Sunspace, I really think you should go for it!
(Liveonaplane, who knows karate, judo, macrame and five other Japanese words…)
Dankon!*
LiveOnAPlane: macrame is Japanese? I had no idea!
Kythereia: check your email. 
[sub]*Thanks! in Esperanto[/sub]
Just remember when you’re ordering food that it’s bento box.
I’ve seen a picture of you. You are not hard on the eyes, and cute is often overrated.
That’s pretty much never used any more.
One thing you will find out about “gambaru” or in the imperative form, “gambatte” is that this is not really directly translatable into English. Japanese use this in situations where English speakers would more likely use “good luck.”
Sunspace That’s great. I first came to Japan in '81, and have lived her for a total of 18 years. It’s an interesting place and you should really enjoy your visit.
If you do come, let me know and I’ll let give you some ideas of places to go and see.
:dubious: macrame comes from French, according to my dictionary. At any rate, it’s not Japanese.
Thanks :: blush ::
But I am a 42-year-old man starting to go grey at the temples. The “cute” they had tended to be the bouncy enthusiastic 13-year-old-girl kitten-and-puppy-and-unicorn kind of thing, all glitter and giggles: it was simply not me.
On the other hand, in the late nineties, I had great fun writing stories about evil sapient rabbits bent on the conquest of Earth, using cuteness (“The Ky00t”) as a psychological weapon to undermine a disbelieving humanity.
Thanks, TokyoPlayer! Local knowledge is always appreciated.
And I’m an almost 42-year-old woman who’s definitely rounder than she should be. Get thee to a science fiction convention. “Cute” comes in all ages, shapes, and genders, there. Best of all, most of the attendees have minds. Cute’s no fun when it’s boring.
Those bunny stories sound amusing. You should post one sometime.
And I just bought Japanese for Dummies last weekend…
No, really, I did. I work for the American arm of a Japanese company, and I deal with translations (I’m the final link in the “Japanese > Janglish > English” chain) on a daily basis. Actually knowing Japanese is definately not required, but it might help, plus it’s always nice to improve myself. That, and my direct superior got a free business trip to Japan this month, so I’m trying to crawl my way up that corporate ladder.
The book comes with a CD, but I’ve found that while I have the pronunciations okay, and most of the sentence structure down, I can’t get actual vocabulary without using it! (and don’t start on me yet, I’m not done with the book! 
)
'Cause the guy you know isn’t a good enough source? :dubious:
Besides, I have it on good authority that TokyoPlayer ignores emails. 
What a great story, Sunspace, best of luck to you.
If you can find a good “learn basic kanji” book on Amazon or something, I’d recommend getting a head start. IME, the Japanese language itself isn’t terribly difficult once you get the hang of it, but learning/memorizing kanji drives me batshit crazy. I’d probably still be taking the language if I could find a high-level class that was more “conversational” in the sense that I wouldn’t have to memorize quite so much characters. 
Cerowyn!
I… haven’t seen you around here lately!
:: stammers apology in some form of language, hits head on floor ::
:: makes mental note to offer Cerowyn a biru at the next TronnaDope ::
So, how you doin–thwap
:: ahem ::
Sorry.
And to think that I didn’t go to the World SF convention when it was in Toronto a couple of years ago. twitch
I’ll see what I can do. That could be… tricky, given that they were interwoven with other authors’ posts on Usenet. (Remember Usenet?)
That was meant as a joke on myself!
I’ve seen people spell anime with an accent on the end, as if it were French. It’s not so far-fetched that a similar spelling of macrame, with accent and C instead of K, might have caught on years ago and become the standard, is it?
Man, that sounds really cool. I wish I didn’t have a real job. But, that gives me an idea. Maybe I can find out if there are any Japanese students who want to have a conversation exchange and doesn’t mind talking to a non-student aged person. I’ve even actually done ESL tutoring before. But I’m also gonna have to get over my paralyzing phobia of sounding like an idiot. Of all the weird coincidences, my landlady is actually Japanese but I’m usually too embarassed to say much to her. :smack:
Manga’s the main reason I started learning Japanese and my main motivation. I still try to read my manga every night; it’s really cool how I go back and read stuff I got a couple of years ago and I can now pretty much tell what’s going on (but, then again, I mostly read romances and “aisheteru” is pretty easy). I do get the English translations and go back to see what I don’t get.
My biggest problem is basic vocabulary. I’m doing OK with the kanji but I don’t know that many words beyond the kanji I’ve learned. I like your idea about the book. I’ve toyed with the idea of getting a copy of Harry Potter from Amazon.jp. There’s an audio book too so I could listen to it as well…
Nomimasho! Futatsu biru o onegai shimasu!
Okay! Okay! I give! I give! I’ll start taking the classes as soon as I can! Mi devas paroli cxiame per la pleja plimulto da lingvoj, kiu eblas! Biru des! Allemand left! Voilà! Voici! Radio-Canada!
I was actually going to recommend some Harry Potter. I used Battle Royale to learn from, so my vocabulary is a tad…skewed.
Would it be a good idea to start with something simpler, like, say, Winnie the Pooh?
Yes. There are children’s books you could start with, written entirely in hiragana. I’m not sure how valuable they would be, since they tend to be very short, and not exactly something you’d want to read over and over. But it might be something nice to help you remember and apply your kana knowledge once you start in on the class. Plus, the language will be simple enough that the constructions you learn early will be applicable.
Oh, and by the way, Cerowyn’s sentence translates to: “Let’s drink! Two buildings, please!” Not quite sure why you’d want to drink buildings, though…