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[rikai]

[starteacher]

To start, use

Japanese for Busy People
and/or Minna No Nihongo.

There's enough in these to keep you busy with hiragana, katakana and Kanji.
Once you finish complete these, you'll know what the next step will be.

[naujokaitis]

what is a good resource/method for learning kanji?

i've learnt kana (going to keep practicing everyday) and now want to move onto kanji.

i found charts of kanji that school children learn according to grade, here:
http://www.learn-japanese.info/downloads.html
and i figure i should just start with those, learning a few a day.

i am doing lessons on smart.fm, i did the kana lessons on there. they are pretty good. now i am thinking of starting in on Japanese Core 2000. it's for learning vocab, however you can do it either in kana mode of full mode (kana w/ kanji) or kanji-focus mode. should i go through it in kana mode and learn kanji separate, or should i just jump into the deep end and do full-mode?


any thoughts?

[Inflames]

I used the first Genki in university (for my one Japanese class), so I generally like those books (I bought and used them when I moved to Japan). My complaints about those books are that they're really grammar books with minimal vocab in them. Moreover, the vocab you do learn isn't overly useful to a beginner. The grammar seems crammed in, especially in the second book (the first one goes fairly slowly).

They have a separate kanji section in the back that I liked. The Genki books are designed to get you to about level 3. I recommend (if one chooses Genki) just going through them and learning additional vocab (things for daily life) as necessary. After finishing them, I bought some level 2 JLPT books (vocab/kanji books) and a cheap elementary school kanji book and started studying every day.

Now I'm using mnemosyne to learn JLPT level 1 vocab and grammar (actually I made combined cards for level 1 and level 2) and study them every day. I don't recommend it for learning kanji but it's good for vocab and grammar points, plus the fact that it repeats cards is useful.

There are two more things. For one, don't be afraid to speak Japanese. Improving doesn't happen just by studying at home; you have to actually go out and use it. Also, you have to study every day. Most people spend a lot of time each day on the internet or watching TV. If you spend an hour each day studying Japanese, you can improve quickly. At a minimum, spend 15 minutes a day reviewing stuff (like vocab or kanji).

[mushroomyakuza]

Guys I have a real noob question, so please excuse me but...

How do I know the difference between hiragana and katakana and kanji? I understand that Kanji looks more complex, but is there not a simpler way?

Being a beginner, I'd like to learn hiragana, as this seems to be the nearest thing to the English alphabet, in the sense that the symbols stand for sounds - but how do I know hiragana from Kanji? Won't most signs, posters and such like be in Kanji? I guess what I'm asking is, where am I most likely to encounter hiragana?

And am I correct in understanding that katakana is a collection of words that Japan has "borrowed" from other languages?

[Ryu Hayabusa]

@mushroomyakuza

Once you know how to read Hiragana, you'll easily be able to spot what's Kanji and what's Hiragana.

edit: Katakana is a syllabary used to approximate (not closely enough in my opinion) the sounds of foreign languages. It's also used for onomatopoeia, italics, and to mark a difference from regular speech. A robot's dialogue in a comic, for example, might be written as Katakana to illustrate that the robot speaks like a robot.

edit again: Katakana has other uses as well, but those are the main ones.

You should learn Hiragana first. For me, Katakana was easier to learn after I had leaned Hiragana.

[mhard1]

Hiragana and Katakana sounds are the same. Hiragana is just the native writing system, where as katakana is used for borrowed words and being cute and stuff. Kanji is a collection of originally chinese characters, which can either be read with their native chinese sound, or with a Japanese sound, depending on the word.

It depends where you look as to what you will encounter the most. Shops and stores use a lot of katakana as well as kanji. Hiragana usually fills in the gaps of what the kanji does not cover.

Katakana is not a collection of words, but an alphabetic system to write the words that they borrow from other languages.

You can tell Hiragana from Kanji basically by learning Hiragana, which is significanlty fewer characters to memorize. Other than that, most hiragana characters have significantly fewer and simpler strokes than their kanji counter parts.

[shostahoosier]

There are 46 basic sounds in the Japanese language and each of those sounds has a Hiragana character and a Katakana character.

You can usually tell them apart as Katakana is less curvelinear and more simplified than hiragana.

For example:

か is the hiragana version of the syllable sound "KA"
カ is the katakana version of the syllable sound "KA"

ぬ is the Hiragana version of the sound "NU"
ヌ is the katakana version of the sound "NU"

Katakana and Hiragana arent words, they're basically letters used to make words. Hiragana is used for native words and Katakana is used for foreign words and onomatopoeia. Of course with any language there are exceptions (the word tobacco) but for the most part this rule holds true.

Once you get started you will see that its pretty difficult to confuse hiragana, katakana, and kanji characters.

There are a million resources on the web for learning kana...and they're pretty easy to pick up with steady practice every day.

[shostahoosier]

sorry, wasnt trying to be redundant...I think I was typing when you guys posted!

[mushroomyakuza]

Thanks all of you.

I'm actually feeling pretty committed to at least learning harigana now. Right now I feel so lost and isolated that understanding just some of the writing around me would be a big help.

Is it possible to learn hiragna purely from the internet?

[ShioriEigoKyoushi]

--

[wayne432]

Hiragana and katakana can be easily learned from the internet.

Do a search and you'll come up with the charts, then you can just practice memorization. A lot of websites also show the correct stroke order for them.
With an hour of studying a day, the average person could learn one chart in a week. However, then you'll want to practice reading them out loud to further to instill them even further into your brain.

I've passed level 2... and to be honest, I find katakana the hardest part of Japanese.

[Apsara]

[wayne432]

Because even if I don't know the exact meaning of some kanji, I can determine a decent guess based on radicals or context.

When I see katakana words, I have to sorta take a step back... especially if it's multiple words put together ... to give an example... ハッピーバースディ
Although it's an easy example... I've been caught thinking of it as one full word or possibly split the words at the wrong section "Happiba"

Anyhow, don't know why, but kanji just seem more friendly to me... But could just be I like them more.

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