Learning Japanese

[SilverDash]

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If you want to learn to read and write usefully in Japanese, you need to learn kanji. There's no getting around it.

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There was another thread, which I think was active more recently than this one, where I posted links to the Basic Kanji Book, which is a great starting point. It's probably worth trying to find that.

I found this useful topic from 2010: http://forums.bakabt.me/index.php?topic=16343.0
But I could not find the topic you probably meant.

It looks to me that the basic 2000 Kanji are not that hard to learn (1-2 years) IF you don't mind not being able to write them using thoses SRS programs and if you have the motivation to do it every single day. I think that the biggest problem would be my memory. After I learned the first 1000 I would probably have to repeat 100 of those every day in order not to forget them because I don't exactly see them in my daily live around me like Japanese people do. On top of that I noticed that many Kanji characters are hard to distinguish from each other compared to the Kana's. For example: a character has like 8 strokes and only a single stroke is different for x different characters -.-. With those flashcards i was able to link a characters (like the Hiragana "TO" that looks like a toe). But with Kanji that probably won't be possible.

If I just Google ways to study Kanji I only find some basic tips and a lot of commercial 'crap' software. Most of the useful information that I find are actually on these forums or on sites like Yahoo Answers. But I think that Anki might be the only really useful program out there (and free) without having to pay an incredible amount of money for it.

P.S.
I fully agree that learning Japanese just from watching anime is a horrible idea indeed and it won't work for the Kana/Kanji anyway.

[Bob2004]

I think this is the post I was on about, but it looks like I didn't actually post any links or useful information after all Here's the first volume, if you're interested. I'd recommend it the most out of all the books I've seen. There's another book, called The Key To Kanji, or something, which is also good. I'd also note that learning to read them is a hell of a lot easier than learning to write them, and since typing them on a PC doesn't actually need the writing skills (just the ability to read them), you don't need to worry about being able to write all of them by hand perfectly (unless you have to take exams in it, like me, in which case I feel very sorry for you).

Associating kanji with some other image (like to with a toe) is harder, but it's still perfectly doable for most - the images are just more complicated. And it's definitely an essential way to learn them all, because it really does make them easier to learn, especially if you have a very visual memory. Associating the images with the readings and meanings is sometimes harder, though.

Some examples from a presentation I had to do at one point, although the kanji here are a bit off due to the font:

(click to show/hide)

員
Radical: 口 Components: ハ口目貝

Means member (eg. 部員, club member, or 社員, member of a company), and is read with the onyomi いん. One image you could use for it is a person wearing a big signboard, trying to recruit people to come INto the organisation he’s a member of. My classmate also insisted that, if you squint, it looks like a penis - which fits the meaning, 'member', quite well

記
Radical: 言 Components: 已言

Means record, or describe, and is read with the onyomi き. A good visualisation is: Someone’s voice is describing something to themselves, to help them record it in their memory (remember the left hand radical is the kanji for voice).
Or, it looks like an open book – the left page has lines of writing, and the right page has a diagram or picture.

Things like that Of course, then you get kanji like this one:

議

And any hope of trying to come up with a good visualisation to remember it is thrown straight out the window. The best we could come up with for this is that it's like the previous kanji, but instead of describing it to himself, he is discussing it with a ridiculously complicated machine.

[komaschwarz]

Things like that Of course, then you get kanji like this one:

議

And any hope of trying to come up with a good visualisation to remember it is thrown straight out the window. The best we could come up with for this is that it's like the previous kanji, but instead of describing it to himself, he is discussing it with a ridiculously complicated machine.

When it comes to larger kanji, it helps to begin differentiating the left and right side as well as understanding common radicals. For example, the left side of 議 is a relatively common radical, usually relating to speech. So that helps guide one onto the meaning of this particularly complex kanji (in this case, the meaning is "discussion", "opinion", "deliberation", etc..)

Similarly, the top of 茶 (cha) is a radical of a straight line with two short bars through it -- this symbol appears in dozens of kanji, and it almost always relates to vegetation, flowers, plants or things derived from said. So just by identifying the radical we can already get an idea of the meaning, even if it's a kanji we're unfamiliar with! 薬 (kusuri -- medicine (derived from plants)), 花 (hana -- flower/blossom), etc. Kanji radicals are constant

Now obviously this won't always help pinpoint a kanji's meaning, but it can certainly help when trying to remember a kanji's meaning, or determining which kanji means what among a series of similar looking kanji.

