For all not native Japanese speakers!

[SceptileMaster]

Oh I do realize it and agree with what you are saying. I realize that it's mostly to do with education. The only problem is, going about English spelling phonetically is insane. Which is why I'm saying being formally taught English as a second language can turn out good spellers (as they are learning how to spell each word as they learn them). I know many people (native speakers) that can hardly spell at all and they all went through years of education. I'm sure however this is also true in Japan with Kanji knowledge. I'm sure there are many who can't remember all the Kanji they were taught in school.

[KyleGoetz]

Originally Posted by SceptileMaster

I'm sure there are many who can't remember all the Kanji they were taught in school.

Try "almost everyone in Japan"
Well, IIRC, technically you only learn 1000 or so in school. I think the other 1000 常用漢字 are learned sort-of on your own for entrance exams.

[hatsuto11]

Originally Posted by Nyororin

Hatsuto...
I don`t even know what to say to your message but... Using as many kanji as you can possible push into your writing isn`t really the best thing and is very very unnatural. Perhaps you should work on your grammar a bit more before using kanji for every single possible thing.

Nyororin, plz read my PM. Despite of what i wrote there, i looked again at my post and decided to do some corrections. Reat it now plz:
今晩は、春巻さん！
あなたに私の日本語表記の学習体験について聞いてほし いのでこれを書くことにしました。私は簡単な平仮名と 片仮名を長い間勉強しました。そのあと、漢字という中 国を起源とする表記文字を学び始めましたが、難しくて 、自分の覚えるのは無料だと思いました。しかし、私は 漢字を書くことが好きなので、とにかく漢字の正しい筆 順と書き方を学習しようと思いました。数日後、漢字の 書き方を覚えましたが、漢字の音・訓読み（名乗りなど ）と漢字の意味はまだ分かりませでした。私が言いたい のは、「私は漢字を読みと意味とを別々に学習している 」ということです。でも、貴方達が漢字が簡単で、理解 可能と思うのであれば、全て覚えれるかもしれませんね 。

[buggedout]

Originally Posted by Harumaki

Translate stuff. Go to a newspaper page, copy/paste an article and translate it yourself. (dont use internet, use your own dictionary to research kanji/words so you remember them better)

But seriously, I am learning Japanese now for 4 years and the biggest problems I see are:

- the unbelievable amount of words Japanese uses...
- Kanji knowledge we will never be able to understand. Since Japanese see kanji as words/meaning, but we Western people see Kanji as a symbol with a reading. Think about it, and if you understand what I said here, you will see how enormous the difference is between a native Kanji-reader and non-native...

But, keep trying

I will defanately keep trying no matter how hard it is Im going to stick with just learning hirigana at the moment though when it comes to writing thats a little hard for me haha

[Harumaki]

Originally Posted by buggedout

I will defanately keep trying no matter how hard it is Im going to stick with just learning hirigana at the moment though when it comes to writing thats a little hard for me haha

Nice nice, Just do like I said, translate some written texts ( choose always a bit higher levels) and use dictionaries to research words and yoou remember and learn much much stuff.

[jorge10]

My learning experience for Japanese:
I took a half a year (school year) class last year in college and tried to learn the basics of Japanese. I had to drop out of the class a month before the class started b/c I was still in high school at the time and high school math was killing me. I went online not too long ago and stumbled on a vid of a dude translating for a Japanese guy. I checked out the guy's channel and was amazed at how many languages he knew and he was 28. He was a polyglot that knew like 10 languages, Japanese being one of them. I checked out his other videos and saw him speaking different languages in different videos. I was even more surprised that he learned the languages on his own. I was not open-minded enough to believe that one could not learn a language on their own and had to be through school. So I have taken it upon myself to learn Japanese on my own. I learned hiragana at school, but I'm having a hard time with some symbols so I have decided to start from scratch and just barely started grinding. I bought the book called, "Japanese the Manga way," and am planning to buy two kodansha dictionaries. Idk if its proper to ask in this thread, but my eagerness is going to make me ask anyway: Any suggestions on learning Japanese right after I learn Hiragana and Katakana?

[hatsuto11]

Originally Posted by jorge10

My learning experience for Japanese:
I took a half a year (school year) class last year in college and tried to learn the basics of Japanese. I had to drop out of the class a month before the class started b/c I was still in high school at the time and high school math was killing me. I went online not too long ago and stumbled on a vid of a dude translating for a Japanese guy. I checked out the guy's channel and was amazed at how many languages he knew and he was 28. He was a polyglot that knew like 10 languages, Japanese being one of them. I checked out his other videos and saw him speaking different languages in different videos. I was even more surprised that he learned the languages on his own. I was not open-minded enough to believe that one could not learn a language on their own and had to be through school. So I have taken it upon myself to learn Japanese on my own. I learned hiragana at school, but I'm having a hard time with some symbols so I have decided to start from scratch and just barely started grinding. I bought the book called, "Japanese the Manga way," and am planning to buy two kodansha dictionaries. Idk if its proper to ask in this thread, but my eagerness is going to make me ask anyway: Any suggestions on learning Japanese right after I learn Hiragana and Katakana?

Hi jorge san,
It is obviously possible to learn a foreign language and master it on your own! I already mastered 2 languages which I studied on my own and I am now on my way to master Japanese (Hopefully, I'll be able to do that soon) as well as the three mandatory languages which we learn in school.
Studying a language without a teacher or what you call "dokugaku (self-study)" actually has one main problem, which is the lack of guiding. In other words, a learner to a new language sometimes need to be guided in many fields of the language including grammar, vocab (and kanji in japanese) etc....
As for you question concerning the next step after learning the Japanese alphabet, personally, I would recommend you to reinforce and enrich your knowledge of the different Japanese terms and vocab. I mean, you should first make sure you know hiragana very well practicing reading new words in Japanese. Afterwards, you may move on to the next step, which may be studying some basic grammar and kanji.
I don't really know a lot about your purpose to study japanese, but whatever it may be, you can study that language ON YOUR OWN and practice with japanese native speakers (if possible, for instance, it is impossible for me to do that here where i live) and if you have any questions or if you face any trouble while studying, you may find someone to help you in the internet and maybe in this forum!
Good luck

[Zenzen]

I have been studying Japanese since I was 12, so about 4 years now. I agree that it is a really hard language to learn, though at least some of you guys are already surrounded by it . Anyhow, it is really hard living in a small community and no one speaks second language outside of Spanish, so you can not practice it with anyone. Though, the site I've been using recentlyhas helped me a lot.

[jorge10]

Thanks for the advice good sir!I will take your advice into consideration. About guidance, I'll figure something out.

After learning the alphabets and move on to Kanji, how do I look up kanji in the dictionary? If I stumble on a sign how will I be able to be able to identify what the word means?

[andylaurel]

I here in Japan with near immersion circumstances.
Living with GF (until last week), speaking just Japanese.
Colleagues all speak to me in Japanese.
It's the best possible circumstances to learn Japanese.
Don't rely on this daily conversation to help you pass exams though, I just took the JLPT level 2 exam on Sunday, and although the listening section was easy, the reading was very hard for me. The kind of words that come up in articles just don't come up in daily conversation. Don't limit yourself to conversation only.