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Thinking of Japanese | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| ericspinelli Diglot Senior Member Japan Joined 5783 days ago 249 posts - 493 votes  Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: Korean, Italian | Message 9 of 22 14 April 2011 at 8:42am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
I'm not the first person to write an overview of the Japanese language, but I tried to make mine shorter than everything else.
I left out things like the writing system and pronunciation to focus on grammar, but the writing system is not anywhere near as complex as many people (including native speakers) would have you believe. Kanji, when considered individually, are not difficult; their study is simply time consuming. 7 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| yourvietnamese Newbie Singapore yourvietnamese.com Joined 4980 days ago 9 posts - 6 votes Speaks: English | Message 10 of 22 14 April 2011 at 11:12am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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I'm beginning to learn Japanese, mainly for my programming work on language processing.
I think Japanese is quite a complex language when it comes to grammar. Writing is fine: as there is a direct mapping from writing to pronunciation. And I guess it'd be really difficult to express ideas in the "Japanese way": they just don't compose the meaning the way we compose in English. So, it's definitely a nice language to learn, esp. to appreciate the variety, if not complexity, in their way of expressing ideas. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Gon-no-suke Triglot Senior Member Japan Joined 6434 days ago 156 posts - 191 votes Speaks: Swedish*, Japanese, EnglishC2 Studies: Korean, Malay, Swahili | Message 11 of 22 14 April 2011 at 12:55pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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My 2 sen:
Learn hiragana first, don't bother with romaji. The grammar is much more consistent and easier to learn using hiragana. Don't worry that much about katakana, you will pick it up soon since there is a lot of feed-back from foreign loan words. Do notice the helpful similarities between hiragana and katakana though: しシ つツ かカ ほホ きキ のノ Learn the verb conjugations first and get used to speaking using verbs only. Don't use pronouns unless for emphasis. Focus on plain verb forms, you will be able to construct the polite form easily when necessary. Practice using the progressive form of verbs. This form is very common but was not emphasized enough in the textbooks I used. Noun modification by verb phrases is very common, learn to use this pattern at an early stage. Learn the auxillary verbs by heart, especially the helper auxillary verbs since they will enrich your Japanese. Learn kanji word-wise, not in isolation. Learn the correct stroke order from the beginning. Don't worry about word order as long as the verb is last. Due to the particles word order is very flexible and not necessary SOV. Summing up, it's all about the verbs! Edited by Gon-no-suke on 14 April 2011 at 12:57pm 6 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| eguru Newbie India Joined 4973 days ago 1 posts - 2 votes Studies: Japanese | Message 12 of 22 14 April 2011 at 2:33pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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I would learn hiragana and katakana immediately and use it from the beginning. Romaji can be good when looking up dictionaries and kanji readings would be written in romaji rather than hiragana or katakana as that will make it easier and faster to just use reference materials.
One "mistake" that I did with the Japanese language was that I didn't believe I could learn it, especially the kanji part. I kept postponing the kanji learning until I felt that I can't move forward without them. So, I think it is important to start learning kanji from the beginning. The best way to learn kanji is learning words and reading. If you have a visual memory (like me) and like reading, the script would play an important role. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Delaunay Pentaglot Newbie Hungary Joined 4989 days ago 16 posts - 27 votes Speaks: German, Hungarian*, English, Japanese, Dutch Studies: Russian | Message 13 of 22 14 April 2011 at 3:15pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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I think Go-no-suke just wrote the most useful advices ever, so follow them for sure.
To add my two cents, I would emphasise the importance of kanji. They seriously help, and whenever I was at a business meeting with Japanese people, and didn't understand a word they said, I asked them to write it's kanji, and it helped every time! Because there are many verbs in Japanese whose pronounciation is exactly the same, you can specify which one you were referring to. Learning relevant kanji is also a great idea as far as I'm concerned. If you notice you use a verb all the time, it might be a good idea to learn its kanji. I also think that the first thing any Japanese student should do is reviewing the whole verb conjugation table. There aren't that many forms, and it will clear a lot of confusion. And finally, learn about the culture. It's really important, as you need to know when to use what form, and you can't do that without understanding the Japanese social rules. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5381 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 14 of 22 14 April 2011 at 3:24pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
I'd remove "the". 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| cntrational Triglot Groupie India Joined 5127 days ago 49 posts - 66 votes Speaks: Hindi, Telugu, English* Studies: French | Message 15 of 22 14 April 2011 at 10:01pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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I'm surprised nobody has recommended Heisig's Remembering the Kanji yet.
http://nirc.nanzan-u.ac.jp/publications/miscPublications/Rem embering_the_Kanji_1.htm Download a sample there, remember to read the introduction. Edited by cntrational on 14 April 2011 at 10:03pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Lucky Charms Diglot Senior Member Japan lapacifica.net Joined 6949 days ago 752 posts - 1711 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: German, Spanish | Message 16 of 22 15 April 2011 at 5:16am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
I agree, except you have to be careful not to learn irrelevant kanji that have been obsolete since around WW2. For example, you might notice that you use ある all the time (one of the "to be" verbs that ericspinelli mentioned) and want to look up the kanji for it, and a dictionary will give you 有る and 在る and 或る but won't tell you that they're used extremely rarely, and that everyone just writes ある in hiragana. There are many common words like this whose kanji are hardly ever used. I would recommend learning a kanji if you notice you use the word all the time AND if you've seen it written in kanji before.
And "I" as well, in order to be consistent with the advice given in other posts. The only necessary elements in this sentence are "apple (direct object marker) ate", unless we really need to emphasize who.
I really like this advice. Every textbook and course I've seen does it the other way around, teaching the polite form first because it's the one you're likely to use more often (as a tourist, businessman, or someone just asking directions from a stranger). However, it's easier to construct the polite form once you know the plain form than the other way around, and you'll be able to use a dictionary, understand product labels and song lyrics, and most things on the web. In short, if you need to speak right away, go for polite form first, but otherwise I recommend plain form first. Edited by Lucky Charms on 15 April 2011 at 5:25am 4 persons have voted this message useful |
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