Speaking Japanese

[rena-ko]

heh... i'd say it takes at least 10 years to speak and understand japanese fluently. if at all.

living there really helps on that thing.

and you'll need more than just vocables, kana and kanji... the historical background would be helpful as well...

in the end, understanding how a japanese thinks requires to relive an ordinary japanese life - from kindergarten to adult. i'd say this part will take from 20 years to forever to learn...

good books (guides and dictionaries), language courses (or at least having a teacher/someone to ask) and lots of training (speaking, writing, reading) will be needed.

for training in reading katakana, switch pso to japanese mode ^-^ most items are written in katakana.


good luck anyway and have fun.

[brillyfresh]

On 2003-08-25 23:18, Kent wrote:

On 2003-08-25 11:24, brillyfresh wrote:

On 2003-08-25 09:44, Kent wrote:
Kore wa amerika-go de nan desu ka.

eh, amerika-go ... you mean eigo?

*facepalms*

Hai, eigo.

Jaa, ima wakarimasu.

and furthermore, understanding kanji isn't just memorizing symbols, it's understanding why the ancient Chinese used those symbols 4,000 years ago

go to B&N and get a book called Read Japanese Today, you'll see what i'm talking about

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: brillyfresh on 2003-08-26 08:53 ]</font>

[saffaya]

I'd say 3 hours of classroom lessons per week for a scholar year would be a good start.

Digi-comi games can then be really helpful.
Having the text written on-screen and spoken at the same time is very good for learning words and kanji.

A home-stay in japan would be a good option then.

Remember that whatever your listening comprehension skill is, it doesn't translate as oral expression automatically.
You HAVE to exercise yourself at making sentences and speaking.
Listening is passive. Speaking is active. They are not equivalent.



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: saffaya on 2003-08-26 10:32 ]</font>

[saffaya]

for training in reading katakana, switch pso to japanese mode ^-^ most items are written in katakana.

Yes, except things like the flight fan.
you can't believe how hard a time I had to express myself wanting one in japanese.

"er .. you see .. it's like a diska ... but it's actually not .. it's that female only weap you know .. "
Adding to the difficulty was that the flight fan isn't female only anymore in EP II ..

ah ! there you go .. forgot how it is spelled in japanese now .. I've been looking for one for so long I've even forgot its name. darn it.

"Yamete ! Oshiri ga itai !!"

ROTFL !! So true ^_^

[Inu_Ranma]

A tip:

When you want something, the most polite way to ask is

'(Thing) ga hoshii desu'

Unfortunately, my Japanese class focused only on Japanese so proper that it could literally only be used at the Imperial court or in a business deal. Ah, well.

[LamerPanda]

On 2003-08-26 05:26, Ian-KunX wrote:

"Yamete, oshiri ga itai!" *runs*

O_o Hooray for google but that's disturbing >_>

baka na gaijin

All I can recognize is insults and threats! I think I can get by with that.

[jediknight007]

Do a lot of words sound similar but with different accents with Japanese? I don't know much because I'm Chinese and speak Cantonese. With both Cantonese and Mandarin, there are many words which mean different things, simply by changing the way you say it. That makes it harder when you are trying to memorise all the words. For example, with Cantonese, for the word 'ma', it means 'mother' but also 'horse', depending on how you say it.

Learning the words itself is useless unless you are able to phrase sentences together as well. That's why I recommend that you have a companion who is fluent in Japanese or a native speaker so that you can get used to saying many different things. I think that this is as important as having a good memory for words.

I'm Chinese and obviously speak it all the time with my family. I did go to Cantonese school for a few years, every Sunday but in recent years, I have began to do quite crap and I decided to drop out last year since I thought it was a 'waste of money'. But I'm still capable of speaking and listening to Cantonese quite fluently and that is mainly because I'm with people who speak Cantonese all the time. I hope you get the idea. If you are going to enrol in a course at college/university, I would recommend that you also spend a few months in Japan as well to get used to the custom and language.

