Japanese language

[Michelle]

After i finished the english part on Duolingo I discovered a new interesting "class" which is, guess... you are right! Japanese for english speakers. Not like I am a good english speaker but I write and read at a decent level (69 if I have to trust Duolingo but i don't lol).
So full of confidence I started the Japanese lessons. From the very beggining I understood that reading and answering is not enough so I took a notebook (a green one ^^) and some writing instruments to write the hiragana that I see on Duolingo. Google helped me with some "how to draw hiragana characters" so now I can read - kind of- what is write in hiragana. Katakana is the same. Easy deal until now.

After a while Duolingo became nasty and started to add some kanji in the lessons.
Before my enthusiasm drowns Google mate provided me a site including kanji with full and complete (too complete ) explanations.

For the Japanese on this site and members who can speak Japanese after learning it:
how many years will take me to learn Japanese at the level I am at english?
How much time I need daily for practice?
And one more question: how can i listen the language except anime?

About speaking I have no hope yet but if I will have time our University has Japanese lessons for everyone. I wish to start these lessons when I have some knowledge

ありがとうございます。

 

[-Punk-]

I thought it would be Heni, oops

 

[Our Lord Sasuke]

What is name of your university?

 

[Shanks]

It takes proper 3 years to steadily learn Japanese course you need to memorize all the chart of hiragana characters . First of all its important dont muddle both kata and hiragana . Start with kata they are like alphabets in english .

After that start basic writing system with Hiragana and Katakana , Afterward go with Kanji .

I will add a link where it will be easy for you to understand :

You must be registered for see links

However i must say you must visit Japan once and interact with Japanese people online that helps a lot . The best place with Gaijn Pot where all the Japanese lovers come to interact in one forum . You might get to interact to Japs there .

All the best to you Japanese laguage is beautiful language !!

だいじょうぶです。

 

[Azu]

And one more question: how can i listen the language except anime?

You can always listen to the music. After listening to the same song for two or three times you will remember few words or phrases for sure and ofc it's very helpful for familiarizing with language tone. Of course, slower songs are better for a start. That way you can really hear words without struggle. I'd recommend some of the songs by the artist Aimer.

 

[Drakengard]

Is English your first language? If so, it's going to take a while to be equally fluent in Japanese as English (just think how much practice you've had with it)! However, you probably don't need to be that level for what you want. But it's still tough. Some sources claim that it will take ~2200 hours before you can speak and read Japanese with "general proficiency" as a native English speaker. That would be around 3 hours every day for 2 years. If you can find methods that make the lessons stick more, you might be able to shave off some of that time, but you shouldn't expect it.

It's definitely not impossible to learn, as many people have and continue to learn the language as English speakers. What's important, above all, is your passion for it. Can you incorporate studying the same subject a part of your daily life, so that it becomes even more of a habit than logging on NarutoBase (for example)? Are you willing to sacrifice several hours every day that could be used for something else, whether it be fun or "productive"? Are you adaptable to changing your learning styles in pursuit of your goal (such speaking with Japanese-speaking strangers online for practice or spending money to buy the material you need)? If yes, you won't do good, you'll do AMAZING. As long as you don't have some uncommon problems that completely hinder your goal, passion is the key to your success. This isn't just true for studying Japanese, it's true for practically any achievement.

My university offers about 3 years of "core" Japanese classes. They utilize the Genki book series for the first 2 years. If you really don't care about being able to physically write the Kanji, then it may not be the best suggestion. In fact, many Japanese people are forgetting how to write out Kanji thanks to the influence of computers. There's an app called Obenkyo that can be really helpful for mastering the alphabets if you'd like.

 

[Shanks]

You can always listen to the music. After listening to the same song for two or three times you will remember few words or phrases for sure and ofc it's very helpful for familiarizing with language tone. Of course, slower songs are better for a start. That way you can really hear words without struggle. I'd recommend some of the songs by the artist Aimer.

Thats excellent one too , ya most phrases are pretty tough even for the native speaker (language varies as per dialect there ) .

 

[Michelle]

My language is Romanian. Like in Japanese we read what we write with similar pronunciation. For me english is very hard to speak, and very hilarious for the others because i talk awful. I learned english reading manga and reading/ writing on NB. Today I can read and understand a lot but my purpose wasn't to learn english so I don't have an english notebook like I made now for Japanese.
The first lesson:
My nickname in Japanese (made from the original Romanian):
ミハ
Nice isn't it?

 

[UnknownJin]

ikazo...

 

[Drakengard]

My language is Romanian. Like in Japanese we read what we write with similar pronunciation. For me english is very hard to speak, and very hilarious for the others because i talk awful. I learned english reading manga and reading/ writing on NB. Today I can read and understand a lot but my purpose wasn't to learn english so I don't have an english notebook like I made now for Japanese.
The first lesson:
My nickname in Japanese (made from the original Romanian):
ミハ
Nice isn't it?

Well, I can't comment much about your speech, but I can see that you type English just fine. May I ask why you want to learn Japanese to a greater extent than English? Is it for anime/manga or a different purpose? Very nice name, by the way!

 

[Deadlift]

My language is Romanian. Like in Japanese we read what we write with similar pronunciation. For me english is very hard to speak, and very hilarious for the others because i talk awful. I learned english reading manga and reading/ writing on NB. Today I can read and understand a lot but my purpose wasn't to learn english so I don't have an english notebook like I made now for Japanese.
The first lesson:
My nickname in Japanese (made from the original Romanian):
ミハ
Nice isn't it?

