[Eorzea]

I'm sure a large majority of Final Fantasy fans also have some sort of interest in Japan and have thought about studying Japanese at one point or another. My question to you is, how many of you have actually taken on the challenge?

How long have you been studying?
How do you study?
What materials do you use?

I would love to hear about your study experiences.

[Tindiil]

I've been meaning to start trying to.

How hard is it Eorzea?

Where should I begin?

Suggestion please.

[Momotaru]

YES. I study Japanese :)

But I haven't been diligent in doing so for sometime now.. I guess I'm wondering how to go about doing so.

I started studying Japanese individually almost 4 years ago (ouch, so long!) and was able to learn the kana and some basic grammar pretty quickly thanks to Pimsleur and 'Let's Learn Japanese' video series.

Since then, I finished 'Japanese for Busy People 1' text, and had been trying to immerse myself more.. I've got a Japanese friend I occasionally chat with online which is helpful.. but it's not enough.

I wasn't really making any strong efforts in grammar at this point, so I went ahead and explored the Kanji a bit, via Heisig's 'Remembering the Kanji' and a fan site called "Reviewing the Kanji' which uses an SRS program to help you remember everything. While I don't know Onyomi and Kunyomi for any Kanji, I am now 'aware of' and can easily recognize and guestimate the meaning of 2042 Kanji characters.. Thanks to this method, I also matched Kanji I learned in RtK with a lot of the vocabulary I'm already familiar with.

Heisig's method is controversial, as some conclude that it's not actual memorization and because kanji reading is not involved, it's pointless... But I disagree completely. Now, when I see almost any Kanji, I can at least recognize primitives and their placement as well as a more natural understanding of the Kanji in general, where as before, I didn't know what the heck I was looking at. I also have a fair grasp of stroke order, etc.. It's been very helpful for me.

Having recently "finished" Remembering the Kanji (daily reviews in the SRS web application continue indefinitely more or less) I'm looking for the next step in studying Japanese.. I have plenty of free time right now, but I'm not applying myself to anything in particular.

What I was planning all this time was to visit Japan on 3 month tourist visa and take in as much as I could.. Best case scenario would involve even find a job during that time, which would be a way to keep me there longer. I'm yearning for immersion so I can do something with my Japanese.. Redneck Town, Ohio is possibly the worst place in the world to be a Japanese student :p
But unfortunately, college has drained my funds originally set up to visit Japan.. not only that, but I've got loans hanging over my head and zero income >.< If I could do it all again I would do it so differently :(

But enough of that... I'm glad to share this space with another student of Japanese.. And I'm a bit envious of your position! ;) I'd love to hear more about your past as a student and your present situation in Japan, Eorzea.

Also, if you have any tips on what I should do next AJATT, Tae Kim, iknow, Anki, etc.. There are so many methods and texts I don't really know what I should attempt next. I want to have a firmer grasp on grammar and vocabulary though, so I'm leaning towards sentence mining and a desktop SRS like Anki. Please tell me what you think would be a good road to take at this time :)

[Eorzea]

@Tindiil

It's hard to give you advice on where to start. In the beginning, just about anything is fine for learning the basics. Find a book or online resource from which you feel comfortable learning and have at it. Once you hit intermediate level, that's when it gets hard trying to figure out how to further progress your skill.

Anyway, I will try to make a study resource thread at some point in the future.


@Momotaru

I can tell you are really motivated to learn Japanese (you sound like me before I actually came to Japan). I would like to help you as much as possible, but I'm not entirely sure how much that will be. You are already ahead of me when it comes to kanji. I can speak/communicate pretty well, but I haven't put much of an effort into learning kanji beyond the first 200 or so. A couple of my friends swear by Anki, though. They carry it around on their laptop or iPhone and study daily.

The best advice I can give you is to join a class or find a teacher/tutor/etc. I know that's not always an option, though, so let's move on.

I have learned almost everything I know on my own. It has been a long and arduous process of trial and error to see which methods/materials work best for me and my study habits. I'm motivated, but I lack motivation. Perhaps that doesn't make sense, but what I'm trying to say is that I have a hard time giving something my all regardless of how badly I want it. I have too many interests and thus my motivation for one particular thing comes in spurts. As a result, learning a language is extremely difficult because I will often stop studying for long periods of time and am then forced to learn a lot of the same stuff all over again. A bit counterproductive, don't you think? ?????????: that's how I am.

