Learning Japanese

In My Humble Opinion
1

Learning Japanese
I think I’m learning Japanese
I really think so…

Once upon a time, eons ago, I could speak Japanese. When I was very young we lived in Japan and I had Japanese friends, I watched Japanese TV, and could translate for my mom. When we came back to the States I refused to speak it. When addressed in Japanese I’d answer in English. We were in America, see, and it made perfect sense to a five-year-old. I’ve forgotten almost everything. I can remember only a few phrases. I did take a Japanese course in college (got an A), but I didn’t pursue it.

Now I’m thinking of doing some casual studying, and would like to find a (Mac-compatible) course. I know Rosetta Stone claims it’s the best and many people swear by it. But in my brief encounter with it at an airport kiosk I wasn’t impressed. It seemed a bit light on the fundamentals.

Recommendations?

2

I’m in Japan now, in Aomori City, and I’ve been studying for a few years. I’m at work right now (ssshh) so I don’t have access to all my URLs, but after I get home tonight I shall bombard you with info. 準備よくしてくれよｗ。（Prepare yourself, haha).

3

I’ll look forward to it.

Of course the better option would be to enroll in another class and continue taking as many as I can. I just don’t have the time for that.

4

There was an article in the paper yesterday about Rosetta vs. Fluenz (which doesn’t offer Japanese yet) which gave a lot of information about Rosetta Stone. If you decide to use it, see if you can find a used copy. See if the library has any software programs to try out, too. But ideally, you could find a set of audio CDs that you could listen to on your long commute.

5

I liked what I saw of Fluenz’s Spanish program. (I’ve had it in my Amazon shopping cart for months.) I’d definitely try it if they offered Japanese.

6

A number of us on the boards here are learning Japanese. I’ve been studying for almost 3 years now. I’m currently taking a two-night per week course at InLingua. Look them up. They may have a school in your area. To your point about not having time, I hear that. It’s really tough getting to my classes after work, but I’m making it work.

Before deciding to take formal lessons, I was studying on my own, and not getting very much out of it, or as much as I thought I should. Around the time I seriously considered taking classes, I spoke to a few others who advised me to try total immersion, which was probably the best and most effective thing I’ve ever done during my Japanese language study pursuits. I now get approximately 90% of all my news and entertainment from Japanese sources, in Japanese. There are many outlets online for Japanese entertainment, e.g., TV shows, movies, radio programs, news, etc…

Last December, I took Level 4 of the JLPT and received my passing scores in February. I’m now studying for the N4, which is the old JLPT level 3; they added a level last year.

I have an abundant amount of study materials. My class uses the Genki series, but I do a lot of home study as well, and found that Genki, although easy to follow, is a bit too simplistic in its presentation. Below is my current list of study materials.

Please note that I placed the Japanese titles of the textbooks in brackets in case you have a problem locating them by the English titles.

  • Minna No Nihongo 1 [皆の日本語初級１] (Coursebook 1).
  • Minna No Nihongo 1 [皆の日本語初級慓準問題集１] (Workbook 1)
  • Minna No Nihongo Honyaku [皆の日本語初級１本やく] (Translation Book 1) - Translation and Grammatical Notes
  • Genki 1 [元気１] - Coursebook
  • Genki 1 [元気１] - Workbook
  • 2004 - 2006 JLPT4 Questions and Answers [日本語能力試験ー試験問題と正解]
  • White Rabbit Press Kanji 1 Flashcards (covers all kanji for the JLPT level 4 and level 3).
  • Tuttle Japanese in a Flash Volume 1 (448 Common Japanese Phrase flash cards)
  • Kodansha’s Furigana Dictionary
  • Kanji Power by John Millen (Teaches 240 essential kanji as well as proper stroke order)

Please don’t hesitate to ask any questions you may have.