Like I said, I don't know much about Japanese but if you go to Japan, a lot of people might speak non-proper Japanese (no offence meant there). For example, say if you wanted to learn to speak English and you learn it at college or something, you might still find it hard understanding loads of English people because they will probably speak different dialects which you wouldn't understand because you have never been there before to understand their type of English. I hope that you understand what I'm saying btw! Most people nowdays don't speak proper English and say stuff like 'Sup' or 'Laters' which mean 'Hello' or 'Goodbye' respectively but if you only learnt to say 'Hello' and 'Goodbye', you would never know.

Sorry if I have repeated things others might have already mentioned. I couldn't be bothered to read through the whole thread that's all.

[Inu_Ranma]

One of the very nice things about Japanese (ie: easy to learn) is the lack of the myriad inflections that make Chinese languages so damn hard to learn for Americans. THe pronunciation for Japanese is very, very simple.
Five vowel sounds: Ah-Ee-Oo-Eh-Oh. A syllable can only end in 'n' or an open vowel, and certain syllables, like 'Du,' 'Wu' and 'Weh,' 'Yeh,' 'Yu,' and 'Yi,' etc. can not happen at all. The sentence structure is also very user friendly, because with correct particle placement, any sentence can be said with the same words in any number of different ways.

[Ninpo_Tamashii]

you have got to remember, that you cannot learn japanese, and speak japanese like you are speaking english. The train of thought that is used to make sentences is totally diffrent. You have to pay even closer attention to Contex, becuase one word in japanese can mean sooo much, its all about the contex which changes the meaning. Listening for key words like "wa" and what its tied to make japanese potentially very lazy in comparison to how We speak english. IT seems weird at first becuase english is honestly a very technical language and we're used to it without even relizing it until we try to learn another language and see less stress on technicality. The best i can say is when you start to learn it, forget you even know english -if that makes sense- and Try not to compare it to anything. It may be hard to swallow your pride and do it, but get little kids books, kindergarden books, and work your way up from there. Once you learn the Hiragana and katakana charts start learning hwo to convert and read it in romanji to help you look up the words and meanings, and then learn to omit the romanji and just read and match words you see in the kids books. This will help you a bit too, but honestly the best way is finding someone or someplace wehre there's people who speak the language so you can ask them questions. Mah ten cents

[Nai_Calus]

On 2003-08-26 14:51, Inu_Ranma wrote:
One of the very nice things about Japanese (ie: easy to learn) is the lack of the myriad inflections that make Chinese languages so damn hard to learn for Americans. THe pronunciation for Japanese is very, very simple.
Five vowel sounds: Ah-Ee-Oo-Eh-Oh. A syllable can only end in 'n' or an open vowel, and certain syllables, like 'Du,' 'Wu' and 'Weh,' 'Yeh,' 'Yu,' and 'Yi,' etc. can not happen at all. The sentence structure is also very user friendly, because with correct particle placement, any sentence can be said with the same words in any number of different ways.

Actually, there is a 'yu'. Yuki, yuuki, chikyuu... Lots of words use it.
'We' and 'Wi' used to exist too, but they don't anymore. I'm so pathetic I actually know the symbols for them. Then again, I'm the psychotic freak who taught myself how to recognise half the hirigana with a basic knowledge of how it works and the character introduction page of a Sailor Moon manga. >_>;;; "Let's see... This symbol that looks like a 3 with a curly bit at the bottom occurs in both 'Hotaru' and 'Haruka', at the end and middle positions... Must be read as 'ru'. I'm sad, yes. X_x;

Try reading manga. If it has furigana(Small kana placed next to/above kanji that gives the reading), that can help you a bit... Especially since you start noticing after a bit that in certain contexts, x kanji is read one way, and in another context it's pronounced an entirely different way... I find that I've learned most of the vocabulary and phrases I know from listening to music, too, and finding translations... Little by little it's seeped into my conciousness(Subtitled anime helps too), so I actually understand quite a bit despite never having actively studied anything about it. Then again, I tend to learn by either doing or osmosis, so... *shrug*