One thing I would advise against is trying to use too many resources. It may sound silly, but trying to do too much may actually prevent you from progressing. That's what happened to me, anyway. I got all sorts of grammar/verb/adjective books and signed up at a few websites/etc. with the hope of getting ahead and progressing at a faster pace. All it did was overload my brain and cause me to feel as if I was't making enough progress.

Instead, I think simply finding a textbook you enjoy and going through it step by step would be a better choice. Some people may disagree, but this is merely my opinion.

Is there a textbook you are currently using?

I would also recommend getting an electronic dictionary which can translate from Japanese to English and/or English to Japanese. They are very helpful.

Another great tool for sentence examples is http://www.alc.co.jp/. I'm sure you already know about it, but if not definitely check it out. Simply type the word/phrase (in Japanese) for which you wish to see examples and search. It will give you all kinds of useful results/examples.

Coming to Japan would likely help you as well; however, maybe not. I know I sure haven't progressed as much as I had imagined I would. That's my own fault, though. It's very easy to settle in over here, become overly comfortable and almost completely neglect studying. If you do manage to make it over here and can avoid falling into that trap, I'm sure all kinds of opportunities will present themselves to you.

:cool:

Sorry for the delayed response!

[Tindiil]

All good Eorzea.

I'll use my trusty friend google! :D

[Momotaru]

Thanks for the reply :)

Yeh, I'm similar to you then, as I've gone long periods of time without doing anything or much at all :s

I picked up the newest version of the Japanese for Busy People Text more recently (it's considerably different from the version I first went through, and I feel I need a general refresher), so I have that which I could return too... But I also own *seemingly) an entire library of Japanese text and phrase books that are either beyond my level or I just haven't made use of, but have accumulated over the years.. I ought to devote myself to one like you say.. Might as well continue the Busy People text for now.

Also, I've been listening to JapanesePod101 podcasts, which have been very helpful in addition to plain entertaining. They just sound like such pleasant people, it's fun to listen, so if you don't know about this already, I'd recommend it.


An electronic dictionary probably would be helpful, though this little guy has been way more helpful than I ever imagined he would be.
http://www.randomhou...00&maxwidth=170
Still, you're right about an electronic one. I'll consider that.

As for that website you linked me to, it's the first time I've seen it, and it does seem really helpful! I'll be using this from now on, thank you :)



Thank you very much for your input.. I will make it to Japan someday soon.. I have to!!




Tindill;

Eorzea speaks the truth.. Just jump into something. I danced around learning Japanese for years just because there's a stigma about it here in the states that it's incredibly difficult to learn.. That's a bunch of hooey, I'm not a very diligent student, but once I started rolling with a method, I quickly realized that one can learn ANYTHING at a rapid pace if they truly want to.

Not only is it 'Japanese is difficult' a complete lie, you'll be surprised at how systematic and EASY it is. Japanese grammar makes so much more sense than English grammar, too.

If I may suggest one thing, I would say to learn Hiragana early on.. Rather than trying to learn Japanese in English, learn Japanese in Japanese.

Once you learn Hiragana and start thinking in 'Syllables' instead of letters, you'll have a jump start understanding compared to those who rely on romaji (english letters) into intermediate studies.



I learned these as part of the video series 'Let's Learn Japanese', but I successfully got a friend who knew no Japanese at all to memorize the hiragana by simply copying them down repeatedly throughout the day, 5 at a time [??????????????????????and so on)

He ended up quitting Japanese studies right after hiragana (it's hard for him to stick to anything) but the problem was really that I wanted him to learn Japanese more than he himself did. :s


Anyway, the more students of Japanese, the merrier. I think you should take a few minutes each day and learn the basics. It's not hard, though you do need to want to do this for yourself.



