Hey, can someone please tell me how to get started on learning Japanese?

[FionordeQuester]

My High School isn't offering any courses on it, so I don't really know how to start, but I really want to learn, for I plan on going to Japan someday.

[Esau of Isaac]

Wait until college to take a course, or see if you can enroll in night classes in one nearby. Don't bother trying to learn it without a human teacher to guide you, such as through the internet or with self-help books, it's a waste of your time and you're going to learn something incorrectly at some point, which is a problem when you're supposed to be laying down the building blocks for learning later on.

[Galenforcer]

My High School isn't offering any courses on it, so I don't really know how to start, but I really want to learn, for I plan on going to Japan someday.

Hey, that's pretty much the same as me, minus the japanese-less course thing. If I actually see you in Japan, that would make me lol.

[Chalis]

Start by getting used to hiragana and katakana. After that, you pretty much want a teacher.

[Esau of Isaac]

I would still say before that. He needs to get the stroke order down.

Though I guess learning the easiest bits of the alphabet before going into the class might help to give a feeling for whether he'd really like to try the class.

[FionordeQuester]

I see. Thanks for the help guys. I would be quite amused too Yuri-Chan, although I wonder, how would you be able to pick me out?

Anyways, in the mean, if I was to run into a language barrier on, say, a Japanese video of a speedrun of a game, how would you go about figuring it out? Go to random forums related to that game and asked? I've heard that the Angry Video Game Nerd has something of a cult following in Japan, with people who go out of their way to translate his videos, so it...seems like it'd be a cool thing to be able to do. Watch entertaining videos in a different language, translate them, then share them with others.

Edited October 14, 2010 by FionordeQuester

[Esau of Isaac]

Yeah, I was thinking somewhat along the same lines.

I recently started translating JoJo's Bizarre Adventure after part III, because the original part IV was done so poorly it was more or less unreadable. However, after the recent crackdown by WSJ and gang, it's been pretty damn hard to get raws to work with. So I only have the first bits done. Probably should've gotten on that earlier rather than waiting.

Edited October 14, 2010 by Esau of Isaac

[Loki Laufeyson]

You could try getting that Rosetta Stone software for Japanese.

[calculuswhiz]

Yes, Rosetta Stone. Works for me.

[Merric]

Rosetta Stone helped me pick up the language in my spare time but getting a private tutor is what i found the most effective when tryign to learn a language. the feedback is better and more accurate, it also let me learn the languages in an order i found interesting rather than just havgin to stick ridigly to a pre defined textbook order. Then again a private tutor just wont work for everyone.

Also i know some might say its really expensive to get private tutor -> it wasnt for me while at university as the tutors were other students who just wanted a little extra cash, they werent accredited professional teachers, they just grew up speaking the language i wanted to learn..

Edited October 26, 2010 by merric

[Flashpoint_1230]

Yeah, I used Rosetta Stone for French, and, while it helped me to get some basic vocabulary down, it did not help when it came to sentence structure or any sort of grammatical concepts. Maybe it would work better now (I used it when I was about 9 years old). As it is, when I started high school, I took French with a teacher who had his Ph.D in French. He had spent a number of years living in France, and was an excellent teacher. He really helped me to get everything down, and I am now in French III. Our teacher prepared my class so well in French II that we could enter into a French 300 college level class even without having taken the AP French exam. (I'm a junior BTW)

Basically, I'd suggest taking a class or getting a tutor. French has a lot of idioms and expressions that could not be contained in a textbook, and since Japanese uses a different alphabet, I'm sure that it is even more complicated, so I wouldn't mess around on your own.

Edited November 19, 2010 by Flashpoint_1230

[calculuswhiz]

Of course, being a high school student, Rosetta stone is the only way for me. It's pretty good, actually, short of not having a real human teach me.

And Japanese doesn't have an alphabet.

