/jp/ - Otaku Culture

I feel the same way. Learning kanji in isolation isn't doing much good by itself. While I generally believe that the Heisig method of associating images with kanji by itself is very efficient, he should have laid out his lessons in a way that incorporates vocabulary from step one.

It's a timesaver actually, but it's far from perfect .

What's wrong with Heisig? I learned the Kana with his method, and I was going to do the same with Kanji.

>>14808137
I'd personally recommend the Japanese Kana Workbook Paperback by P. G. O'Neill for learning the Kana

Very straightforward, easy going, and reinforcing. You'll learn them quick so you can jump into Genki.

My copy is from the 60's though, might be a little different now. I bought a bunch of old Japanese workbooks that were for the US military from a bookstore specializing in old books. But it really helped and old books feel cool.

>>14808137
Learning kana can be done in a day or two at most. Learning kanji is a wholly different beast. You can use kana just the way we use roman letters, and they will appear EVERYWHERE, so even without a conscious effort to learn them, you will eventually remember them by heart.

Not so with kanji - with Heisig, you are learning certain "keywords" associated with kanji. However, those keywords often do not correspond to the actual meaning of the kanji when used in compound words, and is only of marginal use when the kanji appears alone. In the end, you can't read it, you can't understand what it means - those aren't the best preconditions to justify spending so much time on.

That's not saying you don't need to learn kanji, but you shouldn't try learning ONLY kanji. You should try to combine both vocabulary and kanji, regardless of what Heisig suggests in his book.

What's the best way of looking up a kanji? I've been using jisho and trying to match the radicals but sometimes they don't show up or I can't find the right one.

>>14807936
http://japaneseruleof7.com/sumo-learn-japanese/

>>14808321
WWWJDIC for Android allows you to draw that shit. It doesn't even care about stroke order. I'm not sure if it works for extremely complex kanji which you're probably talking about if you can't do it with radicals.

If you are patient this method will save you time in the long run. Learning the meanings of primitives and radicals means that any kanji you approach will be super easy to remember.

If you are just gonna read manga or watch anime it is useless as shit. If you plan to work aboard or read books and such, it is a major competent that is the single greatest thing to happen to learning Japanese since the internet.
>>14808298
There is a very easy way to counter what you are saying and most people on koohii recommend it this way too.

Just include the common word into the story. By doing this you learn its most common word with the keyword. Then all you need is pronunciation which you learn separately through core or something. Even better, I forgot which site but someone made an alternate list that only shows the 1600 or so most common kanji from heisigs.


If you want to become fluent in Japanese I don't know why you wouldn't use this or a similar method. It's relatively fast to learn all 2200 kanji in Vol.1 and it shaves 20% of the work of vocab of learning vocab later on.

>>14808511
Thanks, I'll have a look

kind of related
I remember there being an anki kanjidamage deck with a black background for the cards with onkomi/kunyomi/etc being highlighted with colours. I can't seem to find it anymore. This was a couple years ago

I tried to learn kana using this book, it took me a week and I got bored and gave up.

I wrote them all on flash cards and it took me 3 days.

>>14808814
Sorry to hear that you are mentally handicapped.

>>14808649
Good recommendation. One of these days I'm going to finish Heisig's book using it (currently stalled at ~1200 in favor of actually learning vocabulary)

>>14807936
how is knowing all yoyo kanji a troll? its an insane advantage to anyone starting to learn japanese. youre just mad it didnt magically teach you to speak japanese

The only problem I have with this book is that while I can do keyword>kanji really, I can't do kanji>keyword, which is annoying when trying to recognize unknown words in Japanese texts. Heisig says the skill comes by itself with time, but I'm not feeling it. I might be able to identify the parts that make up the kanji, but my mind doesn't want to make the connection to the keyword.

>>14808814
Flashcards are the way to go.
Even though the kanji flashcards make me want to kill myself. But thats mainly due to needing atleast 2000 of the fucking things. I hope China never makes any media worthwhile, I dont want to have to learn another bloated alphabet.

>>14808649
Real question from a beginner. Does Heisig method "made up" radical names like KanjiDamage or does Heisig uses the proper names when learning the radicals?

