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Japanese for holidays? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Quique Diglot Senior Member Spain cronopios.net/Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4686 days ago 183 posts - 313 votes  Speaks: Spanish*, English Studies: French, German | Message 9 of 13 07 February 2012 at 9:30am | IP Logged |
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Thank you everybody for your kind replies.
Upon reading them, I decided to learn some basic Japanese :-) I'll give Michel Thomas' Total Japanese (previously known as Foundation course) a go. Pimsleur might be fine for people who have never studied a foreign language, but I borrowed the German edition and it was too boring for me. Apparently, MT teaches many useful structures, but not a lot of vocabulary. Can somebody suggest any resource to learn vocabulary relevant for travelers? (hjordis: what materials are you using?) I've also been leafing the Spanish edition of Remembering the Kana by James W. Heisig, and it seems to make learning the sillabaries quite manageable, so I'll probably end up going for it as well. I don't know yet whether I'll have to put my German on hold, but as Arekkusu said, 3 months is not that long. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| nway Senior Member United States youtube.com/user/Vic Joined 5419 days ago 574 posts - 1707 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Mandarin, Japanese, Korean | Message 10 of 13 07 February 2012 at 10:33am | IP Logged |
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If you're interested, I just went through the entire MT course (Foundation and Advanced) and identified every single "thing" that was taught. It's mainly a list of nouns, adjectives, verbs, and verb conjugations, with a few idiomatic expressions.
It's all in rÅmaji, as I adapted it from the transcript, so you may find it of use to review the MT content (perhaps making flash cards or something) while you're going through the course (or after having completed the course), or perhaps even for kana practice by translating it into kana. I personally plan on making a "verb grid" with the verb forms on one axis, the verbs I've learned on the other axis, and filling in every box. I've never used Google documents before, so hopefully this works: Everything the Michel Thomas Japanese courses teach The list may possibly look short at first (there are 187 items), but keep in mind that the 18 verbs applied to the 37 different forms yields 666 unique expressions, which aside from being satanic is also a good base to start off with, from which further vocabulary studies can really give you a usable, functional lexicon. Edited by nway on 07 February 2012 at 11:23am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Quique Diglot Senior Member Spain cronopios.net/Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4686 days ago 183 posts - 313 votes Speaks: Spanish*, English Studies: French, German | Message 11 of 13 07 February 2012 at 12:04pm | IP Logged |
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As you noticed, I had to request your permission to access the document. Once granted, I could get it. Thank you very much!
Only 187 words, including the Advanced course!? I'll definitely need some additional resource, if I want to reach 500-1000 words for my trip. Btw, could you please explain the meaning of the letter in the first column? a -> adjective f -> ? n -> noun p -> ? t -> temporal adverb v -> verb vf -> ? x -> ? 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| nway Senior Member United States youtube.com/user/Vic Joined 5419 days ago 574 posts - 1707 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Mandarin, Japanese, Korean | Message 12 of 13 07 February 2012 at 6:03pm | IP Logged |
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a -> adjective
f -> form n -> noun p -> particle t -> time expression v -> verb vf -> verb form x -> "miscellaneous" idiomatic phrase The "forms" are basically the equivalent of "conjugations" in European languages, except that whereas conjugation in European language denotes tense, plurality, and gender, the "conjugation" of Japanese verbs serves more idiomatic functions. The "vf" words are merely irregular forms that need to be specifically memorized; all the other verbs presented in the course are regular and may therefore be derived from the "form" rules explained elsewhere in the spreadsheet. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| hjordis Senior Member United States snapshotsoftheworld. Joined 5190 days ago 209 posts - 264 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, German, Spanish, Japanese | Message 13 of 13 07 February 2012 at 8:00pm | IP Logged |
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I started Japanese with the intention of learning it well, so I never really focused on phrases for travelers. My first resource was nihongo o narau (http://learn-japanese.info/) which probably wasn't the best since it allowed me to ignore kanji, but it has some decent beginning grammar lessons, and even if you don't use those they have some pretty extensive vocabulary lists(food and trains seem relevant). Tae-kim's guide(http://www.guidetojapanese.org/learn/) is also good, but probably too grammar intensive for your needs.
Upon a search, I found this: http://japanese-phrases.sakura.ne.jp/ which looks good and even has audio. Maybe stick to your MT for grammar if it's working for you and then take the phrases you need from there(or somewhere else) and put them in a flashcard program or something. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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