EPT
Any experience Learning Japanese?
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Deltawolf
United States105 Posts
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Sufficiency
Canada23833 Posts
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Cambium
United States16368 Posts
How determined are you in learning it? If you are not 100% motivated, I would not bother. It's not an easy language to learn by any stretch unless you are Korean or Chinese (even then, it's still a bitch). | ||
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Deltawolf
United States105 Posts
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DCLXVI
United States729 Posts
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da_head
Canada3350 Posts
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rauk
United States2228 Posts
but if it's for something like manga, they generally have furigana except for the most common kanji. | ||
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kainzero
United States5211 Posts
First of all, if you're gonna go for 2 weeks to a month, you'll be fine knowing very basic Japanese. With enough pointing and charades and very limited Japanese you can live there just fine. My cousin is doing that right now, and he lives in the countryside. There are many different ways to start learning. I recommend taking introductory classes at community college, and supplementing it with self-study. Classes are great because they give you an overview of everything you need to know, and you can meet people in class. For self-study, I use a program called Anki to help me study, which are the smart flashcards I'm talking about. Instead of reviewing piles of sentences and words every day, Anki uses an optimization formula in order to help you memorize things for the long-term. Kanji isn't as big a problem as people make it out to be. Read Kanjidamage. It makes perfect sense out of kanji and turns it from a pile of pictures into things you can easily understand. I would probably start out by taking classes and using the sentences and vocabulary words from Kanjidamage in Anki. For additional practice with written Japanese, use Lang-8. If you need to practice spoken Japanese, make friends on Lang-8 and Skype with them. Many will be happy to help you out. As you get better, you'll start hitting a stride and it will become easier to pick up new concepts and vocabulary but in the beginning it's just a grind-fest. | ||
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Cambium
United States16368 Posts
On November 04 2010 12:06 Deltawolf wrote: This is my first foreign language. I take a martial arts that I am passionate about, and I'd like to train in Japan for a 2 week - month long period. I am hoping to travel there about a year from now, so I'd at least like to be proficient enough to live and operate comfortably even if I'm not 100% fluent. To live and operate comfortably have more to do with understanding the Japanese culture and social norms than being able to speak the language. For example, I think my language skill is pretty awful, but I know I can live very comfortably in Japan. I think it's a good idea to take a few classes to get started, they provide structure, which is very important in starting a language. After you have a decent grasp on the basic grammar, you can probably try to learn it through a language partnership program (basically find someone who wants to learn English and do a verbal language exchange). Half of the battle is knowing enough common phrases. Also, if you are not Chinese, you'll have a lot of problems reading signs in Japan. But luckily, almost all train stations have signs in both English and Japanese. | ||
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Deltawolf
United States105 Posts
Thanks guys you answered my question! Suck it up and learn it because it's not THAT hard but it isn't essential to my main mission :-p @KainZero - checking out Lang-8 and kanjidamage as I will need to know Kanji down the road for some of the older manuscripts from my martial art. | ||
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Shana
Indonesia1814 Posts
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Takkara
United States2503 Posts
You can make it surprisingly far in Japan as a tourist with just English. Learn just enough Japanese to be polite in very common social situations and then just fudge the rest. Like foreigners going to Korea, you can pick up some of it as you go along if you're motivated. Otherwise English, humility, and pointing can take you a long way. | ||
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Deltawolf
United States105 Posts
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KurtistheTurtle
United States1966 Posts
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Cambium
United States16368 Posts
On November 04 2010 13:16 Deltawolf wrote: Thanks for that Takkara. Training is sometimes out in the countryside though where English isn't as prevalent. So depending on the time of the year will greatly determine the amount of translators available when they are teaching. That is my main concern :-p That and ordering food lol Where exactly? I was in Tottori for four months, and even there, people spoke enough English for me to get my points across most of the time. The thing about Japan is that people have to learn English in high school and University; they aren't actually that horrible at the language, they are just horribly shy. | ||
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Deltawolf
United States105 Posts
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Zerokaiser
Canada885 Posts
Japanese is definitely one of the hardest languages to learn for an English speaker, but it's perfectly doable, you just need to apply yourself to it. But I'd be confident in saying 99% of people absolutely can not become anywhere near fluent without spending at LEAST over a year in Japan. If you're serious about learning the language, then go to Japan and really apply yourself to learning. Don't try to get by on English and avoid tough situations. The fact that so many Japanese people can speak English is an invaluable learning aid for you, ask a ton of questions. | ||
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fredd
Estonia256 Posts
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Zerokaiser
Canada885 Posts
On November 04 2010 14:33 fredd wrote: all these people saying japanese is one of the hardest languages have no clue really spoken japanese is relatively easy, and that's all you pretty much need from what you said. Japanese has a completely different grammatical form, and most of the language is completely alien to an English speaker. The toughest languages for English speakers to learn are those like Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Arabic, Polish... | ||
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Shiragaku
Hong Kong4308 Posts
It also teaches Chinese, Korean, Geography and other subjects as well. Very very good site. | ||
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