Learn Japanese

Actually, Japanese is my native language. I have been living in U.S. for 19 years, and I had to learn to speak English. Learning language takes time and practice, a lot of repetition. Japanese pronounciation is quite different from English, which makes it difficult for me to speak English. Just be patient with yourself as I am with myself! Find someone who speaks Japanese help you with your pronounciation.

Took some basic classes in New York’s Japan Society last year. I watch so much Japanese shows that I understand some phrases a bit. Still it’s not the proper Japanese and the last thing I want to do is use the “wrong” Japanese when I visit.

I’m thinking of going back to school again (oh another thing to add to the list) and taking Japanese in conjunction with that.

Gambaru!

I’ve taken one semester so far, and I have the kana and some kanji down. I can understand a fair amount of spoken Japanese and grammar, but I need more practice reading and writing, so I am focusing on that right now.

I have studied, and although I should, I don’t study on a regular basis. I really want to become fluent in Japanese, and until I become more comfortable with the language, I am going to keep this on my list!

but my mother is too cheap to let me take lessons I’m not sure that I canteach myself but,One day I will learn

I have been working on this! I made it my major in college, and all I can say is that studying it more in class has made me love the language and the country and its culture more than ever, I am utterly obsessed with it. I joined the Japanese Club at my university and it is awesome! I have made so many friends there and we go on lots of fun Japanese-related trips, plus I meet people who I can speak with. Also, I joined the Japanese Conversation Club. All of these things have helped me.
Sure, people here complain about Genki, but I like it, I find it useful. The trick is to not only use Genki, but use slang books, talk to other students (One of my friends in my class and I meet up weekly and speak to each other only in Japanese, and our teacher helps us), watch TV shows, read Japanese books, etc.
Try your hardest everyone! :]

I originally wanted to learn Chinese but due to other circumstances I switched to Japanese this quarter instead, we just finished week 6 of class and so far we have learned hiragana (are finishing up katakana), and have only been learning vocabulary words and phrases, right now we are learning verbs and beginning to form grammar rules.

I have started to learn kanji so far only male/female and the 7 days of the week.

My goal is to reach novel reading comprehension in two years and be able to carry on a good conversation with someone who is Japanese then maybe I’ll study abroad in Japan (not sure though).

Note: I also want to learn 4 other languages, Chinese, Hebrew, French, and Spanish which I plan to have them all learned sufficiently before I turn 30 (basically 10 years).

I actually took a semester long course this year and it was really fun! There a still quite a lot of lessons in the book that we haven’t done yet, so I’m going to try and self learn more through that. I’ve also got the book “Remembering the Kanji” ordered and hopefully I can learn the kanji quickly as well. I’ve downloaded the sample and it was really helpful. I can say I have retained the kanji that I have learned so far because of all the stories that go along with each character. It actually makes it pretty fun to learn, when before I was very intimidated about learning the characters.

Seriously, everyone I highly recommend that book! It makes learning even 30 kanji a day pretty easy, as long as you keep reviewing them. Though I’m delaying my learning for now until I finished university for the year. But I guess I’ve got the 90 I learned ingrained in my head.

I’ve also been using the website smart.fm to help me learn more vocabulary. I hope that eventually I will be able to read a children’s book at least! XD

I memorized Hiragana’s 104 letters/syllables/sounds the last two weeks by repetition and just spelling out any Japanese words I’ve picked up. I just started Katakana yesterday and have the first three lines (A, Ka, Sa) down.

I’ve recently purchased a few children books entirely in Hiragana or Katakana, and have just finished translating the first two pages of Issunboushi.

I’m not going to lie, I get annoyed sometimes by the vastness of the language, and since I’m teaching myself sometimes don’t know where to go next.

My plan in progress:
1. Memorize Hiragana & Katakana.
2. Translate childrens books as I work on the next steps to improve my familiarity with them enough to read without stopping to double check or sound out the words.
3. Start memorizing Kanji, goal is 3-5 Kanji a day, hopefully assuming I can I’ll have the basic 2000 in about two years.
4. At the same time I’m learning the Kanji, learn the spoken language through cd lessons and watching Japanese children shows.

Problem I’m having: While reading I still stumble on some of the nuances of the written language, as in I still sometimes trip up on the structure, like I noticed in Issunboushi that the particles aren’t separate from the word before, so sometimes I just read through assuming they’re part of the same word, and also while translating since some of the words are conjugated already I have trouble finding the term in a translator if I don’t know it.

‘lets talk japanese…’
Can anyone tell me how to say that above pharse in to japanese.
I cant read kanji plase!
Thank You.