7

Here’s a little more information you may find interesting. I’ve tried a few computer language courses and, in my opinion, they’re all a waste of time and money, especially money. I don’t know anyone who has actually become conversational from a computer course. Oh, sure, you can learn vocabulary, and get a sense of sentence structure and simple phrases by using these tools, and I’m sure, with a lot of time and effort, you can get something out of them, but if you think you’re going to become fluent in Japanese by using Rosetta Stone, or its competitors, you’re fooling yourself.

Japanese is a dynamic language, greatly influenced by other languages. Because of the katakana syllabary, new words are constantly being incorporated. Japanese is also a language the learning of which requires a more thorough understanding of the constantly evolving culture than for western languages. The best way, in my opinion, to learn this complex language is with interactive lessons. As mentioned in my previous post, it’s not easy at all to take classes if you’re working, but there are other ways to get the interactivity and structure one needs for effective language learning if time is an issue. One way is by live online training.

The Japanese Online Institute (JOI) at http://www.japonin.com has live group and private lessons, with audio and video, that you can schedule when the time is most convenient for you. They also have payment plans that are pretty attractive, depending on what you want. The teachers are all in Japan, and I believe most speak English. There are other live, online language training outlets, but this is the one I used. I also like their forums, where you can get feedback from teachers and other students.

If you want an online language training course without the live, interactive component, one that I found that’s not bad is Japanese Pod at http://japanesepod101.com. No, it’s not live, but they constantly add to and update their courses.

For online entertainment, if you want to get your feet wet with immersion, I recommend My Soju at http://mysoju.com, which has hundreds of Japanese drama and dramedy shows. Many of them are subtitled, and I recommend for those that are, that you ignore the subtitles altogether. At first, you won’t know what the heck the actors are saying but, after a few weeks, you will begin to pick up words, then phrases, then context and, before you know it, after a few months, you’ll be enjoying the programs and understanding them as though you always could. One program I definitely recommend is Gokusen [ごくせん]. This was a three-year TV series, which spawned at least one movie. The story lines can be insipid at times, but it’s entertaining and easy to get into. Most importantly, however, is it really gives you a feel for the language as it’s spoken today. There are a lot of inside jokes and cultural references that you probably won’t get unless you’ve watched a lot of other popular Japanese programs, but that won’t distract you from the benefit of learning by listening.

Hope this helps.

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Well, if you spoke it as a kid my guess is you probably already have a sub-conscious grasp of the basics. A lot of it might come back if you start using it again.

I doubt there are any really good PC software programs out there for Japanese, so I agree with **Onomatopoeia **that classroom instruction is probably the more efficient use of your time. Is there a Berlitz nearby, or maybe a university in your area has classes you can take non-credit?

I disagree a bit with Onomatopoeia in Japanese being complex - in many ways it’s easier than, say, English. I definitely found it easier to learn than French or Russian.

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I guess this depends on the person. I didn’t have a problem learning French at all, but perhaps that’s because I also speak Spanish. Who knows? I know only a few words in Russian, and can’t read it, so I can’t attest to its difficulty. However, just one of the ways Japanese is more complex than many other languages is its four syllabaries and its unique rules and role for 3 of them, which are also nothing like the western alphabet. On the other hand, the Japanese language adheres more strictly to rules than English does.

I do agree with you that it may be easier for Johnny L.A. to learn Japanese than others because of his previous experience with it, even though it was only until the age of 5. I’m still amazed at how many kanji the average 5-year old Japanese kid can recognize.

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I know I promised a fast response, but my internet is not completely set-up, and there are many local festivals at this time of year that I’ve been attending, so please be patient. I hope my URLs are worth the wait.

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Minna no Nihongo is good for the fundamentals, but it is pretty boring. They are more useful if you are taking the JLPT exams.
Japanese for busy people is a bit more interesting, but only to get you going.
Graded bilingual readers may be nice to get a feel for spoken Japanese. Like these
I remember some books about サザエさん　(An old cartoon series) which were interesting and simple, but my Google fu has temporarily failed me.

Also, it might be good to listen to some Japanese songs, or watch some TV. This seems to be the most effective way for me.

