The HJU Japan Thread - The Language/Food/Culture or anything else Nippon!

[Jacky392000]

I'm kinda glad being a Chinese who has learnt Mandarin (although I hated it so much...) and so, I've no problems with recognizing Kanji. the only problems I have with them is remembering the way to write them or even remember the correct word for a certain sentence.
I'm currently at Advanced Level 2 (the level near to a native speaker), what about you guys who are also learning?

 

[Sage Shinigami]

I'm sorry. What are you studying now?

We got through all the hiragana and katakana. Right now it's basic grammar stuff--statements, turning statements into questions, responses to questions.

Currently we're covering possessive forms.

 

[Lynxara]

And I'm currently owning J1--but I don't feel that's an accomplishment.

Anime fans pretty much always own Japanese 101 courses. In a 102, you'll have much less of an advantage over other students. By 103, students with a background in Chinese have an advantage and most everyone else starts either working hard or struggling.

It's really difficult to learn kanji as a Westerner and then employ that knowledge in a sophisticated way. It just involves totally different thought patterns than English demands. That's why Japanese is sometimes described as a "nine-year" language.

Even if you take a course every semester of every year in college (if somehow your college offered that much), you probably wouldn't graduate as a fluent speaker or a completely literate reader.

 

[MetalSymphony]

And i thought German was a bitch to learn.......

 

[Sage Shinigami]

Anime fans pretty much always own Japanese 101 courses. In a 102, you'll have much less of an advantage over other students. By 103, students with a background in Chinese have an advantage and most everyone else starts either working hard or struggling.

It's really difficult to learn kanji as a Westerner and then employ that knowledge in a sophisticated way. It just involves totally different thought patterns than English demands. That's why Japanese is sometimes described as a "nine-year" language.

Even if you take a course every semester of every year in college (if somehow your college offered that much), you probably wouldn't graduate as a fluent speaker or a completely literate reader.

Yeah, I didn't really expect being a fan of anime to help me. At all.

That having been said, it's all pronunciation at this point, and knowing how various words are spelled, and I am excelling at that. I can only guess that's got something to do with my watching more Japanese television than English. She's actually taking it rather easy on us, currently--still allowing the use of romaji on tests. Whenever possible, I skip that though--it's not the helper people think it is. Eventually it's going to screw over a lot of people in the class.

Also. Japanese is offered at levels 1-4 here. And I was incorrect in stating it was a three hour course a while back--it's actually four hours. There are also, somehow, 5-9 classes offered as well (though not mentioned in the course catalog). She's mentioned them more than once, so I can only guess she's taught them a few times.

From what I understand, at those levels it's apparently more focused on immersion. You write in a journal everyday, completely in Japanese. >_<

To be honest, the most discouraging thing that's happened to me yet is whenever someone says that 4 semesters of this stuff will apparently be useless, and meeting a guy who took 4 semesters of it and still knows jack-all.

 

[KouAidou]

It's really not useless. It won't make you fluent, but learning Japanese in school will give you a really solid platform for future learning. Just having someone to check over your handwriting and such is a huge boon. (I did self-learning for a year before I went to college, and had to re-learn all my kana because I had stroke order completely wrong!)

As long as you continue to supplement with self-study, you'll keep learning. It is a long road to walk to fluency, but even then, any knowledge is better than none. (As long as you're realistic about your knowledge)

Also, immersion is hard, but... hot damn, so useful.

 

[Sage Shinigami]

As long as you continue to supplement with self-study, you'll keep learning. It is a long road to walk to fluency, but even then, any knowledge is better than none. (As long as you're realistic about your knowledge)

Also, immersion is hard, but... hot damn, so useful.

See, this is the problem. I've made previous attempts at self-study, both for Japanese and other subjects...I'm kinda terrible at it. I'm hoping after I'm finished with these 4 years that will give me an idea of what to do next and I can make attempts to self-study again.

On that note, I didn't want to attempt going to Japan until I had at least basic fluency, but it sounds like that's out now, so I may put it off until I'm done with all 4 classes, as opposed to just 3, which was my initial plan.

 

[MetalSymphony]

I have a question for you Japanese Language Czars.

Say your an American business man who has been told your going over the Tokyo Office, and that you should learn the language.

Now, you don't have Years to learn the Language beforehand, you have say around 4-5 months.

In that time, would it be possible to learn enough to function in day-to-day life as well as communicate with your Bosses/Co-workers? You would continue learning once you got there obviously (and then the Immersion factor would accelerate that further learning).

I ask because i'm a guy who cannot really spend years learning one language to the Fluent level. Though i would not mind taking a crash course to nail the the Essentials and become functional with the language, then go at my own pace from there.

Would that be feasible? I know i would not be able to hold an extended conversation or anything, but i'm a man for few words anyway :sweat:.

 

[Lynxara]

If you're a businessman, then presumably you can drop some money on Rosetta Stone. You'll be able to say basic conversational phrases with a decent accent within a few months. You probably won't be able to read much of anything at all, but that's okay. Signs in Tokyo frequently include romanji and a foreigner in Tokyo who looks confused or lost tends to get help.

Sage Shinigami, the thing is that if you ever want to be fluent enough for doing useful things like watching anime raw, the four years of study you get in college is an indispensable foundation. If you take that knowledge to Japan and live there for like a year, it will probably coagulate into a very brisk understanding of conversational spoken Japanese.

Learning how to read and write will take much longer if you don't, say, take up translation work. That said, having had the classes will give you the tools you need to, say, look up kanji you don't recognize in a manga you're reading. That's the really valuable thing you're getting right now, the ability to usefully improve later.

 

[MetalSymphony]

Or Torrent it........>_> <_<

Thanks Lynx.
It can't hurt to know the basics.
Who nows, maybe one day ill take the JLPT if i keep on learning.