Learning Japanese (日本語)

Hi peoplez out there!

I'm going to make a holiday in Japan in the near future (about the next 5 years... ), so i just thought about learning Japanese.

But I have no idea how to start!
There is a "further education"-subject for learning japanese we can choose in school, but I have bad experience with this type of subjects in school.

So, is there a book, link or something else you can recommend?

Greetz,
C4P1

Just do what i do, learn it at school and home. I am going to japan in 2 years or 1 if i can have my final intern there in my last year of college. So i have asked the school to teach it to anybody that want's to go to japan next year and i also study at home with a different method then at school but i am getting the hang of it only characters are hard to read and wright.

Well, I'll try that thing in school...

But, with witch method do you learn? Do you have a special book, or have you a personal teacher...?

I just want to have an alternative.

Greetz,
C4P1

I have 4 books and i teach my self, i can't afford a personal teacher. I noticed after a while watching anime without subs helps out aswell, i don't know all the words but i can still understand what they are saying but that took me a while.

lol ive learned from watching anime lol , and the few phrase i can say surprize all the japs that come by my work lol , then they give me a few pointers here and there

you can find various online books and videos, i downloaded a series of videos teaching japanese sometime ago

Can you give me some links? I'm bored of searching...

theres no links really.... as with most things you need to use dc++/irc or something similiar.

QUOTE (C4P1 @ Sep 16 2005, 11:09 PM) Can you give me some links? I'm bored of searching...
if u cant be bothered to search for jap learning material (which is fairly bountyfull on the net) then i would give a thought to reconsider learning japanese. u cant just learn it in a few weeks or months.
but for a tip to help u learn, i suggest learning the kana alphabet (ive got a flash card program that will help out if u need it.) this will give u a good start and memorising the kana takes literally no time - about a week or two. then get ure self used to japanese grammer and a few basic words by reading romaji. then get ureself a jap dictionary and books in hirigana for little kids, the words will be basic and theres no kanji.
work ure way through books/manga. watch raw anime - pick up on pronouncations.

i personally found learning japanese via the net a nigtmare - could really be bothered and quite alot of stuff is rubbish, but shell out a bit of cash and uve put some money into it giving u that - i wana get my moneys worth feeling

like I said they have full videos and books online lol, no charge

Where would that be?
I searched and searched but couldn't find any at all!

The Japanese Page
http://www.thejapanesepage.com/
probably the best jap resource ive seen on the net

Japanese Writing
http://members.aol.com/writejapan/
another site, that focus's on learning how to write japanese - shows graphics for stroke order. tutorials on kana and basic kanji.

LEARN JAPANESE.
http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~ft5k-ymd/learn.html
This sites okay - not great but okay, i personally don't use it but i know other people who have found it usefull. depends on how you learn i spose. It'll give u a start on the kana, and then if you come back to it after you've learnt a few words etc, then the sentance structure section should be a good recap.

I have been learning for a few months now. And its really interesting and suprisingly easy.

I found a few good japanease dictuionnary out there
http://linear.mv.com/cgi-bin/j-e/nocolor/d...gi-bin/j-e/dict
http://www.freedict.com/onldict/jap.html
http://dico.fj.free.fr/traduction/index.php

That last one is a japanease-french dictionnary, but it also gives you Hiragane and Kanji translation as well as romaji. The search form support Unicode, so you can also write a word in hiragana and search for it. The second one is realy not the best, I found the first one to be really powerfull once you get use to the somewhat weird interface.

For sentences that are harder, on using kanji you dont know, I use:
http://www.j-talk.com/nihongo/index.php

As for books, here is a really good site I found on verbs and adjectives:
http://www.timwerx.net/language/

I would give you more, but about half the sites good sites I use are in french (mainly the grammar ones). If your're interested in those, just ask.

I also made myself a little acces database with a list of words and some forms to quiz myself and learn the vocabulary. The important thing is to practice often, not necessary a lot. For example, after coming back home, simply pick a few (5 to 10) random words from a list and guess their meaning. If you do that every day of the week, you can leanr a few hundred words in a few months. But their is no magic way. So practice, practice and practice.

Hope this helps you,
And hang in there, once you get the basics, its really easy and it gets even more interesting.

lol my friend gave me a CD lesson. i haven't got around to it, so i'll start soon.

CD lessons are pretty good for learning a few phrases, but don't teach you the langauge. They make a nice supplement, but to really learn the language you have to learn simple grammar and common nouns, verbs, and phrases.

~ SP

QUOTE (SpacePirate @ Oct 17 2005, 11:45 PM) CD lessons are pretty good for learning a few phrases, but don't teach you the langauge. They make a nice supplement, but to really learn the language you have to learn simple grammar and common nouns, verbs, and phrases.

~ SP
I totally agree. But if you want to become really good at it, you also need to listen to it. (like in anime!!) This way your ear will get used to it. Not one of those method is better than the other. They are all needed if you want to become good at it.

lets make a list of all the jap words we know (no jap swear words):

ill start

baka - idiot
jigoku - hell
nande? - why?
tenshi/kami-sama - god
sensei - teacher/master/professional
kyoudai - brothers
uruse - shut up
inu - dog
ino - pig
chou - butterfly
shika - sheep (not sure bout this one)
poke guy - oh wait thats chinese.. xD

QUOTE (Bold @ Oct 18 2005, 12:52 PM) [...]you also need to listen to it. (like in anime!!) This way your ear will get used to it [...]
its good for you to pick out words and judge your progress, but japanese spoken in anime is ridiculusly slow. im not really sure if it'd be the best way to practice listening.



next.... suffixes

-chan - shows friendlyness - mainly used by LOLI'S, and young males
-kun - girls generally still use chan but adopt -kun for the boys. same for the boys but with less -chan
-san - Mr, Mrs
-sama - v.polite - like addressing a king/ queen or george bush (if thats how you choose to live your life)
-dono - still polite - but your not giving them a royal status - u'd probably use it in that letter to the mayor you just sent
-senpai - school talk - used to address someone in a higher year (UK)/grade (US).
-cchi - duno, reckon daft made it up

me thinks thats right.

QUOTE (ultima2096 @ Oct 18 2005, 05:57 PM) but japanese spoken in anime is ridiculusly slow. im not really sure if it'd be the best way to practice listening.
I dind't mean as the only source of spoken Japeanese. But since its slow its usally easier to start with. Then you can move up with dissicultis (and speed).

The other advantage, is anime are pretty easy to get and listen to, not to mention fun.

i think a good way to learn japanese, is by looking up song lyrics
with translations of course