Thanks again for the reply Eorzea. I'm still interested to hear your personal stories of Japan though! When you feel like it, please divulge your stories. :shy:

[Laifierr]

I have been teaching myself Japanese on and off for 4-5 years now. I like to study, but sometimes it becomes overwhelming. The last time I picked it up I was starting to learn all of the verb endings to change meanings to sentences. Like ??????[don't want to do]; ????[want to do]; ?????[hard to do]; ?????[easy to do], etc.

I also recently am now able to read hiragana and katakana, though very slowly. My vocabulary is very limited so trying to speak/read/write is cumbersome.

The study materials I have used so far:

Japanese for Busy People 1; I used this in a community college class. I plan to rejoin this class in the fall semester to further motivate me. This book kind of sucks because it relies so heavily on romanji, and I feel it hinders my progression in reading hiragana and katakana.

Genki 1; One of my friends from Chicago said she used this book for learning Japanese, so I decided to buy it. This book is produced in Japan for people wanting to learn Japanese. This book is good for those who've learned hiragana and katakana already because it starts you right off with those. I haven't progressed too far in it yet.

I have a few other books, but I don't use them much.


I use a lot of online sources to learn Japanese as well.

For Verbs I use http://www.timwerx.n...verbs/index.htm
For Dictionary I use http://jisho.org/

Whenever I get stuck on something I just google ^^

I also use My Japanese Coach for the NintendoDS which helps with various games. I found my skill increased quite a bit from using this. It helps with reading, writing, and even speaking.


It is hard for me to study Japanese sometimes because I don't know what approach to take. I tried to remember back to how I learned German in high school. I know we received various handouts to learn nouns, which helped build vocabulary. Like a drawing of a room and we had to label every object. I would do that for Japanese, but I would have to come up with my own drawing... Another time sink :P And I remember we made verb cards on 3x5 note cards, so I tried doing that with Japanese.

Where should I go from here? I know basic grammar and can put a sentence together with limited difficulty. I can read all hiragana/katakana pretty well. I don't know many kanji yet. I suppose increasing my vocabulary would help a lot.

[Momotaru]

There's a completely revised, Kana version of the Japanese for Busy People series.

I bought the revised version Volume 1 and have been going through it (slowly, I'm such a slacker) but this revision seems to be a lot more fun and practical than the first edition.


Increasing your vocabulary would be really useful. You seem to be at just about the same level as me.. and I've been meaning to dig into vocab too. At this point, we know enough grammar to say anything we want, even if it would sound infantile or have little variety in sentence patterns, we just need a bigger palette of words for that to happen.

[Pacheco]

Learning Japanese is one thing i really would like to learn sometime in the future. Along with cooking and playing the piano. Not easy where I live though, no teachers or anything.

[Ch1efer]

I'm going to try to start learning again, a friend of mine and I are going to work on it together. :D any tips are welcome, and I'll let you guys know how my progress goes.

[Eorzea]

That's great, Ch1efer! Have you decided on study materials yet? Perhaps you should start as well, Pacheco. ;)

[Ch1efer]

Quote

That's great, Ch1efer! Have you decided on study materials yet?

Nope but I'll take suggestions. All I've done so far is study the Hiragana alphabet. It's so hard to learn it, then I have to learn the other alphabets? This isn't going to be easy.

[Eorzea]

Just focus on hiragana and katakana for now; you don't need to worry about kanji yet. There are 46 hiragana and 46 katakana, but it's not as hard as it sounds.

As for a textbook, I recommend just going to the store and looking through them until you find something that suits your style of study. Find something that's organized and includes listening CDs.

Let me know what you end up going with!

What hiragana have you memorized so far?

:cool:

[Kurisu]

Unfortunately I don't study Japanese, although if I were to pick up a second language then Japanese would definately be my first choice.

I did pick up a book from Waterstones once, although it didn't come with a CD. There was also a programme that I downloaded online ages ago, but it was on my old computer and I can't remember the name of it >.<

[Momotaru]

Our society really should stress the benefits of learning a second language. Not only could it give you job opportunities, it's bound to make one more intelligent, and also give them a more open mind in general.

Your language and society doesn't deserve superiority over another, just like any god or other trivial idea shouldn't.

My point is, never feel that it is too late to learn a language, and always encourage others to do so! Also, it can be a lot of fun, and it only becomes a chore if you turn it into one.