Because I've heard from a friend that is currently learning Heisig, there are radicals for human legs, animal legs, chain, rope, etc.

Are those proper radical names or Heisig just made it up? If he made the radical names up, how is that useful to you?
Again, real question, I'm not trolling.

>>14812110
Actual radical names are words in Japanese.
Heisig's names sometimes correspond somewhat in meaning to the Japanese one, and sometimes are just totally made up.

>>14813634
So Heisig's radical names are sometimes is a made-up names too. I see. Thanks for the answer.

Did you used Heisig when you first study? How effective was it to study Kanji by itself without the readings? Sounds pretty odd to me.

>>14807936
I used the Heisig method. I'm lazy and wanted to learn Kanji real quick but this wasn't the book that I need for learning.

But what the book did help me with is I can recognize Kanji easily and just lookup the words on a dictionary. And that's how I've been learning the vocabs. Now I'm at the point that I don't want to study anymore and just learn what I can pickup from VNs, games, etc.

>people struggling to memorize kanji
>i'm still struggling with hiragana

>>14807936
Worked just fine for me anon.
What the book does very well isn't teach you how to read Japanese. What it does is teach you how to read and memorize characters. It's no accident that chinese people who learn Japanese do it faster than white gaijins.

Learning words and characters at the same time is a recipe for disaster.

This worked for me.

>>14818010
>Learning words and characters at the same time is a recipe for disaster.
t. EOP

>>14818314
lel

>>14807936
>>14818010
>It's no accident that chinese people who learn Japanese do it faster than white gaijins.
>Learning words and characters at the same time is a recipe for disaster.

Sure, if you know chinese already, you'll have an easier time learning japanese. You've already learned the kanji, and not just memorized it. But if you're starting from scratch, trying to learning kanji first, or vocab first for that matter and then trying to learn the rest of the language is really inefficient.

You'll be spending lots of time and effort just trying to maintain what you've already memorized without really making any progress in the language. Most likely you'll hit a wall where you're forgetting as fast as you're memorizing, lose motivation from lack of progress and quit, or end up one of the people who spend hours every day grinding through anki decks.

You really should be practicing all aspects together. Kanji, vocab, listening, reading, writing and grammar all reinforce eachother and help you form the neural pathways that lead to true learning. This applies to learning languages, instruments, or just about anything. You start with the basics and work your way up, staying well-rounded, and maybe specialize only after reaching a certain level.

I played a game on Steam that teaches Hirigana through repetition it's a low quality RPG but it helps.

I feel like I should move to Kanji soon though.

You should really learn all the kunyomi. It is the Japanese part and the rest is just learning broken Chinese which you will eventually pick up while reading.

>>14818756
I hope you didn't pay for that because you could have literally grinded the kana for free

>>14808321
>>14808511
Jisho also allows you to draw.
Just git gud, if you can draw it you can count the number of strokes, and at least recognize one radical from it in a high-stroke kanji.

>>14818742
>You really should be practicing everything together

My learning situation was quite unique because I grinded through Heisig in a few months while immersed in Japanese (going to highschool)

Usually there wouldn't be a big time lag between encountering a new word, or a new kanji, and hearing/seeing the other side of the coin.

In the end it's a bit hard comparing different learning methods because what is trash for one man is a great solution for another. After all since you can only learn a language once the method you used to success will in your mind be the superior one.

Heisig has many drawbacks but I think it works well for many. Until I had the kanjis to anchor sounds to images I struggled to remember words.

Learned 3000 kanji with this method (plus Anki and other memory techniques). I don't see what's wrong, other than Heisig's presentation can be a bit misleading.

>>14821461
That is pretty good. If you truly know 3000 kanji that means you should be able to pass kanken pre-1.
http://kanken.jitenon.jp/mondai1z/

>>14820473
>immersed in Japanese
>Usually there wouldn't be a big time lag between encountering a new word, or a new kanji, and hearing/seeing the other side of the coin.

Well it seems like we're in agreement here. This is exactly the kind of learning method I wanted to recommend. I was not trying to criticize studying kanji, but disagreed with the comment that learning kanji and words at the same time is a recipe for disaster.

