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Genki vs. Japanese for Busy People | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| atama warui Triglot Senior Member Japan Joined 4702 days ago 594 posts - 985 votes  Speaks: German*, English, Japanese | Message 17 of 23 10 May 2012 at 5:20pm | IP Logged | ||
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It may comfort you to know that other people started with Rômaji too and didn't turn into bad learners or speakers at all.
I only started Hiragana after 6 weeks or so, and Kanji only after approximately one year. It didn't hamper my progress really. Knowing Hiragana and, later, Kanji, makes it easier to look up words and expand your vocabulary. If you're in it for fun and to speak it rather than becoming literate, there's nothing wrong with using Rômaji IMHO. I find Hiragana really cute and Kanji pretty, but you have to like it in order to learn it, or you won't make it fat. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| dampingwire Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4666 days ago 1185 posts - 1513 votes Speaks: English*, Italian*, French Studies: Japanese | Message 18 of 23 13 May 2012 at 1:18am | IP Logged | ||
The main problem I found with romaji was that there's more than one convention and different books use different conventions. Hiragana was pretty easy to learn and (for me at least) provided more of a hint as to how to pronounce words. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| atama warui Triglot Senior Member Japan Joined 4702 days ago 594 posts - 985 votes Speaks: German*, English, Japanese | Message 19 of 23 13 May 2012 at 1:45am | IP Logged | ||
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You're right and I'm all for learning at least the Hiragana ASAP. However, the OP seems to not really like the idea, so what can ya do.. nothing really I guess.
Rômaji is better than nothing. Japanese kids somehow managed to learn their language too, before they learned to write it, so it should be possible to do it. I don't feel like persuading anyone to do anything though. Everyone has to stumble, fall and feel the pains themselves. The idea to learn Japanese and 2 (or was it 3?) additional languages at the same time already seems a bit.. well. I'm not gonna spoil the experience. :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| buchstabe Tetraglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4703 days ago 52 posts - 108 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, French, Spanish Studies: Czech, Swedish, Japanese | Message 20 of 23 15 May 2012 at 2:22pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks for sharing your thoughts on the Kana topic but there's really no need to worry about my approach to learning Japanese writing.
If you will forgive my directness, I'm getting quite angry - we're talking about learning strategies, which can vary as much as individuals learning styles and priorities vary, not about religion, where there's only one truth. There is no need to, to put it pointedly, label someone as an hopeless case and doomed to pain just because they take the freedom of adjusting their methods based on rational criteria and their own learning history. I appreciate that people might mean well, but giving unsolicited advice on a topic after someone has already made it clear that they have decided on a path and has laid out the detailed reasons for that decision, comes across as a bit patronizing. To me, such comments are rather annoying than helpful. Again, I do learn the Kana - note that I never planned not to, and I thought I made that clear in an earlier post - and as of now, I'm doing all exercises in Hiragana and I know about 40 Kanji from the Heisig book. You are effectively barking up the wrong tree. As for the dig at my language studies, if it was really necessary to bring that up, I would have preferred it to come as a question instead of a remark talking about me as a third person. While the languages in my profile are mostly listed under "Studies" because many of them have become rusty for lack of practice and I currently don't feel confident enough (any more) to file them under fluency, I am far from being a beginner in those that I currently (more or less) study besides Japanese. I won't deny that making time for it is a constant challenge, just like for probably almost everyone else, but then, I can't remember having ever said that I expected quick results (or even any results at all). What I definitely didn't expect, though, is that I would find myself justifying my languages in this forum, of all! :-( If you really would like to help, then I'd appreciate if you could just share your experiences, ideally together with the reasons for your decisions, so that I (and other beginners reading this thread) can get the full picture and put your thoughts into perspective. That would allow me to understand why you did what and then make informed decisions based on my goals, priorities and experience. A few years ago, I had already tried to start with Hiragana and Japanese from scratch and didn’t get far. This time I went about it differently and familiarized myself with the language already in parallel to learning the Kana and it works out well and when I listen to recordings, I visualize the words in Hirgana already (without intending to do so). I’m happy with my progress and wouldn’t do it differently. Maybe you could elaborate on what kind of pain exactly you were hoping to spare me? [Edit: Para added, typos fixed] Edited by buchstabe on 15 May 2012 at 6:48pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| atama warui Triglot Senior Member Japan Joined 4702 days ago 594 posts - 985 votes Speaks: German*, English, Japanese | Message 21 of 23 16 May 2012 at 2:41pm | IP Logged | ||
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Well, actually, I wrote in response to dampingwire. No need to be pissed because I "wrote about you as if...".
Really, I was also talking about language strategies. There are more reasons than the "vocab look-up" to learning the script, _especially_ the Kanji. You chose to, however, answer without really having studied the language and thus cannot know. It's all right. I went through the same. Japanese has a lot of homonyms - and by that, I mean a LOT. Do the math, roughly 600.000 words with roughly 100 syllables. It's slightly different, but we can use these figures for simplification. With Kanji, you'll have a HUGE advantage. Yes, it's not exactly easy to do it this way in the beginning, but if you plan to go beyond intermediate with a pitiful vocabulary of, say, 2000 words, which are supposed to make you understand 80%, but really only 25% (if at all), you will be happy you chose to go this route and in the end, you'll save some years. Years, not months or weeks. The sooner you start with the script, the better. But like I said, it sure is possible without, so do whatever and however you want. You asked for advice, you got advice. You don't like it, well, must be my fault for not formulating it in a way that "sells" the idea better. You'll also find out how demanding it is to advance from a certain level, if you don't devote a certain amount of time and endurance to it. You wrote you struggled with it once in the past. I think you may think about how to prioritize and schedule things _around_ Japanese or any such language (Korean, Chinese..) if you want to make it to a level of a 6 year old first grade school kid. Nobody just walks into Mordor. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Tamise Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom jllrr.wordpress.com/ Joined 5244 days ago 115 posts - 161 votes Speaks: English*, German, Dutch Studies: French, Japanese, Spanish | Message 22 of 23 16 May 2012 at 11:45pm | IP Logged | ||
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In terms of getting more familiar with the kana, I found a book called Easy Kana Workbook by Rita Lampkin (available via Amazon.de for 10EUR) to be really useful. It's starts with bits for copying each character, but then goes on to longer sections of text and gives both writing and reading practice by way of transcription. I didn't do the katakana bit, and it shows a little in that I hesitate over katakana a bit, but read hiragana fluently.
The other thing I found really helpful was reading - not to get the meaning at this stage, but just to get the sounds of the characters. This site has folk tales with audio and English translations that might be useful in getting used to the sounds of the words and getting something from the story too (I've always like the story about why there's no year of the cat!) 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| buchstabe Tetraglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4703 days ago 52 posts - 108 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, French, Spanish Studies: Czech, Swedish, Japanese | Message 23 of 23 20 May 2012 at 3:11am | IP Logged | ||
I did ask for advice, but it was about textbooks, not about learning strategies. That misunderstanding is running through the whole thread for some reason. [EDIT: Deleted the rest because not contributing to the thread topic.] Edited by buchstabe on 23 May 2012 at 12:30am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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