learning japanese

Thanks for the info

 

Thanks you all for all the help! I started learning 5 years ago, but stopped because school started interfering. I still have the whole Katakana chart burned into my memory!

 

How are the international universities in Japan? Does anyone know about any of them? Ive been looking at a few, so it would be cool if anyone heard anything about them

 

may be he just wants to say "sumimasen ga..". which means "excuse me, but.."

 

Ahh, you could be right there. It's easy to mistake the kana for Ka and Ga if you don't see the 2 dashes.

Yakumo

 

Lots of gaijin do, as they pick it up from their girlfriends. Might get you laughed at down the road, but hopefully you got laid more than a few times on the way.

 

When I first started Japanese, my tutor took me aside and said the most important thing for me to do was to learn masculine Japanese. He even gave me a book on how to be rude in Japanese, a truly excellent resource, as now I can sound like a grumpy Japanese detective at will.

On top of that I learned most of my Japanese in Osaka which makes me sound crude outside of kansai if I put that on. At least I get "kakoeeeeeed" whenever I open my mouth. I would advise all men learning Japanese to get as rough as possible, means you actually sound like a Japanese male.

 

I would advise them to learn both, and also how to differentiate between the two. If you get good enough, people hold what you say against you... especially in the work place.

 

in most of the offices using "boku" already is too roughly! when i started work in japan, i used to say boku all times, till my joushi advised me to say watashi inside the office or even watakushi in front of the shacho for exp. but one of my big beginner mistake was to say always "ne" at the end of the sentence:noooo:

 

Yeah Keigo is another deal, I'm not a fan except when they use it on gankutsuou! Anyway keigo is my weak point, I can be polite in an office/official occasion, but my keigo pretty much operates on set phrases and verbs I have the hang of. It just doesn't sound very natural - oh well when I start working I guess I'll pick it up quite quickly. I can force a watakushi, but only at gunpoint.

See when you're starting out, and a gaijin you can pretty much get away with anything. Introduce yourself as 俺の名は？だ。 OR even 我が名は。。。　Very amusing!

 

The thing about Keigo is that it sounds super impressive when you know what you're doing, but when you get it wrong it backfires and is hugely embarrassing. For example saying "haiken itadakimasu" instead of "haiken itashimasu". Mistakes like that will make you sound like a total conceited prick.:evil:

Exactly. There's no way around learning all levels of speech, because you WILL have to be able to use them all in their own contexts if you plan to ever live and work in Japan for an extended period.

 

Damn. all these different types of Japanese are hurting my head. I'm wanting more and more to start learning again. Too bad I already forgot all my Kana.

It isn't really possible for me to go to Japan anytime soon just to learn the language (although going to Japan is something I'd really want to do in the future) so are there any good resources for someone in my situation to learn a good base from scratch?

 

Ok, everyone has texts they love, but one of my sensei (who has a phd in educational psychology!) says that the following are the best sources for starting to learn japanese.

There is a set of books called Minna no nihongo - which are great and are the best foundation one could ask for.
Also you can't go wrong with - A dictionary of basic Japanese grammer. Though some prefer the structured lessons of minna no nihongo.
If you are more linguistically inclined try Tsujimura's Japanese linguistics book before you start.

A friend of mine at cambridge uses "japanese for college students" and raves about it - although I think it is not as good as the minna series.

Anyway you could just go out and get any books, but I would steer away from ones for buisness people or tourists, as they don't give you a good foundation. Also make sure it does not write the script in romanji - learning in hiragana will help you in the long term. Good luck...

 

I am having the problem of not enough time, I do lessons for 2 hours every Saturday, but it's over by the time the class gets really rolling. I don't have enough time at home to go over my notes, so I am falling behind the student types who just drink and study... The Hiragana thing is easier now I can put it into the context of the lessons, but again, other than the odd 10 minutes in work, I don't get the time to go over anything...

 

I used to use Mina no Nihongo when I first started. I remember it being written in Roman letters as well so even if you couldn't read kana it was easy to get in to.

Yakumo

 

Oh just a note on my fav minna no nihongo - there are two books for each level. One is all in Japanese, the other translating it all for you. You need them both - get the japanese only one and you're up a certain creek without a certain instrument.

Also the Kano basic kanji books are the best as far as I can see. They are out of print but I scored 3 of them in an oxfam shop so you might get lucky!

BTW - beyond polite japanese = the starting point for basic slang.

Or wait for it........................... go out and score a japanese girlfriend. I got loads of kids kanji learning toys from one girl, always useful. Or get yourself a bandai playdia and get busy with the kids games!

 

Using a mobile phone is also a very good way to learn Kanji as you're mailing. Warakia, did you know that BOA learned Kanji from mailing or so she said on a TV interview.

Yakumo

 

Didn't know that! That is a good way, I think that is how I learned ones you don't see in text books like ore, ishou ni, tabun and tame. Still all very well and good for "real" japanese. The problem at university is they expect you to be able to write a solid thousand after one year. Writing just seems a little pointless - especially when a good (very clever) Japanese friend could not even remember 旅行! Still my kanji don't look very good - I was told they were cute(!) on one occasion... Not a good thing.

I just know that I have worked my arse off (ish) to learn how to write the damn things, then I will never need them and forget them like normal Japanese people. You only really need to be able to read moji.

Anyway what ever is good for BOA is good for me.