[SilverDash]

It's good to know that most Kanji are not just some random drawings.

I found that "Basic Kanji Book" (pdf). Yes that's exactly what I meant. It associates pictures with the Kanji and explains them too  . Great book. Sadly the modern age Kanji like the character for "sun" does not look like a sun anymore unlike in the old times. They seem to have changed them for the digital age and make them square and such.

The downside of that Kanji book is that it's not software, it's a book/pdf which means that you will have to write those characters with a pencil instead of using SRS programs. I do not intent to learn to write Kanji (costs too much time and I will probably lose my motivation in the process). So now I need an SRS program where I can select what Kanji to practice. Like only the Kanji from chapter 1 from that book, then expand with chapter 2 and so on. That would be the best way to start I think.

[Bob2004]

Even if you don't intend to learn to write them all properly, writing the all out over and over again by hand is also one of the best ways to learn to recognise them as well. I usually spend and hour and a half or so per lesson in that book (so 10-12 kanji), writing each of them down along with the example words and readings, then writing each one down 10-15 times in a row. Then I go through the practice questions at the end of each lesson to confirm I know them. I don't normally remember how to write a lot of them for all that long (I really need to work on that), but it's a very good way of learning to recognise them.

I'm not quite sure what you mean by SRS program to be honest. Do you mean a flashcard type thing, like Anki (which works really well for revising the kanji you learn in the basic kanji book btw, since there are collections of flashcards organised by lesson)?

Things like that Of course, then you get kanji like this one:

議

And any hope of trying to come up with a good visualisation to remember it is thrown straight out the window. The best we could come up with for this is that it's like the previous kanji, but instead of describing it to himself, he is discussing it with a ridiculously complicated machine.

When it comes to larger kanji, it helps to begin differentiating the left and right side as well as understanding common radicals. For example, the left side of 議 is a relatively common radical, usually relating to speech. So that helps guide one onto the meaning of this particularly complex kanji (in this case, the meaning is "discussion", "opinion", "deliberation", etc..)

Similarly, the top of 茶 (cha) is a radical of a straight line with two short bars through it -- this symbol appears in dozens of kanji, and it almost always relates to vegetation, flowers, plants or things derived from said. So just by identifying the radical we can already get an idea of the meaning, even if it's a kanji we're unfamiliar with! 薬 (kusuri -- medicine (derived from plants)), 花 (hana -- flower/blossom), etc. Kanji radicals are constant

Now obviously this won't always help pinpoint a kanji's meaning, but it can certainly help when trying to remember a kanji's meaning, or determining which kanji means what among a series of similar looking kanji.

I know, that's where a lot of the visualisations come from. But for kanji like 議, where the right hand side doesn't really look like any radical (I know it's made up of a bunch, but nothing that's immediately identifiable and obvious), it becomes hard to come up with something to associate it with; that was my point. But yeah, using radicals is definitely a key way to help identify kanji and remember their meaning.

[SilverDash]

For the SRS: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaced_repetition (also mentioned in the first post here: http://forums.bakabt.me/index.php?topic=16343.0)

I will be trying a few learning methods in the next days and see what works best.

[F1ForFun]

I highly suggest a language partner. They're awesome.

Also, some of their conceived notions of Americans are hilarious, albeit not completely untrue.

[Tephnos]

I've started learning Japanese, and been working my way through Hiragana and Katakana.

But um, I don't think I'm really going to bother with a lot of the Kanji. Unless I ever find myself living in Japan, I'm just never going to remember enough of it for it to be useful. Too bad Japan couldn't fully kill off Kanji, and instead only reduced the amount used. Would make life much easier.

Unfortunately, I don't know any Japanese people that I could skype with either, haha.

