Kenshi Kojo

[COnfidential]

I bought this Dictionary here thats made of a guy named Kenshi Kojo.
It's a red book with about 600+ pages (Norwegian-Japanese)
But I have NOW seen that they first write it in Japanese signs and then in Norwegian, no romaji whatsoever. Maybe it will help me when Im more advanced or.. what do you guys think?

[Hatredcopter]

Originally Posted by COnfidential

I bought this Dictionary here thats made of a guy named Kenshi Kojo.
It's a red book with about 600+ pages (Norwegian-Japanese)
But I have NOW seen that they first write it in Japanese signs and then in Norwegian, no romaji whatsoever. Maybe it will help me when Im more advanced or.. what do you guys think?

If it's written in KANA and not KANJI, you'll be okay. In fact, in my personal opinion, it's much more beneficial to skip romaji and learn kana right away. Romaji can be rather detrimental to learning Japanese for various reasons. Learning hiragana and katakana only takes a couple weeks if you're diligent.

I don't know how good your English is, but if you're fluent or mostly fluent I would suggest getting the 'Genki' textbooks if you have the money for them. One of the best textbooks for learning Japanese, in my opinion. However, it's meant to be used in classes with a Japanese teacher and all that, but you can certainly learn from it alone as well.

[COnfidential]

Were can these Genki Textbooks be sold? How many of them are there and what are theire total cost? Is it like the basics of Japanese?

[Camui]

I am learning Japanese as well. So, learning katakana and hiragana is best before romaji? I didn't know that. I've been learning romaji first...

Originally Posted by COnfidential

Were can these Genki Textbooks be sold? How many of them are there and what are theire total cost? Is it like the basics of Japanese?

I would like to know that as well. Any help I can get with learning Japanese is greatly appreciated.

[Hatredcopter]

It can be ordered online here -> JapanTimes : GENKI: An Integrated Course in...

You will want to get the workbook as well, since that's where you will be doing all the practice work. Like I said, this book is normally meant to be part of a class curriculum, but the book is explanatory enough that one can learn from it on their own, albeit at a slower pace.

I don't know whether this book you purchased is a dictionary or a textbook, but you can't learn Japanese from a dictionary. It's impossible. You need a textbook... that's why I recommend Genki -- however, there are other ones - perhaps one even in Norwegian, though you'd need to find that yourself.

[Hatredcopter]

As far as my thoughts on romaji goes...

There really isn't any reason to use romaji. Japanese people don't write in romaji. Labels, signs, and other reading material are rarely in romaji - I did see some in the Nagoya subway systems from time-to-time.

Another problem is that there are different ways of writing romaji - in fact, there are more than 3 different systems of romaji, although one is used more often than the rest of them. For example, じょ can be written in one system as "jo", while in another it's written as "zyo". Some Japanese words are spelled with an 'o' sound, followed by an 'u' sound, but the romaji version will just be 'oo' instead of 'ou'. Confusing? That's why romaji is evil .

Furthermore, particles get crapped on in romaji as well. In Romaji, you see "Watashi wa". But the 'wa' is not actually the 'wa' letter. The particle uses the Japanese 'ha' letter instead of 'wa'. When 'he' is used as a particle it's pronounced like the Japanese letter 'e'. If someone learns romaji and doesn't know these particle nitpicks, they're going to have some problems once they switch to kana.

There are 46 hiragana and 46 katakana (although one of those is never used in katakana). It won't take that long to learn them. Ask yourself - does learning Japanese require learning the Japanese alphabet? Well sure it does! So why learn romaji? Romaji will get you nowhere. You need kana first, and then you move on to the dreaded kanji.

[COnfidential]

well I wanna buy them two books then, but when I took the two books to cart and wnt to buy em I got this link here Amazon.co.jp and well... I cant read japanese yet so I cant write anything in there!! what do I do? the final price of both the books came to 4515 yen.. it doesent say if it includes taxes... :S Maybe someone could go to the link, press proceed to checkout on the upper right side and translate what it says there? Maybe someone could translate what it says so I can write in credit number or something?

[kyo_9]

for my opinion..
it is better for you to start learning new with a teacher..
coz if you study alone, of course it is good, but if you don't perform well you might get tired of it and leave it just like that..

is there any japanese classes or club's near your place?

[kyo_9]

for my opinion..
it is better for you to start learning new with a teacher..
coz if you study alone, of course it is good, but if you don't perform well you might get tired of it and leave it just like that..

is there any japanese classes or club's near your place?

[COnfidential]

none at all!
Im only going my first year in high school - 11th grade and When I get to the 13th year I can choose a language but no schools has japanese except for the university but thats for after high school and thats like 4 years from now...