learning japanese

Thanks for the tips guys. I'm sure starting is the hardest part. I'll look around for those books.

 

Starting is definately not the hardest part lol

 

I've had these for a long while now, and can't wait to read them over again once this school semester is over! Are there any other English to Japanese learning books that could be highly recommended? I think those should do.

 

Apparently "Japanese for busy people" is good, it's what my Japanese teacher and all the upper level students use.

 

Why is that?

 

B/c the basics are not really that hard. At least what you learn your first year. Hiragana, katakana, some verb tenses, grammar, and very basic vocabulary. It's the subleties after about 3 years that will start to kill you, and of course, kanji can only be learned by hours and hours of mind-numbing repetition.

I think the best books for reference, not for self-teaching, are the Beginner Dictionary of Japanese Grammar and Intermediate Dictionary of Japanese Grammar. Painfully hard to find though. The last place I saw them was Kinokuniya in Shinjuku.

 

You do build momentum very quickly and as long as you are practicing (read - playing jap games) everyday you will be fine. Japanese grammer is tough though - the problem is that it is hard to fit in western linguisitc systems. Try getting your head round the difference between Ha/Ga.

As for Japanese for busy people - I have that here and it is ok. They use romaji (which I think is bad for pronunciation) and very little kanji. It will get you speaking everyday japanese very quickly. (I brought it and never really used it)

mark30001 - that book on the left is the first book I ever used! I brought it just before I went to japan for the first time when I was 12. Ahhh those were the days. 12 year old in akihabara (with my mother - of course) good times.

 

Jeeze, 12 yrs old. I wish my mom would have taken me to Japan instead of France... *Jealous* :crying:

 

You could be like me and just learn the kana and sod the kanji since you'll pick up the ones you really need as time goes by. Speaking is the most important ! You can always ask what a Kanji says if you can't read it. For example, I just came back from ESSO after buying petrol for the car and paraffin for the fan heater. I had to use the machines which of course have no English. The kanji such machines use are the ones you'll see almost every day and probably the most important for daily life as long as you don't want to read books or newspapers. Personally I can't read a news paper in Japanese but if someone read it to me I'd have no problems in understanding.

Yakumo

 

that's the point! japanese sounds, compared with german e.g, like a children language. in fact the grammer itself is not that difficult, but damn different. the most difficult part of it is to know at which situation to choose which of the millions expression existing etc. an other hard difficulty is, the sheer nonfinite amount of phrases with allmost the same pronuncation. this part makes the understanding so damn hard (bidirectional of coz)! specially when they talking in some kind of slang!

 

I heard a comment about something not so good about it forgot what it was exactly, Think it was something about how it teaches the language, its accuracy you have to step away from english and romaji to learn the language or something..


The ones I might get are Genki and Yokosoo

 

I have a Yokosoo book... but to be honest I wouldnt recommend it... it's supposed to be used in a classroom setting with a specific book for the instructor, IIRC.

 

For those who know a little japanese already - A great little tip (I think..) Grab a copy of "undocumented the rumble fish" the arcadia guide book, inside on page 158 onwards there is all the (translated) dialogue from the game, I have just spent the past hour learning loads of great insults! (it is kinda hard to learn pure japanese rough language, for those wondering)

 

Although I've never used it to learn Japanese, Rosetta Stone (http://www2.rosettastone.com/en/offer/google2) seems really good. It's actually a lot of fun to use.

 

btw, i have a nice book called "Japanese via Manga"



it's good for the first few weeks, just to get into it
it's german though, but maybe you can find something similar

 

Yeah there is a version like that in English, never used it. It came a bit late in my study.

But grabbing some kiddy manga and a dictionary is another fun way to go. I used various japanese kids learning items when I started out. Wish I had had my playdia when I was a kid so I could have learned with ultraman!

 

Same thing works to a degree with Kiddy anime, stuff like Jagainukun is so basic it's impossible for the fansubbers to get wrong, so it's good for (very) basic conversational stuff.

 

Ugh, this question is going to sound really ignorant, but here goes: how often is ふりがな used in everyday Japanese publication and printed word? With the class I'm currently in Kanji is not a priority, so I know very few as of yet. Hiragana phonetics help me out a lot.

(By the way, hello!)

 

Welcome saikoroji! My no-nonsense advice is get the kanji sorted as while furigana turns up fairly often in manga, but no-where else really. You do see very difficult kanji picked out in furigana in everyday printed word, but most of the time you are stumped. I wouldn't rely on it being there, even in basic shonen manga, they will not do the basic kanji for you.

As for games, only a real handful have the old furigana,