I have a Question to ask about Japanese

[Iron Monkey]

I am going to be taking elementary japanese for the first time ever, can anyone who knows or have took up japanse in the past tell me what should I expect and will it be hard to learn japanese. How long would it take the average person to learn japanese.

[RickMatz]

I work for a Japanese company, and since February, I've been studying from an online course at www.yesjapan.com.

I've been making steady progress, and my Japanese collegues think that if they dropped me into the middle of Japan, I have enough Japanese to survive.

It's hard. The grammar is much different that English. With any European language, you can look pretty much any word, and guess what latin or greek root it might have and take a fair stab at it's meaning. In Japanese, you've got no such crutch to lean on.

Then there is writing. It takes a lot of practice for hiragana and katakana to become serviceable. I'm just beginning on the kanji. I'll let you know how it goes.

It's been very rewarding, and I've made many insights into martial arts terminology as a result of this study, but it's hard work.

My advice is to doggedly do a little each day. Speak and listen whenever you get a chance.

Good luck!

Best Regards,

RIck

[Iron Monkey]

Thanks rick, good luck to you as well I will start my japanese class in the spring courses at my college.

[RickMatz]

Here's a free piece of software that I just learned about, that is available for download:

http://wakan.manga.cz

[Kimpatsu]

For a native English speaker, Japanese in toto is difficult to learn, because it includes the world's most difficult written script. The grammar is completely different from that of Indo-European languages, but if you can get past the strangness, it's not so difficult, and there are fewer rules than in English or French.
Go for it. If I can learn Japanese, anyone can.

[Cla68]

I've been studying Japanese for awhile and here's some advice or tips from my perspective on trying to learn Japanese:

- It's easier to learn to speak it first before reading, unlike other languages, because Japanese writing is so ridiculously complicated (i.e. having their own pronunciations for Chinese characters as well as the original Chinese pronunciation, plus the two kana alphabets which are used in specific situations). But, you should take a couple of hours and learn how to write the hiragana. Thereafter, never again write a Japanese word with Roman letters, always at least use hiragana (or katakana if learn that also). This will help you get used to Japanese pronunciation, word structure, and build a foundation for learning kanji (chinese characters).

- Don't try to specifically classify every word you lean in Japanese as a noun, adjective, or verb in your mind. It will drive you crazy because many don't directly translate into those concepts the way the words are used in their language. Sometimes a word will act similar to a verb in our language, and sometimes more like an adjective.

- It's been my experience that when asking a question of most Japanese people (like my wife) a question like, "what's the neutral gerund of this verb?'' I'll usually get a blank look in return. It seems like the "nuts and bolts" science of their language isn't taught to them in their education system like ours is to us. Only Japanese who formally teach Japanese language, or professional translators, have been able to answer questions like that for me.

- I've found that people from most countries love it when you try to speak their language. I haven't found that to be true with many Japanese. If you can find (or have already) a Japanese friend(s) who is able and willing to engage you in Japanese conversations with the sincere goal of helping you to actually learn the languange, this will help a great deal.

If I think of any more I'll post them here.

[Kimpatsu]

Learn hiragana and katakana ASAP, and then start on the kanji as part of your study regimen, alongside the grammar and vocab.
If you want to know the gerund of a verb, just ask for the "-te" form. The Japanese learn these nuts and bolts in school, but then promptly forget them again, as with most native English speakers, when they leave school.

[RickMatz]

I'm finding that learning to read Japanese helps me speak it better, and vice versa.

[Cla68]

The Japanese learn these nuts and bolts in school, but then promptly forget them again, as with most native English speakers, when they leave school.

You're probably right about that. I'm just going off of what my wife and friends have told me that they weren't taught formal Japanese sentence structure and word classifications in school. Of course, I'm most likely falling into the "fallacy of composition" trap by taking what they say and extrapolating it to Japanese society as a whole.

[Kimpatsu]

You're probably right about that. I'm just going off of what my wife and friends have told me that they weren't taught formal Japanese sentence structure and word classifications in school. Of course, I'm most likely falling into the "fallacy of composition" trap by taking what they say and extrapolating it to Japanese society as a whole.
I'll bet you they were taught it; ask them what they studied in kokugo classes, and if they reply "kanji", ask pointedly if that's all they did right through to the end of high school.

[Cla68]

I'll bet you they were taught it; ask them what they studied in kokugo classes, and if they reply "kanji", ask pointedly if that's all they did right through to the end of high school.

I'll ask my wife that very question tonight. Perhaps that can help end my frustration with my family and friends giving me so little help on learning their language.

By the way, which part of Tokyo to you live in?

[Kimpatsu]

I'll ask my wife that very question tonight. Perhaps that can help end my frustration with my family and friends giving me so little help on learning their language.

By the way, which part of Tokyo to you live in?
The Kawasaki end.
And please tell me what your wife replied. I'm interested to know.

[zatojoshi]

I studied Japanese on my own for a year before studying in Japan twice. I also took two years of college Japanese. By the end of it, I could do my host sister's third-grade homework with her. As to how hard it is? Japanese is hard for those who expect it to come easy to them (i.e. they don't study). Study your hirigana and katakana to start, and some basic phrases. After that, if you really wanna learn more, I suggest making a couple Japanese friends and having them help you with conversation. As much as it's cool to read kanji, I highly recommend working on your conversational skills more, because they improve your listening skills at the same time, and I think it's a much more valuable translational skill than trying to read (unless you are planning to work abroad, but even then). Good luck.

