Learning Japanese
 

Well, for all I know, one could be doing 3 months and am at basic level, or 3 years and STILL am at basic level. It's hard to say, you know. It all depends on yourself - how much effort you are putting into, whether you are doing it on a daily basis or once a week in class, 15 minutes a day or 2 hours a day, whether you are learning a new word a day or 10 new words a day, etc.

It helps if you have some japanese friends, or at least, someone who is good enough in japanese, to allow you to practice with. Assuming you are serious enough in your learning effort, I would say after a year of learning, you could probably be good enough to hold a decent conversation in japanese.

I agree. Japanese speaking isnt particulary more hard than any other language, in fact the pronounciation is very easy. But it also depends whether you have the ability to understand a foreign language quickly or not. So it may take you longer then someone else allthough you may work for it as hard as you can..

As for reading, it will take you longer because of the kanji ofcourse..

Yeah, 4 months in and i'm starting to construct some nice sentences (polite -> plain -> te etc) .. can read and write hiragana and katakana.. BUT as soon as i HEAR japanese... i hear the words, i understand the individual words, but it takes a long time for my brain to process the words into a formed sentence and get it translated... by which time, the person has asked 3 other questions and i still have a blank look on my face. Practice will make perfect.

I simply need to be around more japanese native speakers and pick up the speed... will take some time.. still things i listened to at the 1st month and i thought i would never understand, i play back and think it is easy... i think that makes a good way to judge your progress, look back a month later at something you didn't understand.

as like any big test.. you really have to set a little bit of time away every day and absorb a small amount of what your out to study, repetition is also an excellent way of getting it drilled in your head.. yeah its like school but face it, thats what it was there for :-)
im studying myself.. although i havent given myself much time yet.. i gotta vocabulary list at least set up!! :vsign:

yeah that is me too.. im like hearing this conversation trying realy hard to understand and all i get it something about fish being cute? and I say to myself I NEED MORE PRACTICE!

trouble
 

i know how hard it is but hopefully we can all pull through.
i'm having trouble with even some katakana and hiragana only because i don't have the time to study long enough each day.
try finding site online that can teach you too ^.^
and getting in conversations is so much easier than trying to randomly come up with sentences.

but as ive said 4 years ago when i started, speaking it is one thing, but the kanji will KILL me XD

(i'm also taking spanish, polish, mandirin chinese, and german so this is a difficult thing for me, although id ather push them all aside for Japanese any day *sigh*)

DAMN THAT IS QUITE THE COURSE LOAD!:D

Why are you taking polish? I don't think it's popular language, maby you are taking it just because it' really tough?:)

interesting! you have plans of living in japan? i'm not planning to live there but i want to visit there as a tourist and experience their culture. :)

Question, you guys speak a lot of learning and stuff but you pretty much all suggest having a conversation with someone fluent so they can help you. I live in Oklahoma, I can guarantee there is NO ONE around here fluent in Japanese! lol, so what do I do?

Guh, i wish i could speak japanese. but it probably requires a lot of effort and work :'(

wish i could speak (and read) japanese just so i could understand the raw mangas and animes LOL:D

I love Japanese and I'd love to be able to speak it, though I only know the basics =[
Sorry I couldnt be much help but watch lots of anime and you'll find you'll pick things up easier =D

That is a good question ofcourse, how much does this help? When there are no people who speak Japanese around, it's better than nothing I suppose, but is it really a help to watch anime and watch Japanese movies with subtitles (which should always be done, but that's another thing) to improve vocabulary and help learn the language?

I have been taking Japanese for 6 years, and I still have trouble with it. There is poilte Japanese:
Hajimemashite yoroshiku onagaishimasu! Atashi wa Kaedaru desu~! Jyuukyuusai desu!! Atashi wa seito ga college desu. Shumi wa uten suru to yomu suru to e suru to uta suru..nantoka nantoka! Yoroshiku onagaishimasu!

And there is what I call "slang" japanese, or what you would use with everyone else that isn't a senior to you:
Oi~ minna!! Genki~? Kaedaru desyou!! Jyuukyuusai da!~ Seito ga college da. Ano...shumi wa uten toka yomu toka e toka uta toka..ano..nantoka! Hai~ Tomodachi wa sugoi! Jya~!.

Translation of first para: Nice to meet you! My name is Kaedaru. I am 19 years old. I am a student in college. My hobbies are driving, reading, drawing, songs, and many other things. Once again, it is nice to meet you!

