Learning Japanese through blogging
 

Hey, I'm kind of new here, but anyway...

I'm desperately trying to improve my Japanese, and have found that one of the best ways to do so is to write and read the language constantly (pretty obvious, perhaps). So, I've decided to start a blog in Japanese, and was wondering if perhaps anyone here wanted to do the same? We could start a Japanese-language-learners blogging community and help each other out with language problems (correcting each other's Japanese, etc), and provide support and motivation for one another.

Anyone up for it?

Sounds like a good idea. What do I need to do?

I'd love to, except that I just started learning a few days ago. XD I've mastered hiragana, know a few words, and have just barely started on katakana.

Awesome.
 

Sounds like an awesome idea, and I would love to blog with you and others. I have been learning Japanese for a few months with Rosetta Stone and other resources but have been working quite slowly since I am very busy with school and other things, so I am only able to use Rosetta stone once or twice a week maybe. So I still know very little. I pretty much mastered ひらがな but I am still working on my カタカナ, and I know about 10 or so Kanji.

Also...
 

Hey guys, I created a blog for us, learningnihongo.wordpress.com :D

It's a pretty long name but everything else in the related area was taken already. Everybody who want's to join and be apart of the blog just register an account on the blog and post here. I will then add you in as an author. Kremost, I will add you in as admin, since this was your idea in the first place.

I think this is going to be great fun guys :D

P.S. Sorry for the double post, it's just that I had a lot to say, and felt it would be better if I said it in a separate reply.

I'm going to join, but I dunno how active I'll be for a while, what with my baby sentences in hiragana.

Do not worry about your little experience in 日本語, we are all learning here, I am probably at the same level you are maybe a little higher, but thats about it.
Register an account on the blog, and I will add you in as an author. :)

Edit: P.S We will all be working together to create the blog entries, so we will be able to learn from each other, correct each other, you will be able to learn something new everyday.

I look forward to it.

How do I go about registering? Do I do it on WordPress.com?

On the blog, on the lower right hand side you should see a link that says
ログイン Click it and then it will take you to a page to login, on that page click 無料のWordPressアカウントを取得 to register a new account.

Then just tell me the email you registered with and ill add you in.

Opps: Didn't mean to double post, meant to edit.

I registered with the address eleat.yo@gmail.com

Okay =), your added in as an author. for now you can just wait until we gather more people so we can start working together, look around find your way around figure out how to make a blog post, and if you want post an introduction, in english, 日本語, or half-an-half, what ever makes you feel confortable ;-).

This sounds like an awesome idea. The only problem I'd find in this is there needs to be somebody who is fluent or really good at Japanese to nit-pick more errors.

New people would need somebody who knows more to help.

You guys should join:
The Japanese Page | TheJapanesePage.com

It's been greatly improved than what it was on the old server and you can post blogs there. I think it'd be a lot easier to become a member on a larger website with more knowledgable people to answer questions.

My account name is "Hatori" if you're interested, and it's a really great community.

Hm
 

Hmm, well, I dunno. I thought of this as more of a small project with maybe 5-8 people involved, I don't really see too much of a need to use the website you mentioned. A Native speaker would be nice to have but not necessarily a necessity, as it's less about nit-picking and more about increasing our vocabulary, and stuff. Since we are all learning one way of another we can share the things we have learned using our own resources for example, I use Rosetta Stone.

It's always an option though, keep in touch and join the blog if you like.

I would like to join this blog circle, but I don't have much time to teach myself and post blogs. I'll see what I can do, but lately I've been wanting to start learning again.

I'll contemplate this for a bit.

I'd love to join! Again, I'm only a beginner but it probably help me improve if I could do this.

Hey, well I'm glad to see that a bunch of you are interested!

For those of you who are beginners in Japanese, if you are going to type using Japanese script, I recommend that you stick to hiragana as opposed to using the kanji that is automatically generated when you type, as this may mislead you. We can have themes where we'll write about a certain subject every week, and as such improve our vocabulary in that area too.

Hm.. seems that everyone is a beginner though, which is good and I'm glad you guys are motivated... but it would be nice to get a mix of levels... I've been learning Japanese for a while so don't want to type stuff that no one will understand...

I have a wordpress account, the username is ifucsd and my email's ---

Looking forward to getting this started, and thanks doug for starting the blog!

Alright, Sounds great, I added you in.

Also @MissMisa Instead of just saying you want in, just register an account and post the email. Actions speak louder then words =)

Great idea, I'd like to join it ^__^ I'm learning Japanese more than one year, on course with native speaker, so I think I can help:)
But I'm worry about my poor English..^^'

はじめましてみかてえ。

Again, actions speak louder then words! Instead of telling me, go register an account and post your email =)

Your learning kanji before you can form a proper sentence? what a madman! I was learning speaking and listening skills for a year before i could even write あぃうえお。。。

I got kana down now and im working on building my kanji knowledge.. Unsure where to start though to be honest. The only ones i can write for sure are
日本　, 水 , 天 and 人 but they are all pretty samey..