But then, maybe I shouldn’t be giving out advice. My pick it up as you go along method has put me in a weird state, where I know some advanced stuff sometimes, but some simple words still trip me up.

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Although this is Johnny L.A.'s thread, I’m also very interested in browsing your links.

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That’s what I told her! :stuck_out_tongue:

.

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Heheh. I knew that sounded kind of weird. :slight_smile:

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I always recommend Michel Thomas courses to anyone starting to learn a language. They’re audio only, so you can do them on the move, they’re fast, and most importantly they’re interesting! I’ve listened to both the Foundation and Advanced courses in Japanese in the past–the teacher on Foundation is simply one of the best teachers I have ever heard; the teacher on Advanced is not as inspiring (she also has a very thick Irish accent), but still quite good. The downside is that they only go to a fairly basic level, you don’t learn much vocabulary (they concentrate more on building sentences), and obviously it covers the spoken language only.

I don’t like Japanese for Busy People…I found it very boring, and it seems to be designed for businessmen. Their Kana Workbook is a nice little book for learning to write hiragana and katakana, though.

There are two Teach Yourself courses. I’ve read the older one, which has a close-up of a red fan (I think) on the front–this was ok, but it’s quite difficult, it doesn’t ease a beginner in at all. The newer one, with origami birds on the front, is by Helen Gilhooly, the teacher from the Michel Thomas Foundation course, so that might be worth looking at. Teach Yourself also do a Japanese Script book, which teaches kanji in a nice, quite fun way, although there is very little Japanese language in that book.

I don’t have much experience with language software, but I definitely would not recommend Rosetta Stone software at all. It’s ridiculously expensive, and very boring and repetitive. I also don’t think it’s a very good learning tool, as it doesn’t actually teach or explain anything; it’s mostly mimicking and guesswork. Rosetta Stone spend a lot of money on advertising, and allegedly plant fake reviews around the internet, which is why you’ve heard so many good things about them.

Hope this was of assistance. 頑張ってね！

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I’ve been studying for 7yrs now, though I would only make the claim to semi-fluency for the last year or so. In any case, I completely agree w/ everyone’s appraisal of PC programs. It may be just my learning process, but w/ out an explanation of the underlying grammar, just listening and repeating does nothing for me.

As fas as study materials go, the only things I used were 2 books. “Japanese Grammar” (a little pocket guide) and a Japanese workbook called ”どんな時、どう使う：200文型” or something similar. It was nothing but a brief explanation followed by tons of example sentences, and covered most of the major sentence patterns, i.e. time relationships, cause/effect, etc.

But more so than any book, it’s the fact that I spend time w/ Japanese people, speaking the language pretty much every day. That’s what’s made the difference for me. You haven’t gotten a language down until you can win a (friendly) argument w/ a native speaker. Heheh.

Anyway, I think the OP got some great advice/leads from everyone, so nothing more to add other than がんばって、ね。

17

I decided against Rosetta Stone after doing an example on their website (in a language I kinda speak) and reading threads on it here (thank you, search function).

Here’s the deal: all Rosetta Stone does is show you pictures with sentences, and you have to select the right picture. So, if a concept is more complicated than is possible to show in a picture, Rosetta Stone doesn’t cover it (example: “Good to see you!” v. “Hi.”). Also, it doesn’t cover verb conjugation or how articles work or anything like that–it really is all just pictures and phrases.

It reminds me of the Eddie Izzard routine. You better hope a monkey jumps under a table or you are going to run out of stuff to talk about.

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Yep. This is key.

Or as the girlies say: 頑張ってね〜〜〜！　;)

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I’d like to thank everyone who has responded. Lots of good information here!

Just to be clear, I’m not looking to become perfectly fluent in Japanese. Just looking for ‘traveler’s Japanese’ – being able to form grammatical phrases, re-learning hiragana, and such. Right now I’d like a computer-based course that I can take in my spare time. If I decide to pursue it further, I’ll definitely look at the resources provided here as well as enrolling in sequential courses at the local college.

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Awwww. We never got Autolycus’ links. :frowning: