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Canuck2112
Joined: 13 Jun 2003
Posts: 239
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 Posted: Tue May 18, 2004 12:21 pm Post subject: |
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| How long should one reasonably spend per day on learning Japanese, (presupposing that he/she won't spend any time on Kanji)? Of course this varies from person to person, but for some of you who have become reasonably competent, how long did you spend at it per day? I plan to set aside an hour per day. |
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stillnosheep
Joined: 01 Mar 2004
Posts: 2068
Location: eslcafe
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| Posted: Tue May 18, 2004 7:03 pm Post subject: |
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| Celeste wrote: |
| Kazaa? As in filesharing? This has Japanese lessons on it? WHo knew? |
not me, obviously ...
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MaverickHL
Joined: 18 May 2004
Posts: 1
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| Posted: Wed May 19, 2004 7:17 pm Post subject: |
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I have been doing just basic studies of japanese reading/writing the ones from the JLPT stuff. A good site to visit (especially if you are planning to take the JLPT stuff) is www.kanjisite.com it teaches the basic kana and kanji up to JLPT2, so that can bump your language skills to almost intermediate levels.
This of course does not include the proper stroke order of the kanji or kana, or how to use it in a meaningful grammatical form. Those I am still trying to find a decent site to learn. I can do JLPT4, but still need to continually practice or I will forget all that I have learned :p |
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J-kun
Joined: 13 Mar 2004
Posts: 43
Location: The Hell of Pachinko
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| Posted: Thu May 20, 2004 10:47 am Post subject: |
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www.intermediate-japanese.com
A cool site made by a buddy of mine. Not a whole ton of content yet but well done, I think. Lessons are based on actual conversations (not staged or scripted) with Japanese people. Also has a music section where he has found some tolerable j songs and put up the lyrics in Kanji, hiragana, romaji and English.
My advice to the OP: don't worry about kanji now- learn katakana first, then hiragana. You'll be surrounded by a surprising amount of english words in Japan, it's just that they're written in katakana.
I've found that I picked up the kanji I need (the ones for food, street signs etc...) just by being here. But, then again my goals with the language are pretty modest. You may be aiming higher. One more thing: when you speak to someone in Japanese and they answer you in English, as they often will, plow ahead in Japanese. At least they understood you. |
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MattElz
Joined: 07 Jan 2004
Posts: 92
Location: New York, NY, USA
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| Posted: Mon May 31, 2004 2:50 am Post subject: Pimsleur |
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| So I got the Pimsleur Barnes & Noble edition (10 CDs for 40 bucks). I just did the first lesson tonight, and I realize it's early, but it seems so much better than the course I took, and the other audio/book set I bought. This may be because I tend to learn aurally (former musician, problems with my eyes and numbers, find it easier to learn and listen in small groups, one on one). Thank you for recommending it. I may feel differently when I'm further along in the CDs but I'm optimistic about it right now. |
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melirae
Joined: 26 Feb 2004
Posts: 145
Location: Korea
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| Posted: Tue Jul 20, 2004 6:01 pm Post subject: |
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I managed to get the 6 CD Pimsleur set (with 10 lessons) for US$19.95 this weekend at B&N and I have to say I think this set is great. I am a little apprehensive about my arrival because I know sukoshi (one of my new words!) Japanese, but I'm feeling much better already because I think this set is going to help me learn enough that I don't have that deer-in-the-headlights look when someone speaks Japanese to me. I completely recommend this set to anyone who is like me and doesn't know any Japanese- it's really easy to follow. I'm looking forward to picking up more language skills once I'm there! 
Last edited by melirae on Thu Jul 22, 2004 1:56 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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monkey_z
Joined: 22 Jun 2004
Posts: 26
Location: Aichi
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| Posted: Tue Jul 20, 2004 7:39 pm Post subject: |
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Living Language Ultimate Japanese is VERY good. It is a book with 8 CDs. It teaches you a lot. You can get it at amazon.com for about 50 USD. It doesn't teach too many kanji, but it will give you a good foundation. Ultimate Advaned Japanese is ok too.
PS You shouldn't rush into learning kanji. Wait until you mastered hiragana, katakana, and romaji. You should wait until you are comfortable with the language (grammar and speaking)
Last edited by monkey_z on Wed Jul 21, 2004 12:20 am; edited 1 time in total |
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melirae
Joined: 26 Feb 2004
Posts: 145
Location: Korea
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| Posted: Tue Jul 20, 2004 8:28 pm Post subject: |
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I am working on learning katakana and hope to move to hirigana soon, but it's just so daunting to try to remember what look like a bunch of little symbols to me, and then relate them to sounds to make up words that I don't know the meanings of....  I was hoping that learning to speak a little would help me make sense of them, but I think that the conversations I'm learning are more likely to be written in kanji than either of the other two. And maybe I shouldn't try to mix my written learning with my audio learning yet. 
