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[rich_n23]

Has anyone got any tips on learning Japanese before i move over there. Did anyone use any good books/study guides before they went? Initially i want to focus on speaking Japanese, but would obviously also like basic reading skills. Which is more important/useful to learn, Kana or ro-maji?

Also really curious about how easy it is to learn, some people tell me it's fairly easy, some say impossible. Bearing in mind i've not got a great track record with languages, speak basic french and german, a smatering of Spanish.

Any advice is welcome,

Thanks

rich

[brandont_h]

Try this for learning the kana.

http://www.lrnj.com

Registration is cheap and totally voluntary. I've been using this game for about two months now, and I've got a pretty good grasp on each character in the katakana and hirigana alphabets.

It teaches some basic kanji too, but since the game is still in development, there are only a couple of hundred kanji so far.

[gt37]

Go to a fairly large bookstore and look. I'm sure you can find a few books on learning Japanese there. I find books more suitable for studying as you can take them with you(library, train, coffee shop, etc) anyplace.

Another idea is to find a language exchange partner. Find a bulletin board in/near some language schools that you know has Japanese students and advertise. It'd be a good way to practise speaking Japanese and learn a little about the culture before coming over. However, be careful to speak Japanese if you do find a partner-most students' main purpose for visiting is to learn English.

Good luck!

[whatthefunk]

You must learn Kana. Get a workbook for it...it took me about three weeks to learn most of it. Make lots of Japanese friends. See if your city has an international center with a language exchange message board. Take lessons. Watch Japanese tv. Study alot. I think its pretty easy...been studying for a year and am getting the hang of it. good luck

[shuize]

[stillnosheep]

For learning the Hiragana and Katakana there is a system developed by James W. Heisig. I used it and learnt the Hiragana in under 3 hours. Learning the Katakana took about the same length of time.

Title: Remembering the Hiragana and Katakana
Author: James W. Heisig
isbn: 4-88996-072-4
Publisher: Japan Publications Trading Co. Ltd.

[ERINJK]

there is a good book for "Young Learners" that gets you going with your Hiragana and Katakana writing and reading!! "Japanese for Your People" (by Association for Japanese-Language teaching) you can get it from Amazon.com OR .ca OR.co.jp!! this will help you to start!

Another set

Introduction to Written Japanese - HIRAGANA (ISBN-0804820759)
or
Introduction to Written Japanese - KATAKANA (0804820767) by Jim Gleeson. You can get them from any of the amazons BUT I don't recommend .ca cause it's REALLY expensive. .CO.JP is cheapest OR the book stores here.

[glsco]

http://thejapanesepage.com/hhiragana1.htm

This site is completely free and you can pick up Hiragana in just a couple of hours. I was one of the ones that kept looking at the charts and saying there was no way I could learn all of those, but this site makes it really, really easy. There are programmable flashcards as well to help with studying and reviewing them.

http://thejapanesepage.com/katakana1.htm

Here is the katakana version of the same site. It's not quite as well laid out, but its also very effective.

You could probably learn both Hiragana and Katakana in one day, but it might not all stick. If you give it a couple days though you will have it in your head really well.

[Rorschach]

Of the two kana's hiragana is the easiest to learn in my opinion. It took me only 3 hours to learn it and remember how to write from memory. I found katakana harder to remember because it isn't used that often. That said, katakana is very important to learn because it helps you write kanji later on down the track. I didn't use a book to learn the kana's, just a sheet of paper where I practiced parts of the character subset (i.e. one sheet was just a, i, u, e, o/ka, ki, ku, ke, ko/sa, si, su, se, so). 46 characters looks like a lot but if you break it up into manageable pieces it's okay.

[Munchen]

I see you are a new arrival on this forum, less than a month.
As I've written before, "Learning Japanese" is a familiar topic which comes and goes fairly frequently.
First, go through all of past entries in this forum and you will find numerous excellent comments and input about learning Japanese, both written and oral.
Of course, nothing takes the place of going to Japan (or any other place where a language is spoken.)
I am likewise happy to see several new entries this time which is why in a sense this topic never really gets old.
Gambatte!

[bluefrog]

I can vouch for the James W. Heisig system. The catch is you have to stick to the system because he has a whole series of books. It`s really good for learning hiragan, katana and kanji. There are a set of flash cards (somewhat expensive) also to go with it.

[stillnosheep]

There is no need for the flashcardｓ. They are detrimental to the learning process.

Instead buy simple index cards and write out your own flashcards; a fraction of the price and the practice of writing is important as an aid to memory.

There is no need of flashcards for the kana. Simple word association plus writing each a few times should be enough.

[fizayded]

I like the book Im doing called Genki (from the Japan times) has a workbook too, and a cd as well. the textbook and workbook ran me about 60 bucks. The good thing about it is that it isnt full of romaji like other books, after about chapter 4 they cut you loose, and start introducing basic kanji as well. For learning the hiragana and katakana there is a book by michael rowley called kana-pict o grafix, that was helpful for me.

Other ones i hear that are good are minna no nihongo and shin nihongo no kiso.

ganbatte ne

[Rorschach]

Genki is a good foundation book to work with (the best IMO). It is very comprehensive in its approach. It starts simply enough and it nurses you through the basics during the first 3 chapters but after that it starts to become more comprehensive. I'm up to chapter 8 now and I have covered a lot of ground in that time. The katakana/hiragana exercises in the back of the book should be enough to learn the kana. It introduces basic kanji very quickly as well. The CD's are good as well but I was pretty lucky that my teacher burned off some copies for me, saved me about 10000yen.

[Zzonkmiles]

One piece of advice I commonly give new learners of Japanese is to ride the train or the subway for a few hours. It's totally free unless you get off the train at some far away station and walk through the ticket gate. When the train pulls into each station, you can usually see the station's name written in kanji, hiragana, and sometimes romaji. I picked up lots of kanji this way, especially the "on" readings. You'll also get practice listening to the station announcements while you ride the train. Because they make the same announcements before each stop, you'll get many chances to hear each individual word.

Once your reading gets a bit better, I also recommend playing Japanese video games, especially role playing games like Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest. That'll give you practice reading quickly. And as an added bonus, I've found the Japanese versions of these games to be a bit more difficult than their English adaptations.