Other ways to learn Japanese?

[SolistraSora]

Hi guys,

I really want to learn Japanese and will be following the lessons here if it is constantly updated but...

I want to ask, how did you guys start learning Japanese? Did you use some online resources / websites that are easy to use and learn from? And if so, can you please give me a few links?

Thanks :)

 

[Gdragonx]

Well.. Talk the truth.. I learn unconsciously..
Following Latest Anime for about 2 years, and listening ONLY to japanese song (w or w/o lyric) for about one years..
And Finally.. Visual Novel for about 2 months.. Tada~ I Learnt It!! lolx..
Its kind of unusual for my case anyway..
Something like Extra Reward for myself..

Hmn... I'll update Katagana Lesson ASAP.. and something fresh =].. too bad having 2 camps (to prepare) in 3 weeks.. and gotta finish hoshikaka >< (own desire)..
Anyway.. I'll update some interesting Lesson.. Don't worry.. =]
But will it help you.. Depends on yourself.. If you have enough interest in it, it shouldn't be any problem.. ^^
Good Luck~

 

[SolistraSora]

That's unfair >.< You learnt Japanese so easily!!! (well compared to using textbooks and whatnot :P)

I've been watching anime for 7 years or so now...and I still know nothing but common japanese expressions only :L

So now...you are able to play a whole visual novel right? :P

 

[Gdragonx]

Yup >< lolx..
Try to play some visual novel.. Should help alot =].. thu in the beginning might be hard =/..
Ganbatte ne ^^

 

[Ignis]

Hmm, let's see...

I started off with learning katakana by playing a GBA game, namely Tales of World: Narikiri Dungeon 3. No English version of the game was available, so I had to play in Japanese. Almost all skill names were written in katakana, and were altered English (e.g. fireball written as ファイアボール; faiabooru). I then forced myself to memorise all the katakana letters from its table. As for hiragana, it wasn't much different - I forced myself to memorise all the letters; took me like 2-3 hours. Make it 2 days with all the exercises.

Then I watched animu and listened to Japanese songs - that's pretty much how I started recognising words and eventually sentence structures etc. Dictionary was never really reliable, so I did lots of analysis on my own to decipher structures, patterns, and other essences of the language. As I learned how to compose sentences, I started trying to communicate in Japanese with various people. Of course, my sentences were broken when I started, but as long as I had someone fix them and explain my mistakes to me, it was always fine.

It still continues up until now - well, currently I'm majoring Japanese literature, so how I learn is out of question, but I still do much self-learning. Not to boast, but I've observed that most of my friends of the same major lack the skills and sense needed in dynamically phrasing out sentences. Such things aren't something you can learn academically, but kinda depend on your feel. That's how studying languages is, after all.

Animu is actually a very good way to learn structures as well as informal expressions and words. When you're good enough to watch raw animu, try moving on to visual novels. Start off with simple ones with short and simple dialogues, preferably something with a simple theme like school romance. That's where you will most likely encounter sentences that get used often on daily occasions.

Hope this helps somewhat. Good luck.

 

[Tsubame]

Well.. Talk the truth.. I learn unconsciously..
Following Latest Anime for about 2 years, and listening ONLY to japanese song (w or w/o lyric) for about one years..
And Finally.. Visual Novel for about 2 months.. Tada~ I Learnt It!! lolx..
Its kind of unusual for my case anyway..
Something like Extra Reward for myself..

Hmn... I'll update Katagana Lesson ASAP.. and something fresh =].. too bad having 2 camps (to prepare) in 3 weeks.. and gotta finish hoshikaka >< (own desire)..
Anyway.. I'll update some interesting Lesson.. Don't worry.. =]
But will it help you.. Depends on yourself.. If you have enough interest in it, it shouldn't be any problem.. ^^
Good Luck~

hohoho.. sound like GD~ :p
our Japanese Specialis..
help me to romanized this : チェリーボーイにくびったけ
^^v

Hmm, let's see...

I started off with learning katakana by playing a GBA game, namely Tales of World: Narikiri Dungeon 3. No English version of the game was available, so I had to play in Japanese. Almost all skill names were written in katakana, and were altered English (e.g. fireball written as ファイアボール; faiabooru). I then forced myself to memorise all the katakana letters from its table. As for hiragana, it wasn't much different - I forced myself to memorise all the letters; took me like 2-3 hours. Make it 2 days with all the exercises.

Then I watched animu and listened to Japanese songs - that's pretty much how I started recognising words and eventually sentence structures etc. Dictionary was never really reliable, so I did lots of analysis on my own to decipher structures, patterns, and other essences of the language. As I learned how to compose sentences, I started trying to communicate in Japanese with various people. Of course, my sentences were broken when I started, but as long as I had someone fix them and explain my mistakes to me, it was always fine.

