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PO1 · Joined: 24 May 2010 Posts: 136

Thanks Bread and kotoko. I will check these out. Seems like they are up my alley. I just received a book in the mail "Essential Kanji." Seems like a pretty good resource. The format is a bit baffling so far, but it reminds me a bit of Kanji Damage (without the funny parts.)

My main goals for the moment are:

1. Learning the "essential" kanji (Joyo, I suppose) as in the 2,000 or so that are most common

2. Increasing my ability to have conversations that last more than 10 minutes and don't just involve my likes, dislikes, how genki I am, or counting (my girlfriend's helping me with that, but so far it's mostly involving words like aishitemasu and dekishimatai, haha) Very Happy

3. Speaking naturally and not having the bad "foreign accent" (I know this is possible because I've watched tons of videos of foreigns speaking practically flawless and natural Japanese)

4. Increasing reading comprehension until at least junior high level (for the moment)

I'm happy so many people shared what has worked for them. Keep them coming if you know more! Thanks!

kotoko · Joined: 22 Jun 2010 Posts: 109

RollingStone · Joined: 19 Jan 2009 Posts: 138

Most expats, even long-term ones, in Japan have awful-to-nil Nihongo skills.

If you want to learn a language you have to immerse yourself in it. Period. There is a whole <strike>racket</strike> industry that claims/promises that (insert random product) will get you quickly proficient in (insert language). Well, they tell people what people want to hear.

Know why there are so many products, techniques published by the uber-credentialed? Reason 1. Coz none of em work.

My advice - if you want to read Japanese, real Japanese - then start reading it. If you want to speak Japanese, start listening to it. A lot of it. Listen to as close to 24hr/day as you can muster. Then make every effort to imitate it. After you have built up a solid vocabulary and are proficient in common, daily communication, then you may wish to take a formal course on grammar.

In other words, immerse yourself, don't kid yourself. (and by "immersion" I do not mean the common, oxymoronic use, as in "immersion software"(!) or "immersion course") Constant and consistent exposure to the language.

Steps to efficient immersion:

1. Heisig - at least volume I. Know these cold.
2. Alphabets
3. Read. A lot.*
4. Listen. A lot.*
5. Build vocabulary using complete sentences. A lot.*
6. And just an observation here - this phenomenon of guys sounding effeminate is a prime example of what you get when you think cutting corners is a short cut.
7. Another observation - flashcard software are HIGHLY overrated and the best of them are only so because they come closest to - (!) the real thing. When I started learning kanji I used anki then decided to test a growing suspicion that actual flash cards would allow for flexibility and creativity and thus, be more effective. I was right. There seems to be a religious notion that somehow computer software is magical. I'm sure many will laud the "convenience" of software (it is anything but), but creativity is essential to the learning process and software is very limited in that dept.

* "A lot" - every day, all day is preferred; by the thousands.

fluffyhamster · Posted: Sun Aug 15, 2010 6:18 pm Post subject:

If the Essential Kanji is the one by O'Neill, I bought that once (to stand in for Hadamitzky & Spahn's Kanji & Kana) but before long gave it away (for free - silly generous me!) to a tight (i.e. non-book buying) JET colleague who I couldn't bear to continue to see struggling to pass whatever JLPT because of his self-enforced lack of study materials!

Anyway, I recall that the O'Neill wasn't bad, but it must've been a bit dated, if only because it used Wade-Giles rather than Pinyin romanization for the Chinese pronunciations* it supplied (not a bad bonus even if in Wade-Giles) beyond the Japanese On and Kun readings, and the Hadamitzky & Spahn seemed appreciably the better (more clear, detailed and informative) resource overall. (You can find more detailed comments from me regarding the H&S by searching). But not to worry, I am sure one could "make do" and be getting on with just the O'Neill for the time being at least.

Make sure by the way that you've completely finished whatever general ("spoken" language) coursebooks you've got (i.e. don't start buying and hopping around in too many), as they can and will only be fully effective (to whatever degree their quality allows) when seen in a (their) whole, "internally consistent" light. And I would advise that you do this before immersing yourself (or certainly, before immersing yourself for too long and in the "process" thereby perhaps putting off whatever "formal/bookish" foundation you could and should really be laying in order to improve; formal study is an attempt - not always 100% successful, and not by itself quite sufficient, but still - to condense and focus on what might take many chance encounters to really notice and appreciate, learn, master, 'acquire', whatever). But by all means get books and dictionaries dedicated to grammar/usage, writing, discourse analysis, etc (Senko Maynard's stuff on DA looks interesting; and Jay Rubin's book is interesting too, but quite FUN with it!).

*AFAIK (or can remember) the only other bilingual kanji resource to supply Chinese pronunciations (in Pinyin) is the original Kenkyusha/NTC New Japanese-English Character Dictionary edited by Jack Halpern.
http://gokanji.com/cgi-bin/j-e/inline/jiten?SASE=/cgi-bin/j-e/inline/index.html

Okonomiyaki · Posted: Thu Aug 19, 2010 9:58 am Post subject:

Bravo to the poster who suggested Lang8.com. I hadn't known about that one-- but it sounds great. I used to do something similar by becoming penpals with Japanese tourists: we'd write in English and Japanese, each sentence in both languages, and correct one-another. The positive reinforcement kept me interested on an otherwise lllllooooong path.

http://www.amazon.com/Kodansha-Kanji-Learners-Dictionary/dp/4770028555/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1282209039&sr=8-1
For reading Kanji, there is NOTHING that compares to Kodansha's kanji learners' dictionary. True, it uses a unique-unto-itself method of finding each Kanji in its pages, but it's easy to learn and the English explanations of the Kanji (with example sentences in Japanese) make this book worth its weight in gold.

For flashcards and learning Kanji one-by-one.... yeeeow. Make your own. Seriously. The flashcards you can buy, and the flashcard software (including the junk online) are 99% booooring, simply showing you a Kanji and asking you to parrot its meaning... without actually giving you a WAY to ASSOCIATE that shape with that meaning!
Make flashcards that open like little greeting cards, so you have space to write little cartoons that will help you to visually associate the Kanji shapes with the meaning and/or the sounds.

A book that does this well is http://www.amazon.com/Kanji-Pict-O-Graphix-Over-Japanese-Mnemonics/dp/0962813702/ref=sr_1_7?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1282209279&sr=1-7 Kanji Pict-O-Graphix. Sadly, it only covers roughly the first two hundred Kanji, so it can't take you all the way up to 1,850 kanji (the high school graduation standard)...but after using this book to get the idea, you can then make your own set of flashcards.

(I'm soooo tempted to make a set and bring it to a publisher!)

People here are suggesting shonen MANGA, and I have to agree with them. Stick to the manga that have "furigana". Furigana, also called "ruby", are the little Hiragana marks next to Kanji which allow learners to read otherwise impenetrable Kanji.

The "Hiragana Times" is a magazine that also uses Furigana to teach you Kanji, but the Kanji it teaches are waaay over the heads of most foreign learners. So... stick to the "shonen" (young folks') manga.

Very importantly, a shonen manga will also teach you how REAL people speak. In English, would you say "Excuse me, would you please turn down your radio"? Or would you say "Yo! Keep it down, bro"? Similarly, in the Japanese that you REALLY hear, you're more likely to hear "...rrrrRUSEEEE!" and "..'Chiwasu!" than "URUSAI!" and "Konnichiwa".

For a dictionary that takes you most of the way from beginner to intermediate Japanese speaker, try Collins-Shubun's English-Japanese dictionary. Get the full sized one that bursts the seams on your largest pocket, not the pathetic "gem" one that barely covers the basics. http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=collins+shubun&x=0&y=0 Granted, the Collins-Shubun book isn't perfect. For example, it lists "Watakushi" (I, me), but not "Ore" nor "Boku" nor the effeminate version, "Atashi". As major, MAJOR plusses, though, it has these three:

1) accent marks. NO, JAPANESE IS NOT MONOTONE. It's painful to listen to someone who learned from a dictionary that didn't have accent marks to show which syllables are stressed in each Japanese word!

2) Romaji AND kanji/hiragana, so you get the benefit of both.

3) Example sentences, breaking down the way each word might be used in different contexts. For example, "Anata" (you) can be used between strangers who don't know one another's name, and can also be used as an intimate way for a wife to speak to her husband. Also, words that don't translate well, such as "and", are given the space they need to explain "A to B to C" and "A ya B ya C" and so on.

4) The emphasis is on the -MASU versions of verbs, not the "dictionary" -U, -RU versions of verbs. This is great because 80% of your time in Japan, you'll be using the -MASU versions (dekimasu, orimasu, tabemasu, tabemashita, dekimashita, etc.) in daily conversation.

LABEL YOUR HOUSE. Seriously. Walk around and put post-its on everything you own. Start with the kanji nouns, and test yourself by saying them ALOUD when you walk into a room, before you can see them clearly. Later, add related adjectives to the post-its, and finally, put complete sentences on the post-its. When you do all this, TALK TO YOURSELF ALOUD. Seriously. Language is a PHYSICAL HABIT: just doing it in your head will leave you stuttering and spluttering, unable to carry on a conversation even though you KNOW the words.

USE THE EMPTY TIMES. Bring flashcards onto the bus, or into the bathtub, or the dentist's waiting room. Take advantage of those "empty times" to teach yourself.

Finally, listen to what these posters are saying about Japanese girlfriends. Yes, they are private tutors who keep you motivated, and that's really indispensable... but don't imitate them too closely. "Butch up" your verb endings, in particular, by sounding more definitive and gruff: use "desuyo" instead of "desho", and so on.[/url]

genesis315 · Joined: 30 Mar 2010 Posts: 116 Location: Japan

i find sounding out the lyrics in songs that I like to be very helpful, especially songs with quick tempos.

Okonomiyaki · Posted: Thu Aug 19, 2010 11:00 am Post subject:

genesis315 · Joined: 30 Mar 2010 Posts: 116 Location: Japan

hmmm, I have trouble understanding most of the stuff in English pop songs! I wonder if that is what is actually occuring when Japanese say that the Jpop songs are incomprehensible?

I cannot imagine that Jpop artists are speaking gibberish.

Okonomiyaki · Posted: Thu Aug 19, 2010 12:40 pm Post subject:

Right, Genesis: Jpop is not gibberish Japanese; it's just hard to make out with all the background noise, and the word-rhythms are dictated by the music rather than by normal speech patterns.

Imagine you were at a KISS concert, listening to "Christine, 16... Christine, 16...!" Would you really want to try to learn English using those lyrics?

As I mentioned earlier, though, the intro-songs and closing-songs of Japanese anime shows are a big exception. They're generally sung clearly, with furigana (phonetic subtitles).