はじめましてダッグ。どうぞよろしくね (^o^)
Ok, account is registeredxD My mail: punkmad@o2.pl どうぞ:]

Uum, you make little mistake in こんにちわ、私のなまえわダッグです。私わアメリカからきました。
It should be
こんにちは、私のなまえはダッグです。私はアメリカからきました。
When 'ha' is a particle, it should be read like 'wa', but write は ;)

Ugh, this confuses me so much when reading sentences. I'm like, "Anata ha? WTF?!"

Well.. her explanation wasn't very clear.. I'm not suprised.

WA is written as HA when its being used as a particle (subject marker).

Thats all there is to it at this stage.

@Shadow: Hey, everybody learns in a different order and at a different pace ;D

@Mikatee about わ and は. Oh alright, I did forget to put ha instead of wa, I knew to use ha when typing Konnichiwa but did not know to use it in other terms like watashi wa

I'm new here too. ^.^
I would like to look into this, but I'm a little bit confused. I understand that we will be blogging, and to my understanding we will all work on a blog entries together. I would love to join in this, but I do not think I will be that active because of my school work. (AP classes stink) I wish school did not take over, because this sounds like a great idea. Would it be alright for me to join, even if I might not be able to help out that much, but try too as much as I can?

And also, what I'm confused about is, will we edit the blog entries via email?
And we would just write about random things? :)
I probably would not be much help anyways; I haven't even mastered Hiragana but I'm getting close. I would need help with how to write correct basic grammer first. But I'm willing to learn if someone would help me with something so basic. I'm just so determind to do anything to help me with learning Japanese. :)
(And I can't seem to do the registration on Word Press right) >:|

No, I already understood the concept. It's just that I's frustrating when reading.
I think you use は whenever you're placing the 'wa' particle.

A year? o.O You should learn speaking, listening and writing hiragana and katakana at the same time (kanji can wait;)) In my opinion it's the best way. When you practise writing, you can better memorize hira and kana, and you can reading many japanese sentence.


I'm a girl:P Sorry, I'm not good in explaining, especially when I'm tired like now =.=
おやすみなさい~

Don't worry. The more you study, the more it will seem normal to you. You'll naturally get the hang of it.

Yeah i think i would have been better off doing both but i had such a heavy workload last year that my only studytime was audio lessons in the car driving to and from uni etc. (they helped LOADS) Now i have class on a monday nights which i use kana only for lots of reading and writing practise. I keep annoying sensei though asking her if I've written things correctly white shes trying to teach.
(if i ask nicely in japanese, she lets me off :p)

Sweet Dreams :)

Okay, I've decided I would join. If I really want to learn Japanese, I might as well start working on it. I've got ideals of how much I want to study during heavy homework weeks and how I can fit practice into my schedule.

I'm trying to find where to make an account, can somebody please help me?

Yeah, make an account at wordpress.com and then post the email you made the account with or PM it to me

For those of you who are beginners and will be blogging... I suggest you stick to writing things that you feel comfortable writing about, and in a manner that you are capable of - don't try doing too much. At this stage, you can just write simple sentences. The great thing about having a blog is that we can use pictures and use them as a writing tool. And feel free to use romaji if you feel more comfortable like that.

My suggestion.. every week we have a different theme, and we write on that subject. Each person posts in the blog, and we comment on their posts/language in the comments section under their post. If you want more practice, you can write more than one post, but try sticking to the theme. For beginners, if the theme is 'my home country', you can put some pictures of your home country, and practice vocabulary instead of sentence construction, if that is too difficult for you (for example a picture of a famous dish from your country, and you can write '..... no ryori'). So, everyone sticks to their own abilities.

Because we'll all be trying to read each other's posts, this will also be a good time to learn the kanji that other people use - but for those using kanji, like I said, be careful not to use the first suggestion that comes up when you type in the words! Here's a good site on how to type in Japanese...
How to type Japanese on your computer
(note what it says about を，you have to type 'wo')

And @ Mikatee - don't worry about your English! We're practicing Japanese, after all!

So... today's Friday, so I say we pick a theme we can work on over the weekend. First, an introductory post from everyone would be nice, and as for the theme... how about fruits? Pretty arbitrary, but should be something people of all levels can write about (yes, even those advanced, I'm sure some fanciful description of oranges and their succulent juiciness can be written). A different member can decide on the theme each week. DEMOCRACY! :P

Look forward to seeing what you guys write on the blog! And, like I said, feel free to post pictures to aid with your writing!

I'll start up a wordpress account later today. :)

Ill be away from now until mid-day sunday (camping) so, see you guys then.

ah... have fun! and see you then.

Back..
 

Alright, I'm back, and it seems like just about everybody posted an introduction, which is a great start for us.

I did PM you, right?

is it too late to get in on this? I think this should be interesting :D :D

No, It's not too late at all :D, just register an account and post the email you registered with here and you will be added in ;-).