Learning Japanese

I'm not sure if anyone has mentioned it, but the Memrise app is pretty good. You can choose what you want to learn vocab-wise or even grammar. They're kinda like lessons that gently drill what you trying to learn, it's really good for those who like learning in a flashcard setting and getting that vocab down, It pairs really nicely with the genki series if you can indulge in it.

I've been using Memrise lately and I really like how it handles both the learning and the reviewing. And they have lots of pre-made courses. They're just finishing up a word learning contest taking place this September, and I managed to learn a ton

If anyone wants to add me and compete for points, here's my page http://www.memrise.com/user/yasashiiyuuyake/

Just started my second year of beginners Japanese, finding it a little overwhelming if I'm honest. Whilst I can recognise most of the Katakana and Hiragana, I find that I can not write them quick enough and end up resorting to romaji and I feel it's going to get more difficult with the introduction of Kanji.

 

Still, I'm enjoying it and this little blip I'm sure can be overcome with plenty of practice.

Japanese is so hard! I tried to learn it once but... Well, I tried.

Back in 2009, a friend of mine gave me his copy of the Japanese Rosetta Stone program. I was really wanting to learn it before my trip in 2010 so I had over 11 months to learn as much as possible with it. I had heard great stuff about it and was excited about trying it out.

 

After 2 months of daily sessions on it, I gave up. It was completely maddening and I could not grasp it at all. And it's not like this was something I *had* to do! I seriously WANTED to learn as much as I could about it. But with NO English help in Rosetta ( everything is done in Japanese ) it was almost impossible to figure out how sentence structure was set up and how words were strung together. No matter what I did, I just could not make it work for me. So I dropped it.

 

I'd love to learn it sometime in the future but I'm not sure what system I could use that would make sense to me. More power to anyone who can make something work for them and learn Teh Moonspeak.

 

 

 

Billy

 

Don't take this as me being mean but I am so glad I'm not the only one who had that problem with Rosetta Stone for Japanese! I feel way less stupid now!

I used to listen to the Pimsleur Japanese course and it was really good. Then I lost my ipod I wish to continue studying Japanese because it is a very beautiful language and not really hard once you get into it. Plus, I would like to visit Japan some day

I was in Japan three months ago. I do not know Japanese, but it was not so bad with only English.

Reading this thread makes me glad I started Japanese early...I started learning it at high school when I was 14 (I'm 27 on friday)". Of course, at high school because I live in a country town and no one else in my highschool wanted to learn japanese, I had to do it by distance education. On one hand this was good because it let me earn at my own pace but it was also bad because I didnt have other students to practice with, and the only speaking practice I got was the chats with the teacher by phone once a month. (My speaking assingments I had to record onto tapes to mail to them to mark. It was a lot of hassle.) Because my speaking ability was always going to be lower than my reading, listening and writing abilities, I compensated as best I could by devouring as much Japanese manga as I could get my hands on. We have a Kinokuniya in Sydney where I used to buy the books - and Id also look for raws online. I remember so much of early Japanese vocabulary I learned from One Piece.

 

In university I got to study it better, in an actual classroom setting with Japanese teachers. I learned a lot faster now that I had other students with me that I could talk to. In my last year of uni i did a student exchange to Kyushu University in Japan and in that six months I lived there, my Japanese ability increased far, far more than it ever had in the space of the time Id spent in lessons. It just goes to show that NO amount of books and study is a match for actual lived experience!

 

I actually got lucky in a way because it seemed that all the other international students kept to themselves and spoke in English, and the only Japanese people they made friends with were other university students, many of which were bilingual. Because these japanese students wanted to practice their english, they often defaulted to speaking english..... in my case, however, my shyness and nerdiness/lack of confidence in making new friends actually came in handy for once. By complete chance I became besties with a Japanese girl the same age as me - and all because I decided to go look at a cosplay event that was being held in the park. She wasnt a cosplayer but she had also come to see, and she randomly struck up a conversation with me because I had a Meiko (vocaloid) badge on my bag! (she was mainly overjoyed that someone else cared about Meiko, given how underrated the poor girl is). This girl could not speak any English whatsoever, so in order to properly communicate with her I was forced to use Japanese all the time. I think that this most of all was what improved my conversational ability. We are still friends today and chat using Line...right now shes gushing to me about ToukenRanbu nendoroids

 

