How did you learn Japanese?

[Nurin]

1- Remembering the Kanji

2-Manga/Anime/VN's/LNs

3-Gramar books

4-Pratice/pratice/pratice

[Swarz]

@Nura: How long did it take to learn the language?

[Nurin]

I'm still learning, but to translate whithout help, it will take more 3 Months I think....

[Swarz]

I'm still learning, but to translate whithout help, it will take more 3 Months I think....

I see. But, how long have you been learning, then? I wanted to get a rough idea of how long you'd have to learn the language to be able to read a LN. And, are you self taught?

Thank you for answering.

[Nurin]

I am learning for serious since one month ago, when I started translating Mayo Chiki! but I already know the Kanas before.

[rpapo]

I am learning for serious since one month ago, when I started translating Mayo Chiki! but I already know the Kanas before.

One month? Well, some people have a knack for languages, and some people are younger and more flexible. I reached fluency in Spanish inside of six months, but that was living in a country and environment where I had no choice but to learn the language. I can, to this day, function in Spanish 100% of the time without difficulty, and can read a Spanish text in English at a normal speaking rate, and do the same with an English text into Spanish.

Now, thirty years later, I have been working on Japanese for over five years now. I can understand much of what I hear in anime now, and can translate Japanese from both light novels and from manga . . . but it is still a fair amount of work. Japanese is a much more difficult language, and I am much older, and between the two factors I have a long way to reach my goal: fluency, if not necessarily the same fluency I have in Spanish.

Mind you: I started working on Japanese in order to learn the language and culture, not in order to watch anime or read manga. Getting involved in those things was later on.

[Nurin]

Well, everyone has different paces, with 9 years old I managed to learn english from zero with 5 months... But till now I still sucks

[Rohan123]

Well, everyone has different paces, with 9 years old I managed to learn english from zero with 5 months... But till now I still sucks

Same, when I was 8 years old, I had to learn Bengali from scratch as I had moved from one state to another and Bengali was used more here. I got the basics in hardly a week and became fluent in it in like one year. But now, when I tried to learn Japanese 2 months ago, I couldn't even learn all the Hiragana characters in like 2 weeks, so I gave it up and decided to give it a fresh start after my exams end, which end on the 21st this month. Hope I can learn it better now.

[rpapo]

Well, everyone has different paces, with 9 years old I managed to learn english from zero with 5 months... But till now I still sucks

Age is a factor, absolutely. My nephew arrived in the USA from South America in 2002 at age 7. He was fluent in English within six months, and is now graduating with honors from high school. He has only the barest trace of an accent in English now.

By the time you're hitting college age, though, your ability to master new languages is already starting to fade. I have a distinct accent in Spanish even now, though it's not a typical USA Gringo accent, and people get confused as to where I'm from. They know I'm not from their country, and react in confusion when I tell them I was born in California...

In any case, true fluency is something you generally gain by living the language, not just by book-learning.

[Nurin]

Same, when I was 8 years old, I had to learn Bengali from scratch as I had moved from one state to another and Bengali was used more here. I got the basics in hardly a week and became fluent in it in like one year. But now, when I tried to learn Japanese 2 months ago, I couldn't even learn all the Hiragana characters in like 2 weeks, so I gave it up and decided to give it a fresh start after my exams end, which end on the 21st this month. Hope I can learn it better now.

Sad... goshuushou-sama

Age is a factor, absolutely. My nephew arrived in the USA from South America in 2002 at age 7. He was fluent in English within six months, and is now graduating with honors from high school. He has only the barest trace of an accent in English now.

By the time you're hitting college age, though, your ability to master new languages is already starting to fade. I have a distinct accent in Spanish even now, though it's not a typical USA Gringo accent, and people get confused as to where I'm from. They know I'm not from their country, and react in confusion when I tell them I was born in California...

In any case, true fluency is something you generally gain by living the language, not just by book-learning.

Yep, you only get fluency living the language, but I'm not learning from any book though, is just a mix of AJATT and some other methods which my crazy mind came up

[MineRiko]

I can't really learn Japanese now.

My left brain has been injected with so much English and Chinese that I will fail my exams if I finish up the Kana.

[cramped]

I can't really learn Japanese now.

My left brain has been injected with so much English and Chinese that I will fail my exams if I finish up the Kana.

I advised you to go and relearn chinese. (Ex. 小姐 = little sister; great job on that one [where you should add the lass.....who is my sister, much more epic than my 'shelf')
P.S.coming from a guy whose chinese is mediocre.

[Nongenius]

I can't really learn Japanese now.

My left brain has been injected with so much English and Chinese that I will fail my exams if I finish up the Kana.

That's a shame, given all that you've been boasting about, I'd compare you to those geniuses, masters of 3 or more languages, but I guess you just like standing on top of normal folks. Just loud noise.

On to the topic, to learn japanese, learn kana first. learning via romanji is just terrible.

[larethian]

I can't really learn Japanese now.

My left brain has been injected with so much English and Chinese that I will fail my exams if I finish up the Kana.

That's a shame, given all that you've been boasting about, I'd compare you to those geniuses, masters of 3 or more languages, but I guess you just like standing on top of normal folks. Just loud noise.

On to the topic, to learn japanese, learn kana first. learning via romanji is just terrible.

He's not boasting, his complaints are somewhat legit as we are pretty much forced to be bilingual here, though I won't say we are masters of either language except those who are more language-inclined. He's just saying that if he has time (or the will) to commit to learning Japanese, he should spend more time in getting his act together with the two compulsory yet vastly different languages (in all aspects) that he has to pass in formal exams here.

And learning Japanese does screw up my Chinese to some extent, as a substantial number of kanji mean different things and some even have miniscule differences in radicals/strokes that it can be easy to mix them up. If I'm still in school, it will definitely screw me up big time in the writing part of my Chinese studies.
However, Chinese can offer the following cheat codes for learning Japanese:
1. easy remembering of on'yomi of a kanji (since it sounds similar to the reading of its Chinese counterpart)
2. easy recognition of kanji (we don't get confused with characters that look similar or 'blurred' characters) (though knowing the meaning of the word may be another story)
3. and those kanji that are similar or identical in meaning to their Chinese counterparts get instantly memorized in terms of meanings (though remembering the reading-pronouncing/listening may be a different story unless they use on'yomi)

[Rohan123]

I don't think I'll be able to learn Japanese easily... I already know 3 languages—English, Hindi, Bengali—and every time I try learning a Kanji meaning, I feel like something related to science or some language is being erased from my brain.