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Post by Machikono on Jan 30, 2016 13:40:56 GMT -8
I've been interested in learning Japanese for ages - only finding it hard to know where and how to start!
So you who are currently or have learned Japanese, how did you start, what did you use to help your learning? What advice would you give to a person who knows little to no japanese but who is interested in learning?
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Post by Nifuruc on Jan 30, 2016 15:11:47 GMT -8
as a beginner the only things you need are dedication, a person to speak to and the internet... I started learning about 6 years ago (before that I only knew the stuff I learned with anime and japanese music) and realized, that there are no good books at all... I bought about 5-6 books and stopped learning with them because I found some impressive webpages and my teacher gave me helpful stuff like apps and selfmade worksheets... some advises I can give you are: 1. start to learn with kanji because if you don't it's a hazzle to find useful material to learn with... same goes to hiragana and katakana... it's absolutely essential! 2. there are tons of japanese words you might already know... learn to write them with kana... that way it's easier to remember the kana... 3. write kana and kanji as often as you can... even if you forget how to write them later you'll recognize them... 4. don't be afraid to make mistakes... you'll do a lot of them because Japanese is so different from other languages... not just the grammar but the way Japanese think... but to be honest... Japanese grammar isn't that hard... even kanji will become easy when you've learned the most important glyphes (there are 214 of them)... the most difficult part is to understand phrases and the way Japanese think... but that won't be a problem in the beginning because you're gonna learn simple structures at first... like "this is a car" - "the car is red" - " it is my car" - and so on... the "state of being" and simple verbs... I've thought about doing a lesson on this forum here but I don't know how many would even read it... and my Japanese isn't perfect (hope to take the N3 JLPT test next year)... but since I'm a German teacher I know a lot about grammar and teaching stuff... so if you're interested I may start something here... and before I forget the "internet stuff" I mentioned earlier... here some paged that might help: Kanji Lexicon (currently offline and I don't know why...): lingweb.eva.mpg.de/kanji/Tae Kim's Guide to Learning Japanese: www.guidetojapanese.org/learn/my teacher's friend's Guide: maggiesensei.com/I use a lot of german webpages you won't find useful... but these 3 should help... Tae Kim's guide is amazing and worth 10 books ^^ a few other thing would be... use the google chrome app rikaikun... it shows you the translation, meaning and grammar for japanese words... there are also a lot of nice apps for your smartphone like: Kanji Recognizer, JED, Handwriting Japanese or 文法ガイド bunpou gaido, the Tae Kim Guide for smartphones... there are also a lot of other things like iTalki or HelloTalk but you have to pay for them and haven't used these apps, yet... and it's kinda useless if you know people who speak Japanese you could ask if you have a problem... I hope I could help you ^^
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Post by MoMusuArchives on Jan 31, 2016 2:01:26 GMT -8
as a beginner the only things you need are dedication, a person to speak to and the internet... I started learning about 6 years ago (before that I only knew the stuff I learned with anime and japanese music) and realized, that there are no good books at all... I bought about 5-6 books and stopped learning with them because I found some impressive webpages and my teacher gave me helpful stuff like apps and selfmade worksheets... some advises I can give you are: 1. start to learn with kanji because if you don't it's a hazzle to find useful material to learn with... same goes to hiragana and katakana... it's absolutely essential! 2. there are tons of japanese words you might already know... learn to write them with kana... that way it's easier to remember the kana... 3. write kana and kanji as often as you can... even if you forget how to write them later you'll recognize them... 4. don't be afraid to make mistakes... you'll do a lot of them because Japanese is so different from other languages... not just the grammar but the way Japanese think... but to be honest... Japanese grammar isn't that hard... even kanji will become easy when you've learned the most important glyphes (there are 214 of them)... the most difficult part is to understand phrases and the way Japanese think... but that won't be a problem in the beginning because you're gonna learn simple structures at