>>14808511
>>14808678
Jsho looks pretty nice actually, I am not sure how it compares to aedict3 for android?

Of course Aedict3 will cost you a little bit. It has a lot of featuress though, various lookup
methods such as drawing kanji, pasting text, text to speech, quizzes such as JLPT,
Heisig etc. It's really a shame that the guy hasn't put up an proper updated video of all the features.
It works and looks great on tablets, haven't used it much on my phone to be honest, so if
you have an android tablet, it might be worth the money.

There is also free version of the Aedict but it is older and not quite as powerful.

>>14818010

If you're Chinese you have a lot of loanwords (almost all compounds) and a ton of intuition of the characters. Heisig gives you a single corresponding English word and no intuition or loanwords.

I personally think it's useful if you want to write and pretty useless otherwise.

>>14823320
>loan words
They're not really loan words unless you happen to be Chinese and several hundred years old

>>14825138
A lot of the vocab has almost exactly same meanings except for nuances which can be fixed through lots of reading

>>14809090
>another bloated alphabet
You already know a third of the bloat (if you're literate in nihongo).

>>14825441
There was a time my friend bought a mall ninja katana, even though he wasn't ale to pay his rent to his aunt that he was living with. He called and put me on speakerphone because everyone missed me, and he asked me ot come up with a name for his katana.

I said "Isourou". He said "That sounds cool, thanks man, what does it mean?", "It means Freeloader." His aunt and brothers lost their shit and he called me a dick.

>>14825366
>A lot of the vocab has almost exactly same meanings
Lots of words have "the same meanings" as words in other languages, that doesn't make them loans. And including words that were borrowed into a language hundreds of years earlier "loans" is reductive to the point of irrelevance.

People radically overestimate the benefit that Chinese speakers have learning Japanese. It plateaus very quickly and has zero relevance on learning the spoken language; the benefit of knowing a grammatically similar language like Korean, even without knowledge of Chinese ideographs, is far greater in the long run. Chinese speakers who just learn to read Japanese grammatical markers are like /jp/sies who text hook and rikai everything and say they "know" Japanese.

>>14825623
Written Chinese hasn't changed much at all dude. They can read thousand year old texts without too much trouble. The Japanese loaned basically all the compound words from China.

>>14808298
>Learning kana can be done in a day or two at most.
What if I have terrible memory?

>>14826051
I have a terrible memory too and even I was able to learn 1/4 of them in a day.

I'd say two days is too little time, you should really plan to spend 4 or 5 days just memorizing them

>>14826051
So what, take a week, or two, or fuck it and take a month, it doesn't make a freaking difference compared to learning vocabulary, which will take you months before you understand even the most basic sentences, and years before you can consider yourself middle school level.

>>14826065
>>14826051
I tried memorizing the kanas for a really long time, until I simply sat down and wrote them over and over with a pen.
By doing that I were able to learn both katakana and hiragana in about a week each. I'd say, aim for 5 to 10 kanas a day.

These are also pretty useful:
https://www.uni-due.de/imperia/md/content/japan/hiragana_handbook.pdf
https://www.uni-due.de/imperia/md/content/japan/katakana_handbook.pdf

This shit right here...
Writing it over and over again is probably the best way plus reading. For noobs you could probably use shonen manga, because like fuck you are actually gonna use Japanese in real life

http://www.amazon.com/Japanese-Zero-Techniques-Students-Professionals/dp/0976998122?ie=UTF8&*Version*=1&*entries*=0

what about this book? cover looks weeb as fuck, hsa great reviews
anyone have experience with it (or a download link)

>>14807936
>>14807936
It's not a waste of time if you suck at remembering kanji like me. If just writing it over and over again works for you to keep it in your long term memory then that's fine but it doesn't for me. I've been grinding through this book and it has been hugely effective at storing kanji in my long term memory without much effort. Shit, before I would forget kanji like it was nothing if I hadn't seen it in a week since Kanji was just a bunch of strokes for me. Characterising the components of a kanji character and allowing association with other Kanji through their radicals helps, a lot.

