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| Iggy 5620th Post
 
Platinum Carpet V.I.P- Board Master
     
     
     
     
     
|  "Re(3):Japanese lessons" , posted Fri 28 Jan 19:28
quote:
Sounds fun, except for the abuse.
What do you mean ? Abusing people is the most fun I ever had in years attending to that university!
Oh, you mean "being abused".
Oh.
quote:
When I took Japanese one time, my sexy Japanese teacher said that if I learn Japanese from movies I might use outdated words like locomotive.
Not only your sexy Japanese teacher seemed to have an awful taste in movies, but that guy who abuses people at our office is actually quite sexy too, you know.
More seriously : as with all language, the best way to learn it is to go 2-3 years in a school to learn basic grammar and vocabulary, then to go to the country and live there for a few years (and by living there, I don't mean "stay in Tôkyô and only stay with fellow gaijin that go screw whores in Roppongi"). No university, even the best one, can teach you a living language.
On the other hand, there are freaks out there who can go to China without knowing a word, stay there 2 years, and come back completely fluent and able to write a 700 pages essay about whatever 11th century poet you ask them.
「とにかく、それは愛のムチよ。
愛しいXXX先生は君を愛弟子として愛するがゆえの厳しさよ」だって。
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| Lupin 2885th Post
Platinum Carpet V.I.P- Board Master
| "Re(3):Japanese lessons" , posted Fri 28 Jan 20:06
quote:
My Japanese is mostly self-taught, so I can't speak it hardly at all. Uhm...that is to say, I don't have much experience in speaking it. If you take basic Japanese in college, it'll give you a good foundation for sentence structure and basic writing if you don't already know that.
I have very lop-sided Japanese knowledge as I can't write any Kanji and can barely form sentences, though I can understand a lot and read a fair amount of Kanji.
My roomate is a (graduated) Japanese major and can't understand quite as much as me, so if you only take 2 years worth of courses (many of them probably literature) it's only the beginning of what you need to start learning. Fluent people I've talked to said that you need to either live in Japan for an extended period and/or study for about 7 years. There may be colleges that have better programs, but out of the ones I've seen, there aren't any that can get you to fluency unless you do a lot of work on the outside.
I took a little Japanese in college and I don't know basic structure. Well I sort of know what they taught except that I forgot most of it, and it wasn't enough anyway.
I actually felt like I knew Japanese better when I used to watch Japanese animation very very often, during that wonderful period when you don't have to have a job and you can scam your highschool into letting you only take 3 classes one year on account of you being so smart or something, plus one where you're a teacher's assistant, but then you talk him into letting you take the papers home to grade instead of doing them in class and getting stuck helping stupid underclassmen mix chemicals and operate gas burners, also you ask him at the begining of class if he needs anything today and if he hasn't thought of anything yet you leave before he does, and you can do that for several days ahead of time too.
Oh um, language.... Of cource then I could sort of understand it but not speak it.
Also I am reminded of my surfer friend took Spanish in school for 10 years starting in middle school, and he can only barely actually speak it though.
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| Bata kun 2479th Post
Platinum Carpet V.I.P- Board Master
| "Re(5):Japanese lessons" , posted Sat 29 Jan 01:39:
Before, I used to learn from anime. Now, I just try to pick up some words here and there. I'm able to read and write kana thanks to the two courses I took, but kanji's a different story. I'm real poor there and I can only work with a few of them.
Like what K.T. said who had a good way to get 500, don't rely heavily on anime and manga. My teacher told me this. So, I should know. Dramas, which she recommended too, are no problem, as I have some of those on television. (Honestly, I've enjoyed watching dramas on television more than watching subbed/raw anime on television [when they were still on television] in my place.)
However, I can't find a "Hiragana Times" anywhere, unless I have to go to San Francisco or Los Angeles. I know there are Japanese papers, but they have kanji and of all of the forms of written or typed works you deal with every single day, newspapers have the most kanji. Obviously, they can't help me.
So, until then, I have to heavily rely on furigana if I want to recognize kanji. If you're going for this method, I can't tell you every series that has furigana. I can tell you that some companies like Ribon have furigana.
Oh. Being in Japan doesn't hurt either. I probably won't be visiting there for another three years or so.
[this message was edited by Bata kun on Sat 29 Jan 01:39] |
| KTallguy 503th Post
New Red Carpet Member
| "Re(6):Japanese lessons" , posted Sat 29 Jan 10:40:
Haha, I didn't even notice my post count =) Woo hoo =)
Kanji is really the biggest hurdle of all, honestly. I haven't really gotten to the point where I can read fluently yet. However, putting effort into reading books (even textbooks) helps. There's a point in both speaking and writing, where once you've gotten there, with speaking you can start communicating a lot with Japanese and you'll drasticlly improve, or with writing you'll start reading a ton and improve a ton. The speaking point has been reached but the reading point is still a little far off for me =)
I think the three years of study I did in college is valuable... the foundation is very important, so if/when you come to Japan you can just hop right in. You can decipher and make sense of grammer quickly, rather than just route memorization of phrases, which really isn't practical in the long run.
I also second Pollyanna's post... subs in Anime are often not a very great translation, but they usually work with the film so the whole package flows better. I don't usually watch subtitled anime but when I do, I pick out (maybe intentional) mistakes a lot. It's kind of like how all of us have watched Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon with English subtitles, but we REALLY don't know what it means ... the Chinese language is too deep to express with so little English in certian parts of that film...
Edit: Spelling Pollyanna's name wrong...
"手前がやくぶそくなんだよ!"
[this message was edited by KTallguy on Sat 29 Jan 10:41] |
| Maou 473th Post
Gold Customer
| "Re(7):Sumimasen minna san hontou ni ware kaka" , posted Mon 31 Jan 06:11
quote:
Now that I've applied to the JET, it's given me something to be really excited about. And I think that's a great thing.
Awesome, and I've heard really good things from people who have been over. And it's true, that actually a good amount of people who go over there didn't even know Japanese before, as I recall, and they seem to have a blast. Good luck! I don't think that they'd totally disqualify those who were great or native speakers, but it's not necessary. So-called "otaku" (whatever non-Japanese mean when they use that word, usually less negatively than in Japanese?) might be avoided just because they think they know everything about Japanse language and culture, but likely know more dysfunctional than useful stuff and might not be very people-oriented.
...it's true though, capilary action is the best route of all, of course. That or merging with Iggy to become the Iggy Perfect Body. Then you only speak in 9th century koten Japanese and the language of love while trying to take over the world.
人間はいつも私を驚かせてくれる。不思議なものだな、人間という存在は．．．
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"Japanese lessons" , posted Fri 28 Jan 15:25:
