Hello everyone! I'm fairly new to the Japanese language. I know about 60 words of vocabulary, a limited amount of hiragana, and I don't know katakana and kanji at all. I just wanted to ask for advice. Where should I start now that I'm really committed to learning the language? Should I focus on learning just vocabulary (in romaji) and speaking and listening comprehension. Should I turn all my attention to reading and writing the kana and kanji? In what order do you all think is best to start? How did you all get started in your studies? I'm finding that right now I'm trying to do everything at once, and I'm not making much progress.
Thanks so much!
I got Remembering the Kana in the mail a few days ago and I'm very excited to get started! Just to let you all know, I found a website that allows you to create your own block paper and save as a pdf file (http://incompetech.com/graphpaper/). Printing it off will certainly be more convenient then running out to the store to buy some. The book already looks like it's going to be a tremendous help. I'll keep in touch to let you all know how it goes.
Take care!
Good for you! Be sure to let us know how it goes, and let us know if there are any kana that give you trouble, even using the Heisig book.
What I call "the squiggle method" refers to the way that most Japanese textbooks and instructors "teach" written Japanese—by just saying "here are a bunch of weird squiggly characters, go learn them." It doesn't directly mean learning through repetition, but in the end it becomes that since most learners don't know any other way do it. And it certainly isn't a failure on the part of new learners that they don't think of a better way, because doing so requires a deep pre-existing knowledge of what's to be learned so that better strategies can be devised.
There are less than 100 kana, so you can learn them (eventually) through repetition. In fact, as I mentioned in the podcast, the vast majority of Japanese students do. The Heisig book, however, supplies a method (using mnemonics) for doing so much more efficiently and effectively, so you'll spend much less time doing it, and will remember them more easily. Perhaps more importantly, however, is that the system in that book can also be applied to learning the kanji. You will need to know about 2000 kanji to be literate in Japanese, and that is far too many to learn through repetition.
Best of luck, and keep coming back for help & support! (^^)
I believe you Tony! I remember you mentioning the squiggle method in your podcast, but I didn't realize that it meant learning through repetition :) That's my mistake. I actually thought that my question was a little silly when I posted it, but I'm glad I asked it now! Anyways, I've been trying to learn the kana for probably about a week and a half now. Unfortunately, it's not something I get to do everyday, with both my work schedule and school schedule all competing for time, but I do my best. I'm going to head to Amazon and get the Heisig book. Believe me when I say that I trust you and I value your advice because you know Japanese and I don't! I want to get to where you are someday.
iheartny22:
Writing those weird squiggles over and over is definitely not the way you want to learn them. I highly suggest that you stop that immediately and get the Heisig Remembering the Kana book. Almost everyone in my class this semester (and last year... and the year before...) learned both the hiragana and the katakana in just 3 weeks, and I think that in general they have much better handwriting than most beginning Japanese language students.
Since you probably won't believe me and won't get the book =), you may also want to look at the hiragana practice sheets and the katakana practice sheets that are on this site. But you really should get that book. No, really. I mean it. (Some support here, class? Nobody ever believes me...) =D
Just out of curiosity, how long have you been trying to learn the kana?
So I've been learning the hiragana by writing each character over and over and over one at a time. My handwriting is dreadful! And it's actually really nice in English. I think I'm getting the hang of it though. I'll keep at it! How long did it take for your handwriting to improve?
drdunlap:
Actually, crunching with something like this site is very similar to how I, myself, learned Japanese. I tried various things, but what it boils down to is that I more or less memorized the contents of a book called "Essential Japanese Grammar" (still in print, but too out of date for me to recommend now), and practiced building sentences using that grammar as I picked up vocabulary from...well...where ever I could. After about 1.5 years of that, I went to Japan and just studied like a madman (including doing the Heisig books in about 9 months) for the first year or so while going to Japanese language school and avoiding English as much as I could.
Of course, that was back in the mid- to late-80s, and if I were starting over now I would be using lots of cool tech, like Anki, the Reviewing the Kanji site, and, of course, social learning sites like this one. (^^) But I'm definitely a big fan of just learning the grammar as quickly as possible, so that learners can get to plowing through REAL Japanese ASAP. I just wish I could teach an honor's section of Japanese that did just that...
iheartny: Yep, if you use the Heisig kana books in combination with Anki, you should be able to learn the hiragana and katakana in 2-3 weeks I think.
Tony-sensei:
Hurray! I'm glad you like Tae Kim's site. At first I wondered about the validity of learning so much grammar from a simple, free website but as I began to use the grammar with Japanese people with no problem I figured I'd hit some kind of internet gold.
I also always believed Genki 1 and 2 should be 1 semester books... a beginner would really get somewhere in a year with that. But everyone I pitched the idea to thought I was crazy.
iheartny22:
I don't really remember, but I think within a month I was done with Romaji for good. Reading it now is painful.. (sometimes to the point that I can't even understand what it's trying to say because my brain thinks about it in English).
