Best Learning Methods?

[Miyavifan]

Originally Posted by Sutiiven

Where do you find one of them dictionaries i have looked in book stores and they dont have them

I got mine at Barnes and Noble

[GoodAnime]

Originally Posted by Nathan

今日は日曜日　(kyou wa nichiyoubi)

I really don't know what advice to give that hasn't been already given. I learned my grammar from textbooks.

Oh, thank you! -Writes it down-

[intotheblue]

Useful online teaching site I've found is Verbalplanet:

It's a paid site but you can get a one to one lesson with a Japanese language tutor. Alternatively if you are up to doing a bit of teaching you can earn a bit of extra money by becoming a tutor. Stuck the URL below:-

Online Japanese Language Tuition | Personal Japanese Tutors & Teachers

Cheers

Originally Posted by Rogozhin

I don't know how effective self-teaching is given the difficulty of learning any new language.

I strongly recommend you memorise all the hiragana and katakana first before delving further. This isn't too difficult to do on your own (just keep at it and practise writing/reading/listening/speaking them)

I think you should definately consider joining a class though, because it just gets more difficult from here.

I can't offer you any online teaching sites I'm afraid.

[PouncingAnt]

Hmm. Looks like this got bumped a while back..

Still, for the sake of completeness, I'll append my opinions here (that, and I like talking ).

As for paid online tuition, I would only go for that if I had a deadline by which I had to grasp a language. Or if I had lots of money. You can learn a language without tuition, that's what my brother did.

I say all too often the need to talk to native speakers. If you cant get to Japan physically, email Japanese people, mail them, chat to them on Skype, anything you possibly can. Have a dictionary (Jim Breen's is gold) on your internet browser while you chat. Whilst you take a break from that, learn the grammar (no shortage of sites with grammar!) and additional vocab.

I think most normal people get periods of up to an hour where they are stuck with nothing to do. Take that novel out of your bag, and replace it with something you can study Japanese with.

[Samuraizr0]

I actually started using nothing but books from borders and cd's, rhe CD's were mostly to get the sound of native speakers. I kept a slew of japanese songs both rock and rap. I found that if you listen to the language every day atleast for a little while then the language begins to slow down and you can pick out words. I also watched japanese tv shows(fuji san kei TV if available in your area).

It didnt matter what the show was I would sit witha note pad and a dictionary and jot down words and try to put them in sentences after looking up the meanings. I was fortunate enough to find a few people I call friends (Thanks Gen And Yohei and Kenji)that live in Japan with whom I speak with on Skype.(that's hard though because I live in the US and the time dif is killer )But I found that rosetta stone works VERY wellalso because it shows you words and pictures and it's easy to use.