[Whtny42]

I personally am trying to start japanese too, but I'm trying to learn it totally, written and spoken. Just to try to elaborate a little on previous posts:

Japanese has 3 "alphabets" if you want to call them that, the Hiragana, the Katakana, and Kanji. Hiragana is most useful, its used to pronounce the japanese words and syllables. Katakana is used for words of foreign origin (anything not japanese or chinese) while Kanji is a set of symbols inherited from China used to represent certain things. I read somewhere that Kanji is used mainly as the subjects and nouns of a sentence (don't quote me on that though). There are 2000 of these puppies in common usage, and to be considered knowledgable on a highschool level, you have to know all of them.

The first step that I've been recommended to do and that most people do is learn the Hiragana and Katakana. The japan page has an excelent resource for this:

http://www.thejapanesepage.com/articles.php?cat_id=8

If you are like me and like to have a book to work along with, I'm using:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0804833915/sr=1-1/qid=1139177330/ref=pd_bbs_1/102-3842617-7577709?%5Fencoding=UTF8

For learning how to speak the language, the Pimslur series is supposed to be top notch. It's a cd/cassete series that imerses you in the language when you listen to it, and allows you to train your ears to hear in japanese and think in japanese. Its definitly worth a shot. Once i get the kana memorised, i plan on combining this with kanji learning and basic grammar studies (I hear that Japanese for Busy people and Genkgi (SP?) are good for this and for basic vocab building).

good luck with everything. =)

[Cla68]

And please tell me what your wife replied. I'm interested to know.

Sorry it took me so long to respond. I asked her last night. The conversation I think went like we expected:

Me: Did you have a class called kokugo in high school?
Her: Yes.
Me: What did you learn in it?
Her: Grammar
Me: How deep into grammar did you go? Did you study verb forms, transitional phrases, and sentence structure?
Her: (In an annoyed voice) I don't remember (changes the subject).

You were right, although I'd still like to know how deep into the science of their language they go in school. Like, do they diagram sentences like we do in junior high and high school? Perhaps because they're preparing for high school or college entrance exams, they only pay attention to material they need to know for the exams, like kanji.

[Cla68]

I've done some more study on my own, and I have an idea as to why it's hard for me to get my Japanese family and friends to discuss the grammatical mechanics of their language with me in a way that gives me any useful information.

According to an entry in Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agglutination), Japanese is an "agglutinated" language which means it is primarily composed of morphemes (small sound syllables or cognates with a semantic interpretation) that are strung together or affixed to base words (usually verbals) to express ideas or action. The entry says that, "Native speakers of strongly agglutinating languages untrained in linguistics cannot usually break down an agglutinated word into its components."

English, on the other hand, is an "analytic" or "isolating" language which means it uses more independent words to express ideas or action. An analytic language puts more emphasis on word order and context because establishing the relationship between subjects and objects in sentences is very important because of all the words that have to be used to clearly express what one is trying to say. Thus, I think this may account for why we make such a science out of diagramming sentences, i.e. defining exactly what each word is doing there, classifying the type of word it is (adverb, preposition, etc) and why it's in that particular order in the sentence.

Word order and word relationships aren't as important in an agglutinated language because the important subject-object relationships are expressed in single or fewer words. Furthermore, context wouldn't be as important since the individual words are more descriptive and therefore open to less interpretation (as far as to what type of action is taking place).

I would need to run this by a linguist to check to see if I'm on the right track.

[gaijin samurai]

the only way to learn japanese the right way is to write,write and write. It will take you years to learn enough to have a discussion.
Good luck :bow:

[fifthchamber]

the only way to learn japanese the right way is to write,write and write. It will take you years to learn enough to have a discussion.
Good luck
.....Really?Oh...Well..I have been wasting my time then..Damn..And I thought the video shop could understand what I was saying..All this time it turns out that they were just guessing...
Who'd a thunk it?
Interesting..

[RickMatz]

I've been studying Japanese for a little over a year now, through an online course at http://www.YesJapan.com. I've found that I can carry on simple conversations with my Japanese co workers (I work for a Japanese company).

[fifthchamber]

I would just like to point out that I was being rather sarcastic before...There is no way it would take more than that to become able to hold a conversation...In fact, writing the kanji makes very little difference to being able to speak Japanese as there is not a direct correllation between the kanji and the sounds..The sounds change in the sentance..Want to learn Japanese?Learn to speak first..It'll take a little time..But not any more than in any other language depending on ability and then after you could try the Kanji..Doing it the other way round is redundant...Learn the correct pronounciation and then the variations in the words..Then just find people to chat too..Simple as that..
Trust me.

[Bugeisha]

When I was studying at Kansai Gaidai in Hirakata, they split reading/writing and speaking into completely seperate classes. Not just different times of the day or anything, but entirely different curricula (sp?). It was very common for people to be in a much higer level of spoken Japanese than written Japanese. In fact, it was required that your spoken level be as high or higher than your level in reading/writing. Reading/writing was not even a required class for foreign students, but everyone needed spoken. So while reading and writing are useful, actually speaking Japanese seemed to be the best way to learn.

[RickMatz]

I've found that learning to write Japanese helps me to remember/understand the spoken words.

[Shinken]

That's true, but sometimes there can be difficulties when you have kanji with multiple pronounciations, and to some degree, if you really push kanji study, you can learn new vocabulary in the process. I'd agree with Dillon, though. Far, far easier to speak than it is to read and write. And, having Japanese friends to speak in Japanese with is invaluable. There simply is no substitute for frequent practice (of course, I guess we all know that).

[comanighttrain]

Japanese culture is fascinating. One thing they have in common with Britain is that No-one talks on the subway, it is quite frowned upon for some reason.

[David Craik]

Groping is okay though. :D

[comanighttrain]

it is? *flies to japan*

[Don Roley]

Japanese culture is fascinating. One thing they have in common with Britain is that No-one talks on the subway, it is quite frowned upon for some reason.

Are you kidding? They talk all the time.