Japanese in 18 Months? No way!!!

[Poke2201]

Hmm... Download Anki.

Ill try to find the doc file with all the kanji.

[SkyFlames07]

Alright, I am getting it right now.

By the way, the kanji book that you recommended is just so usefull, never though that I'd be abbe to memorize 40 kanjis in less than half hour. The descriptions that comes along with them makes it easy to burn an image on your brain that comes to you when you see the kanji.

[Poke2201]

They are called mnemonics. They are built to help people remember. I'll find the kanji word doc some day XD... Also, 40 kanji a sitting is a steep slope... thats burnout material.

[SkyFlames07]

It was so easy that I just kept reading till I realized that I was already on number 50. Anyways, everytime I rush on studying I always re-read it slowly later, trying to watch just the kanji a day after to see if I still remember the meaning. I guess I'll have to be my own SRS till I find the kanji's one.

[Poke2201]

Yeah im the same as you. Do the SRS. It slows you down and retains the info faster. Trust me, just reading that page isn't going to make me remember japanese.

[SkyFlames07]

Got it.
*realizes that the pronunciation is on katakana*
...
I knew that I must have studied it first.

[Poke2201]

I think Kanji-> Hiragana-> Katakana in japanese studying importance.

Kanji is used everywhere, I doubt you can avoid it. Hiragana is used much more than Katakana, which is used to sound out foreign words.

[Zell_ff8]

I don't go to school, I don't use programs, I don't go to courses, I don't pay a teacher.
I just wanted to learn it, went to a library, and searched all I wanted to know. Grabbed a manga, didn't know a kanji? Grabbed a kanji dictionary. Didn't know how to search a kanji? Grabbed a book about how to identify radicals. And so. Curiosity was all I needed.

Wasn't 18 months, but I reached JLPT 2k in 22~24 months of self-study from absolute zero.

[Poke2201]

Good job. My library is useless for dictionaries in japanese so that pathway is blocked.

[SkyFlames07]

Mine is useless for everything but spanish lol

[Poke2201]

Well then we are on the same boat now arent we XD?

[SkyFlames07]

Yep.
Thanks god for the PDFs

[Zell_ff8]

Well in normal libraries I've never seen a single japanese character, but maybe I'm lucky to have two japanese libraries near my city.

One is the language institute' in my country (link) and another is on the jp cultural center dependent of the embassy (link, this one has tons of books and they lend them, all free ^^).
I have another one near me too, part of the "japanese garden" park (link), but it has an entrance fee.

They've been of too much help to me for language learning.

[SkyFlames07]

Quick question, kanjis is trudely a nightmare but thanks to the Remembering the Kanji books it is much easier. Now, what about the hiragana expression? I can read it but I do not get the meaning. Is there any method to learn this? Or the shortcuts are out for this part of japanese?

[Poke2201]

Learning Kanji? No shortcuts really. This part is brute force memorization. Same with the Hiragana/Katakana memorization.

Learning the English alphabet cant be learned through shortcuts(Well mnemonics, but those help memorization anyway >.>)