It still continues up until now - well, currently I'm majoring Japanese literature, so how I learn is out of question, but I still do much self-learning. Not to boast, but I've observed that most of my friends of the same major lack the skills and sense needed in dynamically phrasing out sentences. Such things aren't something you can learn academically, but kinda depend on your feel. That's how studying languages is, after all.

Animu is actually a very good way to learn structures as well as informal expressions and words. When you're good enough to watch raw animu, try moving on to visual novels. Start off with simple ones with short and simple dialogues, preferably something with a simple theme like school romance. That's where you will most likely encounter sentences that get used often on daily occasions.

Hope this helps somewhat. Good luck.

Your method is very interesting Iggy..
i would try it later, i was like u playing a japan game (Super Robot Wars Series), but what i do is not learn the katana/hiragana.
i just memorize how the words looks like and what is function (sound like a fool). LOL!
and, here i wanna ask.. if we already now hiragana and katana.. could we read Mangas ? i mean could we understand perfectly ?
or we still need to learn some Kanji's ? (this is a nightmare).

and for me i only understand what i hear or read a romaji. lol

and here, could u help me to romanized this : チェリーボーイにくびったけ

 

[ONC]

For me.... well its the standard books and stuff I suppose... first phrase I learnt: 全力全開！ (zenryouku zenkai !) XD

We were forced to memorize both hiragana and katagana within a week if I recall correctly. Constant exposure to the language will let you get use to the language but I think the main component is practice.

if you know both hiragana and katagana.. yes, one can start to read manga... but both hiragana and katagana are like alphabets. They make no sense unless you string them together to make words out of it...

and tsubame.. you really confirmed what check thought of you eh ? that phrase is good enough to be used as evidence to your... "devotion" lol here is the romaji ver cheriibooi ni kubittake or if you want - cherry boy ni kubittake

 

[Tsubame]

For me.... well its the standard books and stuff I suppose... first phrase I learnt: 全力全開！ (zenryouku zenkai !) XD

We were forced to memorize both hiragana and katagana within a week if I recall correctly. Constant exposure to the language will let you get use to the language but I think the main component is practice.

if you know both hiragana and katagana.. yes, one can start to read manga... but both hiragana and katagana are like alphabets. They make no sense unless you string them together to make words out of it...

and tsubame.. you really confirmed what check thought of you eh ? that phrase is good enough to be used as evidence to your... "devotion" lol here is the romaji ver cheriibooi ni kubittake or if you want - cherry boy ni kubittake

i see.., thx for your good advice..
i think i can learn a little from your words.
Devotion ?! lolololol..... like i told u it was a "MISTAKE" !
hahahaha.. don't get it wrong, its a Eroge title that i share in my seedbox. >_<

 

[Zero2DS]

I learned japanese from hiragana first :3 taught by my friends *they really helped me out* XD then next is katakana....
For words listening to anime song and watching it probably its quite enough for everyday conversation...
the last is the kanji<<< the hardest one my only advice "go and play vn" do hear and compare and remember the kanji from the easiest one that you hear :)

 

[ayanochanmk2]

The way to learn Japanese for me is just listening and speaking.
So for the ppl that wanna know just listening and speaking can use my tip ne.
I just play Visual Novel and watch anime.........That is the way to learn how to speak and listening Japanese for me.
How? Visual Novel or Anime got the same thing that are Japanese Voice and subtitle (VN got it in case of english patch or use AGTH).
In this case, you can listen the word and match it with meaning in subtitle.
Moreover, when you listen for a long time you will see the same words that you know the meaning keep appear in everyday conversation so you can guess the meaning of the sentence and keep build up your Japanese vocab ne.
I can listening 40-50% of conversation by this ne.
And I use the same way to deal with English too

 

[Battlecat]

can't give a better advice than you already got
maybe you should also always carry a dictionary or so with you

I still try to learn japanese and do almost the same things as the most ppl here and play VNs and have a dictionary next to me XD
best is when you have a friend who can teach you
cause nothing helps better than to hear how you spell it correct right ^^

 

[KiraWing]

Same case over here, part of my jap lesson came from playing VN.
However, in my case, I don't use any translating tools like atlas or such. I actually used a dictionary just like BC all they way while playing the VNs. I listen to the pronunciation and try to look up the kanji in the dictionary.
Yes, it is rather troublesome takes some time. But it certainly helps me to memorize the kanji faster.

 

[jonnerloller]

I learnt Japanese purely by watching anime for ... lets say... 10 years. (since before that I didnt really want to learn anything, was too young)

So i can effectively Watch a Raw anime or Drama with at least 80% understanding .

I can speak pretty fluently, but.... My Reading and Writing is terrible.

Hiragana and Katakana are simple, But i havent got down to memorizing Kanji yet.....

I did try to go for classes at a period of time, but Since I had already heard so many different speech patterns, the classes were very easy to absorb and as a result, I stopped cause i felt the classes were too slow and i had a faster time learning it by myself.