Translation of second para: Hey guys! How are you? I'm Kaedaru! I'm 19, and a college student. Well, um...my hobbies are driving, reading, drawing and songs and..a bunch of other crap. Yea! My friends are great (amazing). See ya!

Er..from personal experiance..don't ever talk slang to a Japanese who is older then you...even if it's by a few years. Haha, but Yuki and Jun, and Hitomi and I didn't care one bit!!! Ahahaa..

arigatou~ honto ni domo argiatou minna

jya-

kaedaru.

Same here I've been taking japanese for about 5 years and it's still kicking my butt :confused: hahha but i love it with a passion and academics does not come easy to me :chikasfrown: meaning i have to work harder just to prove myself!! heheh and sometimes i find myself studying even harder than others heheh but it kinda sucks at times when u hav friends that they don't have to study as hard but still get good grades hehhe or better grades than me :rolleyes: hehe but i still love japan and without it i would feel as if there's something missing in my life :coldbear:

>Atashi wa seito ga college desu. Shumi wa uten suru to yomu suru to e suru to uta suru..nantoka nantoka!

Hmm...I'd say

(W)atashi wa daigaku sei desu. Shumi wa unten suru koto, hon o yomu koto, utau koto, e o kaku koto...nado desu!


>Seito ga college da. Ano...shumi wa uten toka yomu toka e toka uta toka..ano..nantoka! Hai~ Tomodachi wa sugoi!

Forget about 'Seito ga college da/desu'. It just doesn't make sense.
I'd say

daigaku sei da yo. Ano/eeto..Shumi wa unten toka, hon o yondari, e o kaitari,..eeto...hoka nimo iroiro! Hai~

etc...

それ４年前のカキコなんですが～。
すんまへんなあ、うるさいお兄さんで。

I started learning japanese 6 weeks ago and i can write hiragana and katakana.
I can build easy sentences. Like go shoping, asking for direction, presenting others and my self and talk little about me.

On the hearing part i can make sence of fluent speaking japanese because im so used to hear it because i listen alot on japanese music and watch anime alot. So i actually can hear the difference between words. I dont know what it means but i can hear and think. "That is a word, i wonder what it means".

And the speaking... lets say... i have hade English classes in schools since 2nd grade thats 11 years of English classes. And im not fully comfturble speaking it.
But i think thats because i speak it so rarely.

And in my oppinion its hard to train on the speech part. None of my friends can Japanese and the only time i can talk its on my Japanese classes.
Which are 1 and a ½ hour once a week.

@masaegu-san...

あれ。また日付見てなかった・・・

でも、なんで、そんな古いのが、上の方にあるのですか …？

Huh. Some of my friends on facebook say they have made friends with people from other countries and talked on Skype. One of my friends from Yahoo Answers Japan told me that he'd never talked to anyone from Japan on Skype...until I talked to him there... All the people he'd ever talked to on Skype were from other countries. It must be such a good practice to hear and speak foreign languages I think.

スミッピさんのすぐ上にＢＹＣＬなんとかってヤツがカ キコしてるでしょう？カキコ見ればわかると思うけど、 そいつはスパマーなんです。そいつがスパムするために 古いスレを蘇らせたんです。そいつの日付と、その直前 のカキコの日付を比べてください。

今後のために宇治のおっちゃんがお教えしますが、スミ ッピさんがほぼ毎日ＪＦに来てる状況で、スミッピさん がこの数日間で見たことがないスレが上に来てたら、９ 割の確率で既に死んでいるスレです。

で、誰が宇治のおっちゃんやねん！

。。ちょっと待って…！！宇治ってどういうこと・・？ 私、京都市にいるって書いてるのに。。。どうして今日 は本当は宇治にいるってわかっちゃったの・・・・？？ まさえぐさん！！！私のこと何を知ってるの・・・？？ ？？？怖い・・・・！！！

怖いでしょう、ネットって。フフフ　;)

なんて、ウソ。たまたま昔ＴＶで見た上方の漫才コンビ が「宇治のおばちゃん」というあだ名の有名な「雇われ スタジオ観客」がいると言っていたのを思い出し、使っ てみただけです。宇治がどこにあるのかも知りません。 関西にはもう１５―１６年ほど行っていません。ご安心 ください。

怖かった…(T_T)