first... like "this is a car" - "the car is red" - " it is my car" - and so on... the "state of being" and simple verbs... I've thought about doing a lesson on this forum here but I don't know how many would even read it... and my Japanese isn't perfect (hope to take the N3 JLPT test next year)... but since I'm a German teacher I know a lot about grammar and teaching stuff... so if you're interested I may start something here... and before I forget the "internet stuff" I mentioned earlier... here some paged that might help: Kanji Lexicon (currently offline and I don't know why...): lingweb.eva.mpg.de/kanji/Tae Kim's Guide to Learning Japanese: www.guidetojapanese.org/learn/my teacher's friend's Guide: maggiesensei.com/I use a lot of german webpages you won't find useful... but these 3 should help... Tae Kim's guide is amazing and worth 10 books ^^ a few other thing would be... use the google chrome app rikaikun... it shows you the translation, meaning and grammar for japanese words... there are also a lot of nice apps for your smartphone like: Kanji Recognizer, JED, Handwriting Japanese or 文法ガイド bunpou gaido, the Tae Kim Guide for smartphones... there are also a lot of other things like iTalki or HelloTalk but you have to pay for them and haven't used these apps, yet... and it's kinda useless if you know people who speak Japanese you could ask if you have a problem... I hope I could help you ^^ Woah! I've only been taking Japanese at a university for one semester so far, but I'll bookmark these links, thanks!
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Post by Nifuruc on Jan 31, 2016 3:57:25 GMT -8
間違った! XD the kanji lexicon page I've linked was German, too and changed its URL... but I've got an alternative... tangorin.com/kanji/this webpage isn't as complete as the other one but still pretty neat... the correct link to the Kanji Lexicon: mpi-lingweb.shh.mpg.de/kanji/
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Post by greator on Feb 2, 2016 6:44:44 GMT -8
I've been listening to Japanese for about 20 years (music, TV, anime), It does help a bit, but not much. I have to get a proper lesson next time.
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Post by MomusuNoob on Feb 6, 2016 4:07:11 GMT -8
I agree with what Nifuruc put. And referencing N3, it would seem he's more advanced than I am. I'm more like N6. Haha. Just kidding. N5/4 are the beginner levels. But I digress...back to the topic...
It's not something I'm proud of mentioning, but I was turned to the Japanese language during my high school senior year back in '08. So with that year I got a pretty good understanding of the basics, but here we are 8 years later and I can't even consider myself intermediate. As Nifuruc mentioned, PRACTICE! As with anything really, you must not stop. Otherwise you'll forget and will have to play the silly catch-up game to get back to where you once were. It really sucks.
Actively, I'm a subscriber to JapanesePod101.com, and again as Nifuruc mentioned Tae Kim's guide is awesome! Aside from random forums I read and actively paying attention to subbed videos, these are my 2 main sources.
For advice, from one beginner to another, I'll point out the following (which you are most likely familiar with some):
-there are 3 scripts in Japanese writing: hiragana, katakana, and kanji; study hiragana first then follow-up with katakana; kanji is a lifetime pursuit (haha)
-the "4th script" is romaji, which is using Roman letters to spell out Japanese words...which is pretty much what I did when I mentioned the 3 scripts...it's never consistent as there are several ways people spell words in romaji and it's just generally something you should avoid; other than getting to know hiragana/katakana at the very beginning of your studies, use romaji as very little as possible
-there are 3 main ways to construct grammar in Japanese: casual, polite, and honorific
-when using Japanese, the more vague you are the more polite you're considered (and vice versa) so don't worry about minor details like how to say 'you', 'it', 'he', 'she', etc.; that's not important because...(moving on to the next point...)
-as the speaker, you heavily IMPLY; as the listener, you heavily INFER; you'll see later in your studies that, in order to sound more natural speaking Japanese, you shouldn't constantly repeat what's already understood and should leave out subjects when you can
Hmm...these are the most important things I can think of at the moment...but if you have any other questions feel free to post 'em and we'll try to help you out as best as we can. Lastly though, one other resource I've been using a lot lately is the online Japanese-English dictionary jisho.org. I have it bookmarked and always open when I'm online. Yup.
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