Probably going to Memorize kanji like mad to take y JLPT 2 next year.

 

[Gdragonx]

...
...
Probably going to Memorize kanji like mad to take y JLPT 2 next year.

Well.. good luck in the exam you're going to take nx year then ^^

 

[Joyjason]

Eastern Language are all alike, but they're different from the Western Languages. If you're familiar with the Western Language, you may encounter many problems while learning a Eastern Language, since they're so different.
As strange as it sounds, I'm Korean and I learned Japanese within a very short period of time. Now, I'm not fluent, and I never took official (or unofficial for that matter) classes, but hey, it's better than nothing =)

All I can say, keep trying and you'll get it. As others said, watching anime and trying to learn the conversational phrases is a good way to start =)

 

[UtsukushiiOto]

Well, I started off with animu (well, most of us did). Watched it for about 3 or so years, listened mostly to Japanese songs. But all of that proved to be inefficient, at least for me. As a result, I ended up enrolling into a Japanese language school. The school is actually a part of our city's main university, so the quality of teaching is pretty good and the load of homework our Sensei gives us is a bit scary. I'm planning to finish 4 semesters, and then attempt to enrol into a UK university, studying Japanese language, culture and history as the main subjects.

All in all, I know not everyone is able to afford and/or is capable of taking up language lessons, but it's certainly a much more fun way to learn Japanese. You get to regularly practice your oral speech, your writing skills, and are always pushed by your Sensei towards a said deadline. I've starting from the beginner level, so I'm pretty much at the top of my class at the moment. (wonder how long that'll last...)

 

[brad12]

Japanese anime is one of the best way to learn japanese, but now a days peoples are using intranet.

 

[tonymark]

you will soon learn Japanese. Reference books, the network has the pages are translated from the investigation from, you want to learn a lot of time this takes.

 

[magiccircuit]

Learning Japanese is always a attractive topic.
I learned Japanese by games first(sakura war,Langrissor), then I bought a dictionary, when ever I met a word, I checked it, day and day, I can read Japanese now

 

[H-Addict]

I've learnt by watching anime and can easily understand any anime without subs....can't read shit though...xD

 

[rune hiryu]

The way to learn Japanese for me is just listening and speaking.
So for the ppl that wanna know just listening and speaking can use my tip ne.
I just play Visual Novel and watch anime.........That is the way to learn how to speak and listening Japanese for me.
How? Visual Novel or Anime got the same thing that are Japanese Voice and subtitle (VN got it in case of english patch or use AGTH).
In this case, you can listen the word and match it with meaning in subtitle.
Moreover, when you listen for a long time you will see the same words that you know the meaning keep appear in everyday conversation so you can guess the meaning of the sentence and keep build up your Japanese vocab ne.
I can listening 40-50% of conversation by this ne.
And I use the same way to deal with English too

hihihi..I'm doing your method too~..Ayano-san... XDD

 

[Will98]

Literally in my view the only way to most efficiently learn Japanese is to surround your self with it. Listening to music, watching Anime, etc. Also find a person who knows the language inside and out. Have them show you how.

I first started with the simple "Google" it for one words meaning. Then I found text books that would have drills for learning a few words at a time. A year of that helped a little. Then I found Rosetta Stone, I still use it. But now I just listen to J-pop and their older music (80s kind), watch their Anime and eat their food too. (Tastes good M.M)

I probably only know about uhh, maybe a thousand words. I'm just slow and easy going. I also don't have much of a drive. I'm very busy too. (School, work, sports, extra curricular activities, camping and re-enacting)

 

[cervantesmx]

... Then I found Rosetta Stone, I still use it...

How is Rosetta Stone to learn Japanese? would your recommend it?

 

[leeminhoo]

my friends say that learning japanese is quite difficult because it is easy to forget if you do not practise daily,specially, i live in a country where do not use japanese.so the best way to learn this language is watching film and listening music as much as you can.^^ .i hope that this information can be uselul for you!

 

[him_dox]

i learned hirigana in year 7 high school, its quite easy to learn from textbooks... but i could never wrap my head around language structure of basic sentences, when i started watching anime like 2-3 years ago i picked up alot of phrases and my vocabulary grew. I still don't have a firm grip on grammar and structure but i got the rest from basically watching anime and listening to Japanese music, primarily Hatsune Miku XD.
And about Rosetta Stone, ive taken all the courses it can offer, ill tell you now its not as good as it makes out to be. It does a poor job of explaining things especially if your native tongue is English. If you do want to use it tho, i can link you the torrents to the copy i got; maybe you'll find it more effective for you, we all learn differently after all...
But yeah, if you can wrap your head around grammar, maybe from textbooks or Rosetta stone, you can gain an extensive vocabulary from just Anime and VNs alone.