Romanian is like Italian, except that the only vowel in Romanian is "u" :3

 

[Michelle]

Well, I can't comment much about your speech, but I can see that you type English just fine. May I ask why you want to learn Japanese to a greater extent than English? Is it for anime/manga or a different purpose? Very nice name, by the way!

I was very upset because i could't communicate with some very nice japanese ladies, while few girls students at japanese language were like sparrows talking with them. I was very motivated to learn it by that moment. They can and I cannot??? Just you wait! Next year I will not be mute...
And thank you

Romanian is like Italian, except that the only vowel in Romanian is "u" :3

nah... that's not true. We just have some russian/slavics influences but ...

Spoiler

ci abbiamo quasi lo stesso alfabeto

 

[Michelle]

Lesson number two: the 1 to 10 numerals in hiragana:
1 (ichi) いち
2 (ni) に
3 (san) さん
4 (shi) し
5 (go) ご
6 (roku) ろく
7 (shichi) しち
8 (hachi) はち
9 (kyu) きゅう
10(ju) じゅう

 

[Drakengard]

I was very upset because i could't communicate with some very nice japanese ladies, while few girls students at japanese language were like sparrows talking with them. I was very motivated to learn it by that moment. They can and I cannot??? Just you wait! Next year I will not be mute...
And thank you

If you really want to make their jaws drop, maybe you could practice talking with people online? There are websites dedicated to letting people teach each other a language online (through Skype and what not).

 

[Lyke]

Watch anime

 

[Michelle]

My brain needs more than just hearing. Thanks for the advice i will restart my favourite


Lesson number 3:

Japan 日本 (Nihon)
Japanese language 日本語 (Nihongo)
Kanji used are easy to draw and learn until now...
And for some words very used in NV:
Sensei 先生
What (nani) 何
Naruto (the name in katakana) ナルト

I feel like i dig a hole in my head to put them
It was impossible on site but in my notebook the hiragana are green, katakana are blue and kanji are red.
Any first draw has the stroke count and order/ direction. I figured that the logic works when is about the order of strokes.

 

[Michelle]

Lesson number 4
Learning Japanese is not like learning English. In English "You" is you for one as well as for many persons, speaking colloquial or formal. All in one. Of course we have many European languages with more complicated rules but I never saw until now such a big difference between colloquial language and formal language like in Japanese... I even didn't figured much about it, and watching anime is not big help. This will be the hardest thing in this language.

One of the most important things it's the hour. How to say what time is it or to understand the hour it's just awesome in any foreign language.
So we are starting with the word hour itself, ji 時 with his half, han 半 and it's small part, the minute - bun 分
What time is it = 何時ですか。(Nan ji desu ka?)
It's one o'clock = 一時です。(Ichi ji desu)
It is nine thirty = 九時半です。(Ku ji han desu)
Also we have 午前 (gozen) = a.m.
and 午後 (gogo) = p.m.
So if you know the numbers and some words you'll be able to learn the hour in Japanese. Easy deal. But that's how you will talk with friends. To talk with elders or superiors you should use additional or other words that Duolingo didn't tell me about. Anyway this guy is not enough to learn but he's funny. I received an email with the message: Michelle, you learned 242 words in Japanese! Wow... I'm smarter than yesterday
But I cannot say a sentence
So I downloaded 3 kanji applications and asap I will put at least 2 more in my phone. Otherwise it will take ages to learn it. Wish me luck ...

 

[Cohle]

Some resources you might find use of along with Duolingo.

You must be registered for see links

You must be registered for see links

Also download Anki, it's a flash card program, where you see the Japanese and press a key to revel the meaning, that way over days through a session each day you memorize words, then based on how well you remembered you can rate word to appear again in 3 days, 7d or 10min and so on.

There is a specific Anki deck for Yotsuba that's linked below, so once you learn hiragana and Katakana and go through that deck(and some grammar?), you can start reading it.

You must be registered for see links

You must be registered for see links

There are also core2k and core 6k decks.
I am not trying to learn Japanese currently, so I don't know how long it would take, but it's gonna take longer than a Latin based language.

 

[Michelle]

After 4 months I can read - not fast - hiragana and katakana, I know well almost 50 kanji and so-so other 100. I have a new motivation to go on, I love the kanji characters, the various ways to read them. But is true that without 2-3 hours daily is not possible to learn Japanese.

Lesson number 5

Colors:
White 白 しろ (shiro)
Black 黒 くろ (kuro)
Red 赤 あか (aka)
Yellow 黄色 きいろ (kiiro)
Green 緑 みどり (midori)
Blue 青 あお (ao)
For Kuroko no basket fans:
Purple 紫 むらさき (murasaki)
And for the optimistic me:
Pink ピンク (pinku) or 桃色 ももいろ (momoiro, where momo is peach and iro is colour, so a pink like peach colour)
By adding colour (色 いろ, iro) to a thing you can say a colour of the thing, that you don't know how to say. This is useful.
As Naruto fan, words connected with the NV are easy to remember:
Leaf 葉 は (ha)
Wind 風 かぜ (kaze)
Water 水 みず( mizu)
Fire 火 ほ(ho) and so on.

I am happy I received today the Genki books and I will start tomorow to learn from the first one.
Wish me luck ^^

 

[kimb]

When you're tired of having scanlations/sub to come out late every week, so you dedicate yourself to learning one of the hardest languages on the planet /s

Much respect