

Lesson 1:
"yookoso"
"Yo (like our yo! (drag it out a bit, like yoo!))" "ko (as in coat)" "so (as in so)".
http://files.filefront.com/yokoso_ex.../fileinfo.html
(uploaded an example for you!)
There you go, you just said your first word in Japnaese.

[InuTrunks]

Re: Advice on learning japanese?

Starving, I wasn't saying using anime as a tool, but using anime to reference the basic sounds (as he dosn't have the CD's that I mentioned... yet...).

Just reading how to say the basic's dosn't best describe it

a i u e o
ka ki ku ke ko

and so forth.

[Caspian]

Re: Advice on learning japanese?

Has anyone heard anything about Rosetta Stone or whatever its called? They're supposed to have several languages you can learn and it supposedly makes learning them easier. I've been thinking about learning some different languages, Japanese is one of them and wanted to see what my options were.

[ItazuraNhomango]

Re: Advice on learning japanese?

I thought anime and TV programs in general tend to exaggerate personalities and sounds? Ordinary people's way of speaking tend to be more flat and ... boring. >_>;

BTW, I would recommend taking classes in local college over trying to learn Japanese on your own.

[InuTrunks]

Re: Advice on learning japanese?

Starving!

Goawrrrr, you're going to make me go back and edit my post! haha.

Atleast I taught him how to say yookoso!

Edit:

The Rosetta Stone software sucks. IMO

[Murphie]

Re: Advice on learning japanese?

I've heard good things about Rosetta Stone from people, but they weren't trying to learn Japanese. No personal experience on this end though.

I'd definitely recommend an actual course.

[Feba]

Re: Advice on learning japanese?

I'm not trying to learn this all by myself, just looking for some advice until I can find a good school. The one I was planning on attending only offers a basic "conversational" japanese course, not a dedicated language program, so I need to look for another one.

I wasn't planning on trying to learn based on anime, I must have at least a 100 hours of various shows on DVD, and listened to them all on subtitles (some of them only have subtitles) long enough to know that you can't really pick up more than ganbatte and daijoubu from them. Well, maybe a little bit of culture depending on which one, but they tend to be so dumbed down for american audiences the only way to really learn about culture is to download a fansub and read the ed. notes.

Thanks for the advice on various things. I don't think pronounciation will be as much of a problem as speaking swiftly, and moreso, being able to listen to japanese at the rate it's usually spoken. Japanese pronounciation isn't very different from spanish, (Ah, Ee, Eh, Oh, Ou) from what i've seen, and I took a couple years of Spanish in middle school- not to mention my parents both being fluent.

I considered Rosetta Stone, but there's two huge problems with that. One, I use linux. Two, it's 195$. For the basic learning. No way in hell am I paying that, I could get courses for that much. Hell, for that much, I could take a native speaker to a movie, a fancy restaurant, drug them, and keep them in my basement for a few months.

Maybe someone here who does speak Japanese should make a guide on learning japanese- based on playing FFXI. Obviously, there's the people out there that have had the "copy/paste this romaji to get JP PT mates to understand you" stuff, but a thought out course and lessons could be cool.

Thanks for the advice on books- I have a couple books and some flash card sets around here- I really need to find my Hiragana/Katakana book though... I really want to learn Hiragana before I start learning too much about grammar and stuff, that way I can use instructions/word written in hiragana, instead of romaji. I saw a book that looked really good, called elementary japanese, that looked like it shifted from english instructions to japanese instructions (which I liked about my spanish books) and questions, but put off buying it due to price (60$, a little steep) and the fact that, again, I feel like I should learn hiragana.

So now I have another question for you all... Where the hell did that book go!? I mean, I need to clean, but it's not that bad, is it? I miss my double sided book ;_;

[InuTrunks]

Re: Advice on learning japanese?

You should check out the books I mentioned ;P

[ItazuraNhomango]

Re: Advice on learning japanese?

Make you own Hiragana and Katakana flash cards, you lazy bum. =b

Actually, most first year Japanese language students tend to write atrocious Hiragana, so you probably should bribe a native speaker or a 3rd year student to make the cards for you.

Try to get a native speaker to teach your the calligraphy, if you can. ^_^ Hiragana characters are quite pretty when painted with a calligraphy brush.

[Feba]

Re: Advice on learning japanese?

I have flash cards, I had a friend copy them out of the aforementioned book, so they were accurate. Problem is, I can't find the book, or the cards.

EDIT: Is being able to write any more important in Japanese culture than in America? My writing in english is bad enough. I mean seriously, I've had people mistake it for a 3rd grader's.

[ItazuraNhomango]

Re: Advice on learning japanese?

Old textbooks says typing/text entry is not a widespread skills in Japan, so handwriting is very important. These days, with so many people owning computers, I can't imagine it's still considered a very specilized skill.

That said, typing in Japanese is a lot more difficult than English. Plus, I doubt you get to use computers during tests when you take your Japanese classes.

So, learn to write legibly. (Which shouldn't be too hard; most 1st Japanese classes use "romanji" instead of the kana's, for some stupid reason.)

[InuTrunks]

Re: Advice on learning japanese?

Ifrit, in my books (the one I told him to check out), the text book uses romanji for the intro chapter only, you learn Hirigana and Katakana your first few days. It's a good book, def. worth the money.

Writing is very important in Japan, and honestly, my engish is HORRIBLE, but my Japanese is amazing, according to my professor anyway. one thing about Kanji, don't just memorize the characters, MEMORIEZE THE STROKE ORDER, it's important.

[Nazo]

Re: Advice on learning japanese?

Writing is considered very important in Japan. Job applications have to be filled out in handwritten script and potential employers will make judgements based on the quality of the script. That only really applies to natives though.

I did JET for a couple of years and absolutely loved it, an amazing experience, the only bad thing I can say about it really that coming back is really shit, over 3 years on and I'm still wishing I was back there.

I think you really need to be motivated to get anywhere with a language like Japanese, the basics aren't that hard but it's very different from English and can be frustrating to get anywhere until you start to click with it. Classes are defintely the way to go if you can, there are a few language exchange websites you can use too to look for Japanese people wanting to improve their English living in your area.

[Mhurron]

Re: Advice on learning japanese?

You're not a 3rd grader?