Edited November 17, 2010 by 存理者

[Esau of Isaac]

Of course, being a high school student, Rosetta stone is the only way for me. It's pretty good, actually, short of not having a real human teach me.

And Japanese doesn't have an alphabet.

Hiragana and katakana are alphabets.

Though if we don't consider them alphabets, then what of roman characters, which they use? Surely romaji is an alphabet.

Edited November 18, 2010 by Esau of Isaac

[TheEnd]

I would still say before that. He needs to get the stroke order down.

Though I guess learning the easiest bits of the alphabet before going into the class might help to give a feeling for whether he'd really like to try the class.

He can get that order fixed later. It's better to start a Japanese course already being able to read them, if you ask me.

And Japanese doesn't have an alphabet.

Indeed, it has two. Because everyone cares about terms like syllabary, right?

There's a guy in my class who studied Japanese by himself for quite a while. As result, he had a reasonably good vocabulary and could recognize a lot of kanji, but failed at grammar and couldn't write very well. A teacher is indeed desirable.

Edited November 19, 2010 by TheEnd

[Esau of Isaac]

He can get that order fixed later. It's better to start a Japanese course already being able to read them, if you ask me.

I dunno. I personally wouldn't want to go into any language with the slightest errors. I haven't personally ever memorized the basics in any given thing hugely incorrectly, but I've heard enough horror stories about this or that person being absolutely ruined from trying something without getting the basics down through help of others that I'm practically terrified of starting something serious without experienced supervision.

This post sucks since I'm incredibly tired right now, but when I am saying "thing" I mean any general field of study (could be biology, metals, knitting, etc.)

[TheEnd]

I dunno. I personally wouldn't want to go into any language with the slightest errors. I haven't personally ever memorized the basics in any given thing hugely incorrectly, but I've heard enough horror stories about this or that person being absolutely ruined from trying something without getting the basics down through help of others that I'm practically terrified of starting something serious without experienced supervision.

This post sucks since I'm incredibly tired right now, but when I am saying "thing" I mean any general field of study (could be biology, metals, knitting, etc.)

There's no need to take Japanese that seriously; it won't explode if you do it wrong.

Besides, without knowing the kana you can't do any progress on your own; you can't even look up words in dictionaries. Japanese is an alien language to us westerners, and it's never too early to start adding to your vocabulary in it. Even because you'll mostly have to do that on your own anyway, since your teachers can't memorize for you.

Or something. I'm not making too much sense either.

[kasumi]

Rosetta Stone is pretty helpful, but if you're completely beginner, you can try using smart.fm . It'll introduce you to several basic words, as well as hiragana, katakana and kanji.

[General Spoon]

Learn Spanish instead; its more useful.

[Esau of Isaac]

It's also totally lame.

[Inui]

I took three semesters of Japanese in college. My teacher was really good. It's actually not that hard. Compared to other languages, the grammar structure is simple with few exceptions and you don't have to worry about gender, a ton of articles, etc.

The only annoying part is the writing...

[Inui]

I took three semesters of Japanese in college. My teacher was really good. It's actually not that hard. Compared to other languages, the grammar structure is simple with few exceptions and you don't have to worry about gender, a ton of articles, etc.

The only annoying part is the writing...

[Esau of Isaac]

I dunno about the articles bit. It can be kind of confusing for a beginner to differentiate at times.

[Inui]

I dunno about the articles bit. It can be kind of confusing for a beginner to differentiate at times.

not compared to other languages lol

to explain the difference in ease of learning, I will use this example:

there are 7 different ways to say "the" in Italian and you have to differentiate between gender and whether it's singular or plural when you use "my"

"the" doesn't exist in Japanese and "no" is simply used for possession (and even describing in many cases) regardless of plurality or gender

[Esau of Isaac]

Yes, however you have に, が, を, etc. Those can be kind of confusing.

Edit: Articles, particles; they're both confusing, even if they're apparently different things.

Edited December 3, 2010 by Esau of Isaac