Sites You Should Not Use To Learn Japanese

[murasaki11]

Well the websites not going away. Its still there. So posting how bad it is isn't going to stop the errors. Its best if we correct those errors so the people who already view the website wont get confused.

[KyleGoetz]

The #1 reason you should never use a site that teaches in romaji is this:

nya
nyo
nyu

Are these にゃ, にょ, にゅ or んや, んよ, んゆ? Because it makes a hell of a lot of difference.

[Columbine]

Originally Posted by murasaki11

Well the websites not going away. Its still there. So posting how bad it is isn't going to stop the errors. Its best if we correct those errors so the people who already view the website wont get confused.

See, now I'm kinda suspicious. You came on JF asking for input on whether a site would be good for you to learn Japanese. IE implying: "Hello JF, I found this random site, totally unrelated to me, that I was thinking of using. What do you think?" Now you're being VERY defensive when we say we don't think it is.

You're blatantly pushing the site and asking for help to improve it, and it's in your sig. I'm just going to go ahead and guess you know whoever runs the site, or indeed are part of the team yourself.

If so that's rather trollish and dishonest.

[murasaki11]

Its no a random site I found I've been studying form it for a long time. Recently some people have told me when I asked that its not a good website. So I thought I would ask opinion of this forum. The website isn't unrelated to me because I've been useing it.

Why and how the hell would I run a website.

[KyleGoetz]

Originally Posted by Columbine

See, now I'm kinda suspicious. You came on JF asking for input on whether a site would be good for you to learn Japanese. IE implying: "Hello JF, I found this random site, totally unrelated to me, that I was thinking of using. What do you think?" Now you're being VERY defensive when we say we don't think it is.

You're blatantly pushing the site and asking for help to improve it, and it's in your sig. I'm just going to go ahead and guess you know whoever runs the site, or indeed are part of the team yourself.

If so that's rather trollish and dishonest.

I'll be honest: I wondered the same thing from the get-go.

Regardless, I don't care too much whether it's true. It doesn't affect me, and I'll leave my thread up and try to edit the OP when other sites are suggested and I agree that the suggested sites are also not good.

Suffice it to say the site should not be used when there are such better ones out there already.

[DanielSheen]

Ugh. You should suspect her of being someone who knows someone who made the website. Thats my little sister. I helped make the website. Its just some little website that me and my friends made for ourselves mostly. I don't know why she did this.

The vocab section has been proof read by people who apparently knew how to proof read. but i guess not. The lists were taken from websites that were up along time ago, and some words added. When we made the website the stuff we used was written on paper. I suppose it all got lost in translation.

Ignore what my sister said shes only a kid and shes shy and silly. I guess she was trying to defend our website which it doesn't need any defending, it is crap.

But now that I am here. Is there anyone who is actually willing to point our some of the errors and proof read it. Anyone who proof read in the past failed obviously.

[KyleGoetz]

Originally Posted by DanielSheen

Ugh. You should suspect her of being someone who knows someone who made the website. Thats my little sister. I helped make the website. Its just some little website that me and my friends made for ourselves mostly. I don't know why she did this.

The vocab section has been proof read by people who apparently knew how to proof read. but i guess not. The lists were taken from websites that were up along time ago, and some words added. When we made the website the stuff we used was written on paper. I suppose it all got lost in translation.

Ignore what my sister said shes only a kid and shes shy and silly. I guess she was trying to defend our website which it doesn't need any defending, it is crap.

But now that I am here. Is there anyone who is actually willing to point our some of the errors and proof read it. Anyone who proof read in the past failed obviously.

Only on the condition that you switch from romaji to kana. Anyone who needs to know how to say "brown brush warbler" in Japanese should be able to read kana already.

I know it sounds like I'm being a bit of a bully, but I honestly think it would be a waste of my time to make romaji corrections. Maybe someone here thinks differently, and you'll have better luck.

Regardless, you and your people do seem to be nice and reasonable, so I do wish you the best of luck in getting things good to go.

As a sign of good faith, I'll go through the first vocab list and put them up in Japanese and include kana if there's kanji in the Japanese.

I'm whipping up a Python script to do the initial vocab stuff for me. I'll post the mammals wordlist here soon.