Anyone have any good tips for memorizing the katakana and hirigana? (I don't want to be illiterate, especially when it comes to grocery shopping time). Right now I'm doing flashcards and thinking that rote memory is the way to go, but any advice would be appreciated!!
PS- background of my Japanese language knowledge for advice- I know basically none- about 25 words. |
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guest of Japan
Joined: 28 Feb 2003
Posts: 1601
Location: Japan
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| Posted: Wed Jul 21, 2004 12:09 am Post subject: |
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The trick to learning hiragana and katakana is consistency. You can sit down and memorize each set in about three hours each, but if you don't give a little practice everyday you will quickly forget. I've been in Japan nearly four years and I still make mistakes on some katakana, because I don't try to work with it enough.
Even if you don't remember all the symbols it's important to become comfortable with the sound system. You need to know how romaji is supposed to sound as opposed to reading English. A few months ago I bumped into a guy who had lived in Japan for a couple years. He spoke Japanese like it was Australian English. It was very difficult for Japanese people to understand him. |
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PAULH
Joined: 28 Jan 2003
Posts: 4672
Location: Western Japan
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| Posted: Wed Jul 21, 2004 1:17 am Post subject: |
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| melirae wrote: |
I am working on learning katakana and hope to move to hirigana soon, but it's just so daunting to try to remember what look like a bunch of little symbols to me, and then relate them to sounds to make up words that I don't know the meanings of.... I was hoping that learning to speak a little would help me make sense of them, but I think that the conversations I'm learning are more likely to be written in kanji than either of the other two. And maybe I shouldn't try to mix my written learning with my audio learning yet.
[color=indigo]PS- background of my Japanese language knowledge for advice- I know basically none- about 25 words. |
Melirae
the reason you are having trouble is Katakana is the japanese rendition of foreign words. if you want to say your name in Japanese it will be Me-ri-sa, not Melissa. Ice-cream is aisu-kuri-mu, written in katakana.
Katakana words can not be put into Kanji as they are not Japanese words but come from foreign or non-japanese words. If you want to see what the katakana is you have to find the foreign equivalent
e.g.
terebi television
rajio radio
pasukon personal computer
Katakana uses the same syllabary as hiragana but the symbols are different becuase they have different uses and stand for different things
Kanji is used for Japanese nouns, and the stems of Japanese verbs and adjectives. You have to learn the kanji and then the ending for each of the the verbs e.g. -iru, -eru, -aru etc are put into hiragana.
You will see kanji and hiragana used in the same word in Japanese.
You have to learn what is called the on-yomi (japanese reading) and the kun-yomi which is the original chinese reading (the kanji reading used in nouns etc) e.g. the kun-yomi for woman is "jo" and is used for all words related to women e.g " josei" (girl) kanojo (her) " josei-rashiku" (feminine) . The Japanese reading of the Chinese is "onna" which is a Japanese word for women. |
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melirae
Joined: 26 Feb 2004
Posts: 145
Location: Korea
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| Posted: Wed Jul 21, 2004 2:00 am Post subject: |
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I do understand that the katakana is for "loan" words. My problem is rembering that "so" is represented by what looks like a smiley with only one eye, "tsu" is the smiley wtih two eyes, etc... This is my first time with a non-roman letter foreign language and I'm trying to make relations for all the symbolsm because that seems to be my method for memorization- association. Is there any rhyme or reason to the symbols and the sounds they represent? Like is there a pattern to them?
I've a feeling the advice is going to be to just got through my flash cards until I memorize them...
Should I be concentrating more on learning to read or speak, i.e. what's going to help me more initially when I arrive? I have just over a month and lots of free time to devote to studying both.
Merinda |
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PAULH
Joined: 28 Jan 2003
Posts: 4672
Location: Western Japan
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| Posted: Wed Jul 21, 2004 2:46 am Post subject: |
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| melirae wrote: |
I do understand that the katakana is for "loan" words. My problem is rembering that "so" is represented by what looks like a smiley with only one eye, "tsu" is the smiley wtih two eyes, etc... This is my first time with a non-roman letter foreign language and I'm trying to make relations for all the symbolsm because that seems to be my method for memorization- association. Is there any rhyme or reason to the symbols and the sounds they represent? Like is there a pattern to them?