Well since we use Heisig's system for learning kana it takes about one week for the hiragana and one for katakana. It should only take you about 30 min a day with the book and then using anki to review. So if you dont have Heisig's "Remembering the Kana" I suggest that you get it. On the front of the book it even says "A guide to reading and writing the Japanese syllabaries in 3 hours each". So if you use the book like your suppose and supplement it with Anki you should have them down in no time.
Thank you very much for your advice. I'm already taking some of it. I tend to go to sleep and wake up with FNN playing, and I watch Japanese movies as often as possible. I will definitely get to grammar after I get Kana down. I've read elsewhere that it normally takes about a month or two to completely learn Kana. How long did it take all of you?
What a fantastic site! Great find! Thank you for that!
And it's released under a Creative Commons license! *dances with glee*
So who wants to take that information and make it into an iPhone app? =)
Most Japanese grammar isn't as hard as it's made out to be
I totally agree! There's a good bit of information here, but I don't see any reason why a dedicated student couldn't learn it well with a year or so. Why oh why do textbooks want to draw this information out over the course of years? Does it really take over a year of preparation before an adult learner can take on the passive tense? (I'm looking at you, Genki... （ーー； )
I would like to add to the strong "quit using romaji as soon as possible" sentiment. Roman letters already have a cozy, mushy spot in your brain associated with English. Kana have no such association, and it will work wonders on your pronunciation just spelling and thinking of the words in Kana.
Some tips from my own (somewhat limited but hopefully sound) experience:
On pronunciation: listening to Japanese on a regular basis (even if it makes absolutely no sense in the beginning) is a good thing. Not only does it get you used to how Japanese sounds but it can eventually start reinforcing what you've learned as you begin to understand more. People used to look at me oddly when I said this in the beginning, but it always seemed like sound advice to me for someone honestly attempting to learn a language.
Most Japanese grammar isn't as hard as it's made out to be and getting a solid base of grammar is probably more important in the beginning than vocabulary. What good are all those words if you can't put them into context? The Genki textbook teaches quite a bit of grammar too, it seems.
I refer to this a lot: http://www.guidetojapanese.org/ (Who knew, with a name so obvious, it would seem a decent site? Maybe I should make a post under learning resources for it. Does anyone else have an opinion on this site?)
Also, when learning vocabulary, I try to learn in context as much as possible. Most words out of context aren't of much use to me because Language B won't always use a word like Language A does. Besides, learning in context gives you experience with grammar and other vocabulary too.
I will definitely take your advice Tony and Leah. I'm excited that you say I'm going to learn faster this way, because I'm looking forward to making real progress. I'm going to go by what you said in your podcast and learn Hiragana first. I already downloaded the Anki application, so I'm ready to get started! Thank you both for your responses.
Let me second Leah's advice and suggest that you avoid studying in romaji. You'll really learn a lot more a lot faster if you just break that bad habit as soon as possible. I guarantee you that you'll never meet anyone proficient at Japanese who says "I just wished I had studied using romaji a little bit longer..." ;-)
If you want to study along the same format of my course, but at a slower pace, that's fine, too! I'm sure that the users here will be more than happy to answer any questions that you have, even if you are a bit behind them!
Thanks so much for your response. I appreciate the offer to work with your class, but I'm afraid I wouldn't be able to keep up since I have a pretty heavy course load at my own school. I'd rather take it slow and study at my own pace. I have to tell you that I love your podcasts! They are extremely informative and very entertaining. Your website has already become an important part of my Japanese studies. Thanks again and take care!
Thanks for the advice Leah!
Learn the kana first! It's very, very important! Start with the hiragana, then move to katakana - that's what we're doing now. Once you have that down, you can move on to kanji and learning more vocab, because you'll be able to read words in kana in any books you may be using. Good luck!
Hi! Welcome to the site!
I'll let others give their suggestions for specifics, but I would like to say that regardless of what you use, some sort of systemization will make things much easier. It's really hard to learn a language just by randomly learning a little here, and a little there.
Why not try catching up with my class and studying along with us? You'll need to quickly get the books and such, but hopefully you can catch up within a few weeks. Check out what's in the JPNS 1001 @ UGA and Genkier users groups for lots of information! (^^)
Hi, heart! Glad to hear that you're getting started! As I've mentioned before, some of the stories (especially when you get to the katakana) are a bit weak, so if you have any problems remembering any of them, don't hesitate to come here and ask us for help! (^^)
Thanks for the cool link, too! I'm obviously a big fan of Anki, but paper flashcards can work well too. If you go that route, be sure to use them wisely. You might want to read about the Leitner Box Method, which is sort of an analog method similar to what Anki does.