Edit:

Antelope レイヨウ
Armadillo アルマジロ
Badger アナグマ
Bat コウモリ
Bear クマ
Beaver ビーバー
Black bear クロクマ
Boar イノシシ
Buffalo アメリカバイソン (depends on what "buffalo" we're talking about here)
Camel ラクダ
Cat ネコ
Cheetah チータ
Chimpanzee チンパンジー
Chinchilla チンチラ
Cow 牛 うし
Coyote コヨーテ
Deer シカ
Dog 犬 いぬ
Donkey ロバ
Elephant 象 ぞう
Elk ヘラジカ (again, depends on what type of elk)
Fawn 子鹿/子ジカ こじか
Ferret フェレット
Fox キツネ
Giraffe キリン
Gerbil アレチネズミ
Goat ヤギ
Gorilla ゴリラ属
Groundhog ウッドチャック
Guinea pig テンジクネズミ
Hamster ハムスター
Hedgehog ウニ
Hippopotamus カバ
Horse 馬/ウマ
Jaguar アメリカヒョウ、ジャガー
Kangaroo カンガルー
Kitten/Kitty 子猫 こねこ
Koala コアラ
Lamb 子羊 こひつじ
Leopard ヒョウ
Lion ライオン
Llama ラマ
Manatee アメリカマナティ
Mink ミンク
Mole モグラ
Monkey サル
Mouse ネズミ
Opossum フクロネズミ
Orangutan オランウータン
Otter カワウソ
Panda パンダ
Pig ブタ
Polar Bear シロクマ
Porcupine ヤマアラシ
Puppy 子犬 こいぬ
Rabbit ウサギ
Rat ネズミ
Rhino ライノー
Sea lion シーライオン、アシカ、トド
Seal アザラシ、オットセイ
Sheep 羊 ヒツジ
Skunk スカンク
Squirrel リス
Tiger トラ
Unicorn 一角獣 いっかくじゅう
Weasel イタチ
Wolf オオカミ
Wolverine クズリ
Yak ヤク
Zebra シマウマ、ゼブラ

Full disclosure: there are a few animals I didn't know in Japanese (seven years, and I've never had to say "wolverine"), so I had to look them up. The rest were auto-generated from the Python script I whipped up, and I scanned over the list to make sure they're correct. It worked pretty well, only pulling about five incorrect words. I corrected those in a jiffy.

[DanielSheen]

Thats a good point. Your right. Anyone who wants to learn the "brown brush warbler" in Japanese should be able to read the kana. I never thought of it that way.

Perhapse I would be very benificial to have both romaji and the correct japanese text becide it.

I suppose when we were making the website we were only thinking about those who don't know kana instead of those who already do.

[KyleGoetz]

Originally Posted by DanielSheen

Thats a good point. Your right. Anyone who wants to learn the "brown brush warbler" in Japanese should be able to read the kana. I never thought of it that way.

Perhapse I would be very benificial to have both romaji and the correct japanese text becide it.

I suppose when we were making the website we were only thinking about those who don't know kana instead of those who already do.

As someone who likely knows more Japanese than you (I don't know you, so I have to infer from the circumstances) and more experience learning the language as well, I strongly suggest you completely excise romaji from the site. All it does is hurt learners: they'll subconsciously keep looking at the romaji to check if they're reading it correctly, and this is something that is drastically detrimental to learning the language.

You should know kana within a week of studying Japanese, and pretty much nothing other than "dog" and "cat" on that list should be encountered in that first week.

Edit: Just wanted to say again that I think your heart's in the right place, and you seem like a good dude.

[RickOShay]

Originally Posted by KyleGoetz

As someone who likely knows more Japanese than you (I don't know you, so I have to infer from the circumstances) and more experience learning the language as well, I strongly suggest you completely excise romaji from the site. All it does is hurt learners: they'll subconsciously keep looking at the romaji to check if they're reading it correctly, and this is something that is drastically detrimental to learning the language.

You should know kana within a week of studying Japanese, and pretty much nothing other than "dog" and "cat" on that list should be encountered in that first week.

Edit: Just wanted to say again that I think your heart's in the right place, and you seem like a good dude.

I wholeheartedly agree with this, romaji is nothing more than a crutch. And it needs to be disposed of as quickly as possible. I started learning Japanese my 3rd year in college as an elective course, and my teacher (native Japanese) did us all the great service of making us have all the hiragana memorized within a few weeks of the start of the course. Any good teacher (whether teaching majors, minors, or curious elective takers) will know that having students depend on romaji is no way to help them on their Japanese learning journey.

And no offense to the site is intended here, especially considering you are not college professors, nor are you pretending to be.