learning japanese

a few years back, i started learning japanese. i had to stop due to the fact that i had more important things going on. i managed to learn my hiragana and katakana.

i'm just wondering where the best place to start is...is it better to learn the kana first or grammar should be first (with phonetic western alphabet)?

any tips much appreciated

 

It's best to learn a shit load of words first along with basic grammar. Then learn your Hiragana and Katakana. Then move on to more complex grammar and more vocab' then on to learning the shitty make no sense kanji.

Yakumo

 

thanks, anything else i should know?

 

Yeah, don't expect any Japanese to speak slowly for you when you try to speak to them

Yakumo

 

it's not exactly hard to memorize hiragana and katakana, do that. the faster you start reading and writing in japanese the better.

 

Community College is probably the 3rd best place to start, followed only by living in Japan, and University. All things considered, it's a lot of bang for buck. Just don't be alarmed by the type of students Japanese classes at community college cater to.

 

What type are they then? I've never had the chance. Are they the Gaki's (or is it Gakki?) of the world? I learned my Japanese just by being here. I hate to study which is why my Kanji level is pathetic but at least I can speak and that's what's most important. Because then if you can't read something you can just ask someone.

Yakumo

 

I'm guessing he's talking about the "otaku" types

 

You sir, hit the nail on the head. I also got a few other "unclassifieds" in my couple of community collegel classes. *shudders*

The flip side is, in university, you're more likely to get a couple of Asian kids, probably Chinese, that have lived in Japan a year, speak really well, and show off most of the time.

Obviously as Yakumo said, being there is the best, but if you don't take a class, you might wind up being able to say a lot, but not really having a solid foundation for the grammar. Makes for a wobbly house, if you know what I mean.

Study up boys!

EDIT: Hawaii isn't bad either. Only a few million Japanese people here.

 

I'll vouch for the otaku types in community colleges and those Chinese types at Universities. Also if you go to Japanese University, you get the "I went to International school, and therefore I can't read Japanese" Japanese type.

Meh sometimes, I'd rather have the ability to speak then just read things. Especially when chatting with the old folks. Then I think of the RPGs, and it's all right I guess.

Yeah learning a crap load of vocab is key, the problem becomes remembering'em. Also, kanji is insane, but there is a method to it's madness, but it's still madness.

 

are kanji necessary to learn for the casual speaker/writer or can you go about without them. IIRC, kanji are japanese renditions of certain chinese kana right? (or close to them anyway)

 

Depends on what do you mean by casual speaker/writer.

Yes Kanji are the Japanese version of traditional Chinese characters (hanzu?), their are some differences in writing and meaning, but it's good enough match that if you understand Chinese characters you can extract the meanings and readings at times.

 

I'd say that you can live quite well without knowing Kanji. Just as long as you know the Kanji to the place you want to travel to since not all trains or buses use English or even Hiragana. All train stations however do have the names written in Hiragana. If you're driving you'll notice that every main sign is in English and well as Japanese. Just remember that the Japanese drive on the same side as us Brits, Aussies, Chinese and Singaporians So that's cool for me but not for my mate from Germany

Yakumo

 

Kanji eventually gets not so hard to learn. The first 800 of them are quite hellish though. You can function extremely well in society with knowing 1000. 1500+ and you're pretty unstoppable, as long as you know a lot of vocabulary to use them.

 

I didn't want to make a whole new thread when this was here, so...

I've always wondered, why is Hiragana used more often in sentences than Katakana? Is Katakana reserved for nouns?

Also, I think it was discussed in another thread, but why is a hyphen included in some Katakana words? For example (What I found at the Nintendo Japan site): Super Donkey Kong 3 in Japanese (スーパードンキーコング３).

I'm very fascinated in learning more about the Japanese language & culture and hope to visit there sooner or later! :020:

 

Hiragana is used for Japanese words only while Katakana should be used for non Japanese words but sometimes Japanese us it for Japanese words such as Gomen (Short friendly version of Gomennasai which means sorry). Why? Who knows! The Japanese make it up as they go along I say.

The small dot and two dashes change the sound of the Hiagana or Katakana. Take a look below.

HA - HI - FU - HE - HO becomes PA - PI - PU - PE - PO if the dot is used

HA - HI - FU - HE - HO becomes BA - BI - BU - BE - BO if the two dashes are used

This is because there are no kana for those sounds. Not only can the "H" sounds be changed with the two dashes but also "S" which becomes "Z" and "T" which becomes "D" and "K" which becomes "G" I hope that makes sence to you. So Donky Kong would be written like this. Only the "H" sound uses the dot.

TONKI- KONKU （トンキー　コンク） but add the two dashes to TO and KU will give you DO and GU spelling DONKI- KONGU （ドンキー　コング） which is Donkey Kong. The ー sign or line if you want to call it that just extends the sound of the letter before it.

Yakumo

 

Katakana is also used for Bobby!

You write originally japanese words in katakana to add emphasis, or indicate they are badly pronounced or to make them emphatic and cool. So you could write temee, in hiragana but it is more powerful in katakana.

BTW hiragana is sometimes used to write original katakana words to make them cute, see most bishoujou games for evidence of that. Other example - pop your copy of chip chan kick into your fx and see how they have written option!

 

Yes those reasons are all right Warakia but I'd say they are more "Pop culture" than actual rules of Japanese. Still, like I said, they make it up as they go along

Yakumo

 

Hmmm if I should learn Japanese, I would learn the formal Japanese, just like when I learned English I would learn the formal English (Oxford English) to an extend.

Because I have always heard that if you speak very clearly, in any language you would be understood better, than speaking with a heavy accent. Even though I can speak American if I have to do it. Since I love languages and japanese is a language I would love to learn.

And yes it sounds snobby (to some people) , that I would speak a kind of Oxford English. But to me it is something else that drives me speaking a dialect like that.

So I would say Summimasen . But of course I would learn as much Japanese as possible

But what does summimas ka mean ? If you can say it ?

 

You can't say Sumimasen ka. It doesn't mean anything. Sumimasen mostly pronounced Sumasen just means excuse me or sorry.

Yakumo