What is the best way to learn japanese?

[Guest]

Like the subject says, what do you guys think the best way to learn japanese is?

This form is probably an odd place to ask, but i figured someone here might have some good suggestions and advice.

basically i dont have any prior japanese experience whatsoever, all i can speak is english, and bad spanish and bad italian. But i figure its a good idea to try and make an attempt to learn some japanese because i plan on traveling though and studying there and australia next year, so any advice you guys could give me would be much appreciated.

[ShApEsHiFt3r]

Since I am a self-conceited b*stard I'll go ahead and copy my own post

First you have to learn the words and after that you have to learn how to write hiragana and katakana, though the 3 things are usually done at the same time, which I'm guessing really would be pretty hard... after you learn to read and write them, which doesn't take long, you have to get used to the logic of the language... That's one of the harder things to do, because the Japanese language is just TOO different from the European languages... After understanding the logic, you have to learn the kanji... now, there are two ways to do that in my opinion:

1. Cram it into your head by repeating them over and over and over and over and over(x30) again, which would be too annoying, slow and boring, so it would be better to go with 2. That being:

2. Start reading. Well, it does sound stupid to read when you don't know how to, but it isn't. Take a good dictionary, it would be better if it's a pc one, for example Wakan, and start reading manga with furigana... you'll read 2 weeks or so and meet some words that you don't know(if you have learned a lot from before) and learn them until at some point you'll be able to read everything as long as there's furigana... at that point you'll notice that you're learning some of the more simple kanjis for see, go, talk, my favorite "daijoubu"(can't get it wrong ), power/strength and so on... in 3 months you'll know about some... 100-150 kanji(no idea how many exactly ~_~ ), which isn't much, but enough to calmly read shounen manga without relying that much on the furigana. And at this point I decided that there's no point in reading shounen manga anymore, because I was seeing too few new kanjis. You could take some seinen and mature mangas and start reading them but that's too slow as you would have to look up new kanjis in the dictionary instead of simply typing the hiragana for them, so I decided it would be better if I get some .txt novels and read them instead and, yeah, I'm learning kanji every time I read right now If you're the type that likes supporting the author you could buy the books and still dl .txt variants of them(if it's a book you'll have to check every kanji you don't know in the dictionary, which will be even more annoying than reading raw seinin/mature mangas as there are more kanji xD )
I went to a course 2 times, 2 months and a half each, so far and planning to go on 1 more in October... all in all if you know words it will take you about 8-12 months to get a decent amount of knowledge in Japanese. If you don't know any words add a year to that, I guess... Sadly, I don't have any experience talking, except for in the classroom, so I'm pretty jealous of Krikit for having the chance to talk and listen to Japanese every day ><

[Guest]

how did you start learning japanese? and how fluent are you now, at least in regards to reading?

[ainsoph9]

I would recommend taking an actual course if possible. If not, find a good textbook or some good resources and study it like mad. The problem with the latter method is endurance. You do not have your sensei breathing down your neck to keep you learning. Also, you can always "just" go to Japan and do full immersion, which is actually the best way. In any case, I would recommend listening to Japanese music, watching subbed anime/TV dramas, reading in Japanese (start with something simple), etc. Again, this is the best way to learn Japanese without having to actually go to Japan.

[ShadowZeroHeart]

i do translations from chinese=> eng, so i was thinking from time to time, if i get the jap raw, would it actually be useful? to compare and learn?

[Rectifier]

I've never used them, but after watching a demonstration of Rosetta Stone software, that actually might be a viable and effective way to learn a foreign language.

[ShApEsHiFt3r]

how did you start learning japanese? and how fluent are you now, at least in regards to reading?

How I started... with anime... I guess. Theoretically I've been learning Japanese for 2 years or so, but I started seriously learning when I went to a course 8 months ago... until that point it was all a chaos of words As to how fluent I am when it comes to reading, go ahead and read my translations of Zero no Tsukaima volume 6 chapter 1 and 3 and you decide for yourself

[ainsoph9]

i do translations from chinese=> eng, so i was thinking from time to time, if i get the jap raw, would it actually be useful? to compare and learn?

It might be, but I have my sincere doubts. The problem is that Japanese and Chinese grammar structures are completely different. While Japanese does use Chinese characters and borrows from Chinese fairly heavily, they are entirely different otherwise. I do not say this to discourage you. By all means, I hope that you can learn Japanese. Gambatte!

[Juicifer]

how do you guys type in japanese characters with an english keyboard? or do you use a different keyboard?

[ShadowZeroHeart]

how do you guys type in japanese characters with an english keyboard? or do you use a different keyboard?

There are several ways, maybe hand written? anyways, you can even type jap with windows, just get the settings right

i do translations from chinese=> eng, so i was thinking from time to time, if i get the jap raw, would it actually be useful? to compare and learn?

It might be, but I have my sincere doubts. The problem is that Japanese and Chinese grammar structures are completely different. While Japanese does use Chinese characters and borrows from Chinese fairly heavily, they are entirely different otherwise. I do not say this to discourage you. By all means, I hope that you can learn Japanese. Gambatte!

Thanks, i was thinking that may be true too... but anyways... i doubt i have the time to learn jap anytime soon ^^" will see

[ainsoph9]

how do you guys type in japanese characters with an english keyboard? or do you use a different keyboard?

Personally, I use NJStar Japanese to type things into Japanese and do translation. It is a Japanese-English word processor. It is free to download and try. After a while, it will start on the rare occasion bugging you to register it. You can just click that you will register later. Otherwise, it is a good program. There are others out there like it.

[Beware the talking cat]

If you set the region settings to allow Japanese characters, you get this little box, and if you press alt+shift, it changes to typing in Japanese.

ぁ；得おふぁ；Ｄ’おふぃあへお´意Fあ
Then just alt shift again for back to english.

にゃろ～ん

[Krikit]

I have that little box for the language...but not until just now did I know you could alt+shift...I've been clicking on it and scrolling through to find the hiragana....O_o....all I have to do is alt+shift...haha, easy!

[Dan]

I didn't know about Alt-Shift either. Nice.

[Beware the talking cat]

On that note, ctrl+caps lock switches to hiragana. (once in Japanese mode)