Japanese language

[newbie72]

Hello all. I have had the greatest interest in Japanese culture, history, and anime for the longest time and am looking into learning the language sometime in my life. I am currently a third year college student and have already taken two semesters of Italian of which I barely passed with a C. I'm not the strongest in foreign language but I do have a passion to learn. Only things are my university doesn't offer Japanese courses nor do I wish to risk my GPA for it so I'm thinking about doing it in my own time after I graduate. I just wanted to ask you guys (especially native English speakers who have or are learning the language) what it's like, how hard it was/is for you, and if there are any good methods for learning the language, ex. Pimsleur. I'd appreciate any suggestions.

 

[tmonis]

Hello all. I have had the greatest interest in Japanese culture, history, and anime for the longest time and am looking into learning the language sometime in my life. I am currently a third year college student and have already taken two semesters of Italian of which I barely passed with a C. I'm not the strongest in foreign language but I do have a passion to learn. Only things are my university doesn't offer Japanese courses nor do I wish to risk my GPA for it so I'm thinking about doing it in my own time after I graduate. I just wanted to ask you guys (especially native English speakers who have or are learning the language) what it's like, how hard it was/is for you, and if there are any good methods for learning the language, ex. Pimsleur. I'd appreciate any suggestions.

Newby: There are some great resources you can draw from in learning to speak Japanese. I have two really good ones in mind. I used these in my effort to learn.
1. Go to your local Barnes and Nobles. They have a book called " Speak Japanese in 10 minutes aday." Great Book.
2. There is also a computer program my Wife bought me that is really good. It is called "101 Languages of the World." It has every language you can think of on it and you use it right through your computer.

Good Luck!

Prof. Todd:asian:

 

[stephen]

I've found Pimsluer to be the only way I have a remote chance of possibly learning the language. For someone like me who's had difficulty learning language in the "traditional" school setting, I found Pimsleur to be refreshing, useful, and easy.

/s

 

[Kane]

Hello all. I have had the greatest interest in Japanese culture, history, and anime for the longest time and am looking into learning the language sometime in my life. I am currently a third year college student and have already taken two semesters of Italian of which I barely passed with a C. I'm not the strongest in foreign language but I do have a passion to learn. Only things are my university doesn't offer Japanese courses nor do I wish to risk my GPA for it so I'm thinking about doing it in my own time after I graduate. I just wanted to ask you guys (especially native English speakers who have or are learning the language) what it's like, how hard it was/is for you, and if there are any good methods for learning the language, ex. Pimsleur. I'd appreciate any suggestions.

I actually took Japanese in High School so I might be able to give some insight.


Japanese can be a pretty tough language because not does it have a different letter system but it has 3 different writing systems (hiragana, katakana, and kanji) and each writhing system has about 70 letters. If you are ever going to take a Japanese language course the key is that you MUST memorize the letters as you learn them. One mistake I made was in the beginning of the course when I was learning the Japanese letters I procrastinated them for later and then I had to learn a huge bulk of letters to learn before tests. That is what will make the course the most difficult.

Japanese is not a very tough language once you get the new letters down. The Japanese spelling system is actually much better than the English spelling system because it doesn't have as many spelling acceptations.

 

[MisterMike]

Pimsleur levels I, II and III are what I am currently using. Well, I'm not into level III yet, but the lessons so far are pretty good. You can cruise right through them.

I believe they teach a "formal" way of speaking so you might come off sounding extremely polite to a Japanese person, which is a good thing I guess.

 

[Bob Hubbard]

Also, check in the Japanese Martial Arts - General section here. We've got a number of folks here who do speak and live in Japan, and I do recall some discussion in the past in there.

 

[davidg553]

In addition to what everyone else has said, you can search on Meetup.Com and look for a group near you to help you practice. Going through the books, tapes, cd's, etc is great but ultimately you need to get out there and talk to people in your new language