Merinda |
Melirae
Its just like the japanese here when they learn the abc's. It is second nature to us but a whole new orthographic writing system. as well as that with the alphabet you can not tell how a word is pronounced by looking at it (cough, through, bough, tough, slough).
You simply have to memorise them as you would the ABC. Each one has one one sound which makes it quite easy.
its probably better to look at the hiragana and then see them used in context. Normally you will not see them in isolation but used with other kanji and hiragana
Daves does not handle japanese so I cant show you here, but you will recognise words e.g train station names, types of food etc that are written in hiragana. you will find very little here written in Romanji as japanese have no use for romanised writing (in fact there are three romanised versions in use and they can become more confusing than hiragana)
You will see the hiragana used in adjectives ending in -i e.g. atarashii, samui, atsui, yasui etc. and the copula adjectives with -na e.g. hen na, fuben na, (BTW these words use the Chinese readings plus na, while the -i adjectives use the Japanised form. e.g. the word hen means strange or odd, but the Japanised on-yomi form is kawaru which means "change".
Yasui means cheap, but the reading in Chinese form is sometimes "an"
Its like learning two different words, with similar meanings but different readings. japanese has a lot of homonyms too, with the same sound but different meaning. they tell the difference by reading the Kanji for each word, but cant do it if it is in romanji or hiragana.
Hiragana were originally pictures hundreds of years ago and they resembled a story in pictures. If you can use the hiragana as a pnemonic to help you remember it makes it easier (a pnemonic is like saying :dont touch my mustache for 'doo itashimashite (you're welcome).
There are books you can buy that help you learn hiragana etc in this way.
When learning Kanji there are over 2000 of the suckers to learn and it takes Japanese to the end of high school to master them all, about 12 years. For us foreigners the best way is to know that the Kanji is made up up to 4 parts called radicals (left, right, upper, lower) and each radical has a meaning. Kanji is characterised and ordered by the radicals. Learn what they are and it makes learning Kanji easier. E.g. the kanji for "ki" or tree is like a stick figure with arms spread downwards. Two of them side by side is "hayashi" or bush. Put another "ki" on top and you have "mori" or forest.
Its possible to come here without any Kanji whatsoever (I didnt even know katakana) and still pick up the language as many textbooks use Romanji. If you want to read anything though, you will need Kanji, hiragana and katakana. Many people live here years without being able to read Japanese but they can speak it well enough. To learn vocabulary and learn japanese you will need to learn to read though as 99% of language here is in one of those three versions, not romanji. |
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PAULH
Joined: 28 Jan 2003
Posts: 4672
Location: Western Japan
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| Posted: Wed Jul 21, 2004 2:54 am Post subject: |
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here is a site you may find useful for learning the Kanji
http://www.kanjiclinic.com
Good luck
Paul |
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Erikku
Joined: 07 Nov 2004
Posts: 20
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| Posted: Thu Nov 25, 2004 7:18 pm Post subject: |
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| Canuck2112 wrote: |
| How long should one reasonably spend per day on learning Japanese, (presupposing that he/she won't spend any time on Kanji)? Of course this varies from person to person, but for some of you who have become reasonably competent, how long did you spend at it per day? I plan to set aside an hour per day. |
I spend like five, six hours at a stretch when I'm really in the groove. I've spent longer doing Kanji, but that was back in the day when I was really good at them 
It's funny how you ask about how long should one spend during the day. When your level increases, you begin to slowly realize that there simply ISN'T enough time to really know eveything |
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Glenski
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
Posts: 12844
Location: Hokkaido, JAPAN
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| Posted: Thu Nov 25, 2004 10:59 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
| Katakana words can not be put into Kanji as they are not Japanese words but come from foreign or non-japanese words. |
| Quote: |
| I do understand that the katakana is for "loan" words. |
Yup, this is what I was taught in my first Japanese class at university. However, the reality is that you will find katakana used for many other purposes, too, some rather surprising.
Sometimes they use it for furigana.
Sometimes they use it for Japanese people's names (like in a student roster for your attendance book).
Sometimes it is used for regular Japanese words! Watch TV sometimes, and if you can wade through the (senseless) printing of practically every conversation on things like variety shows, you will see what I mean.
My Japanese wife just smiled knowingly at me and laughed when I told her that katakana was only used for loan words and sound effects (in comics). She said, "We use it for many things. No rules." |
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