I also worked in Japan from 2011-2013 teaching English. While I got in heaps of Japanese practice outside of work, it was frustrating because due to my job I had to speak English all the time. There is nothing as frustrating as trying to teach difficult English grammar to a kid who doesn't get it and wanting, so badly, to explain to him what it means in Japanese but being unable to because you arent allowed to use any Japanese in that job...apparently it defeats the point of the immersive environment for the students. Which I understand, but there were so many situations where just a single Japanese hint from me could have saved me 10 minutes of hand waving and awkward gestures to try and explain something. ...which is why Im applying for another JET position for next year now that enough years has passed since the last time I did it, this time the CIR one. (with JET, there's two positions, ALT and CIR. Anyone can be an ALT, even if you cant say a word of Japanese, but the CIR position is for higher level Japanese speakers only)

 

Right now I'm studying for the Japanese Language Proficiency Test in December...I'm taking the N2 (second highest level) and the study has been very difficult so far. I've heard that some of the grammar points I need to know the minute differences between is something difficult even for native speakers though...which makes me feel slightly better.

 

I don't want to discourage anyone in this thread from self-learning but my honest opinion is that its borderline impossible to learn a language that way - you need a proper teacher and course and a combination of learning methods, and in the end, actually living/studying/working there is the fastest way. I'm not saying that it -is- impossible (this is, after all, just based on my attempts at trying to self-learn Italian with no proper teacher etc) but an entire language is not something you can just pick up in a week or so. What self-learning -is- good for is strengthening the foundation of what you already have.

Like I said, manga is great for learning new vocab and for observing casual speak/slang. I used to read a page of my Japanese manga and try to translate it as best I could, then load up the corresponding page of an online translation and check my work - it was a good exercise.

 

The things Im doing to strengthen my Japanese at the moment is cramming the JLPTN2 textbooks like mad, reading some japanese articles online, keeping in touch with my japanese friends and following a lot of Vocaloid producers on twitter. Plus all the usual anime and stuff. I guess the main reason why its been so hard for me to learn any other language is because theres been less of a drive for me to be able to understand it, whereas most of my interests are Japan-related.

 

Good luck to everyone out there trying to learn - It took me a long time to get here, and I'm definitely not perfect (I don't have a lot of faith in my grammar abilities and I often have to have my friends read over my Japanese essays/emails to catch dumb mistakes, and the downside of most of my speaking practice coming from my friends is that my casual speech abilities are miles above my formal speech abilities. Casual and Formal Japanese are much more clearly separated than in English, and using the wrong verb forms with the wrong person can actually be really rude. Ironically, most of my friends who are learning Japanese have told me that they find it much harder to use casual speak and sound natural so its probably just me)

 

I should feel lucky that I have this ability because it never really occurred to me how easy I have it when it comes to being understand most of the things about my hobbies (using yahoo auctions with zero comprehension problems, reading product descriptions and interviews etc). Now if only I could learn another language too...

 

Sorry for the text-wall. Anyone else doing the JLPT in December?

 

edit= Oh, and seconding memrise, at least just for the one I''m currently drilling for JLPTN2 related grammar/vocab. I don't know what the beginner courses are like.

I am studying Japanese and are at beginner - intermediate level.

 

We have used the books: Genki I / II second edition 2011 workbook/textbook.

For self-study: Japanese for busy people I roman and kana version; a good dictionary (pocket kenkyusha japanese-english / english-japanese).

 

Good luck with learning the language.

Edited December 21, 2015 by Guest

In university I got to study it better, in an actual classroom setting with Japanese teachers. I learned a lot faster now that I had other students with me that I could talk to. In my last year of uni i did a student exchange to Kyushu University in Japan and in that six months I lived there, my Japanese ability increased far, far more than it ever had in the space of the time Id spent in lessons. It just goes to show that NO amount of books and study is a match for actual lived experience!

 

I don't speak Japanese, but I do speak Spanish as a second language, and I'm going to agree with this especially. I took Spanish from the time I was 10 years old to well in to college and I learned more Spanish in the year I spent in Mexico than I ever did in classes. There's no better way to learn a language than being completely immersed in it all the time. You just can't beat it. Not to mention it's fun to travel to learn these languages. I really want to do this with Japanese, I stalk Danny Choo's job postings often, haha! My husband doesn't want to live in Japan though, so it's a bit of a pipe dream for me.