Learning Japanese?

[DM was on fire!]

I've found the Instant Immersion programs are very easy to use, and they teach you quite a lot.

[Yoshi]

Bah, I wanna learn Japanese so badly. Too bad I'm in a highschool program where all but 2 courses are planned for you. I can take Japanese later on in grade 10, but that would mean I can only take one elective. :(

I wish I could replace french.

I know you're probably in the same education system I'm in- you have to graduate with a grade 11 language credit. You can take all the electives you want and preempt language courses, but if you don't have a language 11, you don't graduate. I'd recommend replacing French with Japanese in grade 10 if you really want to learn it, or taking both if you're ambitious.

[orderofthephoenix13]

I learnt some Japanese in year 7 and 8 at my school. It is pretty easy to learn and does improve your english vocabulary. We used a textbook sometime in year 8 called "Obentoo" I think and it was a great help. If you don't keep revising, you will most likely forget lots of stuff which has happened to me and I used to remember a lot of katakana, hiragana and kanji.

[843]

You don't know how much I envy you guys for having Japanese lessons in school...

[Lillie]

I don't actually know Japanese, so here are my two cents for what they are worth:

I hear that languages are often classed in 'families', and English and many other European languages are very similar since they are derived from the Latin family? It's easy to draw comparisons between French and English, or French and Spanish, or Spanish and Italian.

So it's important to realize that Japanese doesn't come from the same family and to not expect there to be similarities. I think if you believe that you will be learning from scratch completely -- and not expect there to be anything that will make it easier for you -- you are less likely to have false expectations and thus be disappointed.

I'm not sure if Chinese and Japanese are from the same family of languages. Some Chinese characters are used in Japanese, though the meaning can apparently differ occasionally. Anyway, when I am thinking in Chinese, I'm not thinking in the same way as I do for English and French. I can understand French in terms of English, but I find it much harder to understand Chinese in terms of English.

That is why I feel it's important to try and learn within the language itself as much as you can, to not keep thinking 'what is it in English?' but to derive meanings from context as much as possible. Perhaps you can treat it like learning a language from scratch as a baby would, without the support of previous knowledge to guide you. Words can only be translated so far before they lose a lot of meaning.

Watching a lot of anime is apparently very good for learning Japanese as well. (There's a phrase in Chinese which goes listen-speak-read-write, and essentially shows the pattern of successful learning. You've got to understand what is being said before you can speak, and speak before you can read, and read before you write.)

Anyway, good luck!

[843]

To add to the post above, learning from scratch won't help you when learning single-word vocabularies

[Christopher]

I'm not sure if Chinese and Japanese are from the same family of languages. Some Chinese characters are used in Japanese, though the meaning can apparently differ occasionally. Anyway, when I am thinking in Chinese, I'm not thinking in the same way as I do for English and French. I can understand French in terms of English, but I find it much harder to understand Chinese in terms of English.

Every time over all of history that the Japanese went and invaded China, they pillaged a few more characters and added them to their language
Words like China are almost the same in Chinese and Japanese.

Watching a lot of anime is apparently very good for learning Japanese as well. (There's a phrase in Chinese which goes listen-speak-read-write, and essentially shows the pattern of successful learning. You've got to understand what is being said before you can speak, and speak before you can read, and read before you write.)

Lies :O

Seven + years of anime watching hasn't really helped that much.

[PixieX]

I'm not sure if Chinese and Japanese are from the same family of languages. Some Chinese characters are used in Japanese, though the meaning can apparently differ occasionally.

Well, I guess technically you could say they're from the same family of languages. The kanji characters that the Japanese use are exactly the same as Chinese's. Why? Because once upon a time Japanese invaded China and were like, "GIVE US YOUR CHINESE CHARACTERS OR ELSE WE WILL ANNIHILATE YOU." (Well not exactly, but they did invade them and murdered thousands of people XP And that is why everyone hates the Japanese! Because they're not dirty, coming-up-with new infested diseases.. and, well, they're just better in the Asian race.) The obvious difference between looking at something that's written in Chinese and in Japanese is that in Chinese everything is all written in Kanji, as opposed to Japanese you'll see a hiragana symbol in between a couple of Kanji characters.

[843]

...as opposed to Japanese you'll see a hiragana symbol in between a couple of Kanji characters.

It's the other way round. kanji characters are slipped in between hiragana characters

Kanji is only used for nouns or objects.

[Ski]

...as opposed to Japanese you'll see a hiragana symbol in between a couple of Kanji characters.

It's the other way round. kanji characters are slipped in between hiragana characters

Kanji is only used for nouns or objects.

Not verbs? I think I've seen a few Kanji verbs. But, then again, I'm in Spanish, not Japanese.

[Christopher]

...as opposed to Japanese you'll see a hiragana symbol in between a couple of Kanji characters.

It's the other way round. kanji characters are slipped in between hiragana characters

Kanji is only used for nouns or objects.

[/quote]

Wherever you got that idea you are horribly wrong, infact names of people and places are less likely to be in kanji as it is common to write them in katakana whether they are japanese or not.

高い - Tall, an adjective
行く - To go, a verb
本田さん - Mr Honda

[843]

I remember reading them somewhere... then again, I haven't even started on kanji yet (stares at the katakana chart -_-;;), so please don't shoot me down

From what I've seen though, manga uses far less kanji than newspapers...

EDIT: Ah, I see now...

Kanji is used for the basic elements of sentences, ie nouns, verb stems and adjective stems

That explains a lot. ^_^

[Christopher]

Younger people read manga as compared to newspapers obviously

[Lillie]

Lies :O

Seven + years of anime watching hasn't really helped that much.

Oh okay.

(I was always under the impression that there was this Chinese emperor who sent his servants out to discover a potion for immortality, or else they die, so some of the servants ran away to the islands that make up modern Japan. Possibly it's all a myth, but there were certainly plenty of mad emperors!)

[843]

How the heck did he even get all influental?
I can imagine: "You Chinese, GO BACK to your country!!"

No offense here