[laoa]

didn't read the whole thread, too long, so maybe someone already suggested this method
I'm learning kana/kanji using Heisig's method
I use RTK1-3 as a guide, but since I don't like heisig's stories and some of the keywords are completely ridiculous, I use RevTK as a source/base for my own stories and their 'vocab shuffle' is also a spledid way to learn the use of kanji in compounds/words and its specific reading
To review the kanji I use Anki and the "super heisig" deck. it took some effort to set up the deck properly to show different readings and uses of a kanji and the stroke order, but it was really well worth it!
for japanese grammar I use Tae Kim's Guide to Learning Japanese
For learning vocab I use the core 2k/6k deck by nukemarine, who has made an amazing guide for learning Japanese
and of course I read japanese sites/manga and listen to japanese anime/youtube/podcasts
I recommend this way of learning to everyone, its very effective and you learn quite fast.

[Monkeyfinger]

First off, how did you guys learn Japanese..(for those who speak it)?

I married a Japanese girl.

[EmptyMemory]

I highly suggest a language partner. They're awesome.

Also, some of their conceived notions of Americans are hilarious, albeit not completely untrue.

So much damn smiling.

I'm taking it in university. Holy fuck it's a lot of work. I have Hiragana down and I'll have Katagana by the end of next week.

Counters in Japanese are fucking annoying. Other than that, the language's structure is pretty neat.

[F1ForFun]

I highly suggest a language partner. They're awesome.

Also, some of their conceived notions of Americans are hilarious, albeit not completely untrue.

(click to show/hide)

So much damn smiling.

I'm taking it in university. Holy fuck it's a lot of work. I have Hiragana down and I'll have Katagana by the end of next week.

Counters in Japanese are fucking annoying. Other than that, the language's structure is pretty neat.

Dude, you have no idea. After chatting with a few of them, they seem to get very timid and will not reply very quickly if you don't add a smiley. I don't even know why. Maybe they assume that if I don't include a smiley I'm being indifferent and uninterested in what they're saying. I think it's a cultural thing with them. Once I started adding just as much smileys and shit as they did they seemed to get a lot more comfortable, but all the emotes actually make ME UNcomfortable...

[megido-rev.M]

Oh, the humanity .

[yakemito]

they seem to get very timid and will not reply very quickly if you don't add a smiley. I don't even know why.

This is funny, but so true. I have a few friends on japan-guide.com and it seems almost necessary to include at least one emoticon in every message.

This is something I used to start chatting with a girl that was uncomfortable with foreigners-

(click to show/hide)

（　ﾟ Дﾟ）                (^・ｪ・^)
(*°∀°)=3  (э^・ｪ・^)э
＿|￣|○             ε=ε=ε=ヾ(э^・ｪ・^)э

-a few emotes always lighten the mood.
Edit: Bottom-left is on hands and knees in despair.

[megido-rev.M]

^ No idea what emote on the bottom left is.

[sawakosadako]

I usually use smiley when talking to japanese girl. This kinda makes me feel like I'm a girl though. I always wonder what's their opinion on guys using smileys, anyone knows about this?

Have you guys know about anikore? It's a japanese anime database site. After a quick review, my opinion is it's a good one. It has a shelf-based list like iBook on ipad. You could also see some of the 1st episode anime for free if you live in japan/you change your IP to japan. And a good tag system so you could find anime based on tsundere, etc... So I highly recommend you to go there if you're trying to learn japanese or just want to talk to japanese there's a chat room there. Just take a quick look with the link below.

anikore

[F1ForFun]

For those of you getting discouraged and put off by Japanese because it seems intimidating, just look at the bright side. It could always be worse. You could be a Japanese person trying to learn English.

[sawakosadako]

For those of you getting discouraged and put off by Japanese because it seems intimidating, just look at the bright side. It could always be worse. You could be a Japanese person trying to learn English.

As long as you're not in 2ch, you're probably gonna be just fine. They're basically pretty nice people as long you could identify them with an idea. So a site with an ID like mixi, etc is better than 2ch if you want to practice your Japanese.

[megido-rev.M]

For those of you getting discouraged and put off by Japanese because it seems intimidating, just look at the bright side. It could always be worse. You could be a Japanese person trying to learn English.

lol I saw this a few months ago.

[bunalz]

A thread from GameFAQs World: Japan - Post advice and tools for learning Japanese.

I feel like I should share that thread (it's still a "beta", though). Hope it won't get purged before achieving our objective.

edit: I forgot you need a special privilege to view... *slaps face 100x*