But at the end of the day, this first book is specially for remembering how to recognise and write Kanji only. Don't get this if you are a weeb and want to start learning Japanese, buy this if can't remember kanji to save your life after reading other books that just lists out all the vocab and yomi. That would be nice in this book but I can just google that shit if I wanted it. The teaching method in this book is more valuable than the extra content I could get in many other places easily. I'm fucking happy that I can at least recognize kanji without much effort and though I don't know the rest related to each Kanji, it is still a step forward that I can build on.

>>14808188
If you need a book for kana you are fucking retarded. That shit takes literally an hour to learn. I don't need a 20 chapter book to learn the alphabet in English.

>>14828690
>tfw spent far longer than 1 hour and still can't easily distinguish between hirgana nu and me

No, but I've been considering going to it because I have been grinding vocab for 2 years every single day and I still cannot remember the fucking kanji and end up not being able to recognize the differences making me unable to read things I should be able to.

Could anyone tell me if くれちゃん or キュアちゃん translates to "Cure-Chan"?

>>14829333
Doubt you're still here.
Cure-chan as in Ebola-chan's enemy?
キュアちゃん fits the english pronounciation of Cure, like "Kyo-Ah" while the other sounds like "Kue-Reh" which doesn't make sense.

>>14830618
Why can't Japanese simply write 外来語 with Roman letters instead with katakana? I'm sick of shit like ビール and ビル.

>>14830638
Because Romaji suck and having four different scripts would be a little overkill.

>>14830878
You don't see weeaboos write kawaii and moe in romaji, so why shouldn't Japs write loanwords in rom-- oh, wait.

>>14830638
because japanese isn't made for you, you piece of shit

>>14807936
Nah, you wanna talk about crap books, you need not look beyond "Japanese from Zero" what a sloppy pile of shit those books are.

>>14830969
whats wrong with those books? i was looking into them and they seem to have good reviews

>>14831369
You really wanna know? Because ignore those reviews, they are the fanboys/girls and the authors bot accounts. If he told them "Neko means Bread" they'd all nod, agree and flame anything that disagreed.

It is full of spelling mistakes, both in English and Japanese. Not just simple mistakes, but outright wrong words in so many places I lost count.

Incorrect translations for the grammar.

Useless information right off the bat and things you should be learning are withheld until later books.

Seriously.

The most basic of things are dragged out over and over, forcing the first book to be about equal to the first three chapters of Genki.

By the end of the whole series you'll have learned less than genki 1.

If you learn anything at all that is, since you are treated like a complete idiot and then expected to fill in the blanks of where the author has leapt to a topic they've never explained and never do explain ever.

They are sloppy, poorly written, and useless for someone who wants to learn Japanese beyond:

"This is a cup."

"This white cup is mine."

The speech is also pretty childish and outdated in places.

I could go on for at least another hour about this, but I'll save you the time and money- just go to the yesjapan site, make a fake account up and you can see the whole first book for free. You'll wonder how you completed the whole book in less than a day.

Whats the best way to go through Genki? Should I be labouring over each page trying to absorb and commit all the dialogue to memory?

>>14832616
Listen to vocab while learning it. Listen to dialogue a few times, go through grammar, go back to vocab you didn't learn. Try to use Anki or Memrise for vocab review. Rinse and repeat for each chapter. Also don't forget the stuff at the back of the book- kinda important to learn the Kanji.

>>14830618
Thanks so much anon, I appreciate it a ton!

>>14831369
Might I also add my own ramble?
A friend of mine bought all the JFZ books and hated them, so since he knew I was learning Japanese he give them to me.
I was learning from Genki, so I just put them on my shelf. After studying Genki 1 and 2 and some of Japanese for busy people, I thought I'd give JFZ a look. Complete and utter waste of time. Like the other guy said, it is like someone got the first book in a series for beginners and tried to stretch it out into as many books as possible. But failed and patched up the rips with copy paste from random books.

>>14818307
I'm pretty sure this is what my university used after Genki I and II. From thumbing through one of the volumes quickly it seemed like a decent book.

I'll have to try it.

>>14833013
>>14832580
holy shit. i had no idea those books were so bad
just picked up genki I. hoping i can get somewhere with that

anyone with schizophrenia trying to learn japanese? i cant motivate myself enough to do it i dont know if my study method is the culprit but i write the same kanji over and over again like 20 times and repeat the meaning while writing it

is that efficient? whats a better way to do it?

>>14839552
me too. yes this is what i ddid your study if fast ?

>>14839619
nah man, i get bored pretty easily and give up in an instant

People say Kanji is the worst but once you've learnt kanji, you'll be able to guess the meanings of words you've never seen based on the meanings of each separate kanji even if you don't know exactly how to pronounce the word.
Katakana, on the other hand, is easy as fuck to learn, but reading them is hard because you need to transpose into another language (which can be either English, German, French, or any latin language) and it requires mental gymnastics to guess correctly.

For example, ラバー is a pretty frequent word, and it's quite difficult of the average non-Asian to guess that it's the kana transposition for "rubber" because anyone who knows English sufficiently cannot make instantly the phonetic transposition between "rubber" and "rabaa" (let's be honest, the vowels are totally not the same), and even Japanese can stumble on loan words.

Source: a gaijin currently living in Japan

>>14840180
>People say Kanji is the worst but once you've learnt kanji, you'll be able to guess the meanings of words you've never seen based on the meanings of each separate kanji even if you don't know exactly how to pronounce the word.
These are the words of someone who has only ever studied kanji in his life.

>>14839552
Please don't associate your lazy ass with people with actual problems.

>>14840238
No, these are the words of someone who's actually taking too much time learning Japanese because of laziness and who started with Hiragana and Katakana and who didn't bother with kanji for the first two years. I currently know between 200 and 300 kanji only.

Kanji are extremely efficient because more than sounds, they are symbols that evoke an idea. The average brain does what Japanese call 「見てわかる」 when it comes to symbols. If you know the kanji and the meaning, seeing it will automatically have the meaning pop in your head, even before you remember the pronounciation. This is contrary to Hiragana and Katakana which require to read several characters, do the addition and (for Katakana) do the language transposition before understanding the word.

Which is why reading 男　and reading おとこ triggers different brain mechanisms despite being the same word.

Of course, you HAVE to learn kanas before Kanji (unless you're a chink) but after a while, you'll see that Kanji are, despite being much more numerous, much more effective to read and understand.

かれはわからないおとこのひとですから、しんじていません。
彼は分らない男の人ですから、信じていません。
Both sentences are the exact same, but kanji make nice "reading landmarks" that allow the brain to read much more efficiently and prevent character overload.

>>14840278
You fucking retard i actually have schizophrenia and was asking if anyone with the same problem as me have some difficulties because of the low concentration symptoms of schizophrenia

>>14839552
Get the Anki software, get a KanjiDamage deck, and learn the essentials kanji with it. After a while, start reading the Tae Kim grammar book, and reread the essential section until it feels natural. When you're done with learning new cards with the kanjidammage deck, start learning some basic vocab (Core 2k/6k is a pretty good deck) and start reading manga that has furigana (hiragana on the side of kanjis, Yotsuba is an excellent first choice) and help yourself with a dictionnary.

Kanji is best learned by recognizing and writing words they appear in. By learning the words you learn the uses/meaning of the kanji. This is how Japanese use and remember them.

Hey, guys. I've been trying for a while to figure out how to say a simple sentence, and checking online gives me more than 1 answer.
I'm doing a script where people talk in Japanese to avoid being overheard by strangers, and I wanted one character to say "Isn't it obvious?" But I found more than a way to say it, and I'm not sure what's the right one.
I understand Japanese enough to get this on my own, but I'm not sure about this one and I want to get it right. Can you guys help me?

>>14840971
What's a good kanjidamage deck?

does /jp/ recommend i learn Japanese to play uncensored fire emblem? or will there be a modified version with English text?

i dont want to buy a Japanese 3ds and game, as well as the hoops of buying the dlc from Japanese Nintendo store (i assume those are region locked too)

>>14841870
if you learn japanese you open up a ton of srpgs that will never be translated that you might like even more than FE anyway

How many kanji does the average japanese adult even know?

>>14841985
i know thats an option, but the only rpg ive played was FF III, itd be shitty to learn a language to play games and don tlike any of them. muh /g/entooman ass cant get over the censorship thing, even if some people say its minute at most

>>14841870
>i learn Japanese to play
Yes, I learned Japanese just for two MMOs and I have no regret.

how do I type japanese characters? Switching the language settings in windows doesn't do anything. Do I have to buy a specialized keyboard?

>>14846274
You need to add a jp keyboard as well, along with the language pack, and then you can use your regular kb to type in moon.

>>14846302
Couldn't you just have two keyboards plugged in at the same time?

>>14846341
I'ts pointless. The computer takes whatever input you send, so it doesn't make a difference if you have two keyboards plugged, but what language is set as default for them, and whichever it is, they'll share it.
You need to install both language pack and keyboard pack in your computer before being able to type moon.
Remember that installing a language pack is not the same as installing a keyboard language.
There are plenty of tutorials to do this without using external sofware.

>>14841870
Learning Japanese opens up a vast array of media to sate your palate. You can go from super simple shounen manga through LNs of any kind to recognized literature or Newspapers, essays, technical papers.

Also, video games, tv series, anime, the Japanese side of the internet.

I sure didn't regret it.

>>14846274
look up Microsoft IME, you don't need a special keyboard

worked pretty well for me

WaniKani has been the best way of learning Kanji for me. I haven't really done anything with this information, though. I've memorized around 500 Kanji at this point and all their most relevant (according to WK) readings. I did study grammar during the first month, but I absolutely hate Hiragana words. I figured I'd just put it on hold until I recognize most Kanji in textbooks.

>>14828702
>ぬ and め
i'm assuming you haven't learned katakana
nu and me are easy to differentiate between

>>14809090
I made Anki decks out of Wanikani's 6,000 vocab words. I tried the WK site, but I hated that it made you learn the "most common" reading in isolation. Learning kanji as part of vocabulary will let you automatically infer the most common readings. Plus, it's way more convenient to use Anki on desktop/phone.

get a japanese penpal from some shithole backwater town to teach you

it worked for my friend, now he's going to visit them this summer

>>14840314
>kanji make nice "reading landmarks"
I actually find the kana make nice landmarks compared to reading Chinese text. The additional overhead of learning two syllabaries was worth it because I can understand the structure of sentences even if I don't know all the kanji, where with Chinese you are fucked.

>>14850785
I'm pretty sure Chinese has certain characters that act as "reading landmarks" and point out some grammatical point.

>>14851841
的， 為， 給， 而， 要， 想， 就，才， etc

>>14851841
It does, but Japanese has a lot more, and the kana endings to kanji-based words also make it really easy to see where word divisions are. Sometimes you can look at a sentence in Chinese and not know if three characters are representing a single word or two words like "AB C" or "A BC". God forbid someone uses a person's name in a sentence.

Truly a beautiful language.

I don't understand why you would want to memorize runes out of context. you aren't learning how to read, you aren't learning how to speak so what's the point? just learn grammar and start reading simple things with a dictionary like how you would learn any other language.

I'm not even trying to learn moonlanguage because I'm lazy and don't want to put in the effort, but just from skipping through nukige I know that 尻 means ass and 乳 means tits and is pronounced "chichi" except for when it's "nyu." just repeat that a thousand times and you'll have learned everything.

>>14855172
"Hey, Gaijin-san, your Japanese is really impressive! How did you study?"
"I played a lot of nukige. All of them, in fact."

>>14825623
I didn't say they were loan words. And it doesn't plateau. Most business related words have the same meaning and knowing the meaning of kanji will help form a connection no matter what the word is.

>>14855172
Recognizing the characters and their parts allows you to pick up words more quickly when you do start actually learning them.

>>14855172
If you had learned the characters you'd know that 乳 is read as ち when you are talking about breasts and ニュウ when about milk

>>14855172
You need to do both.

>>14855564
doing it out of order like that is stupid though. just learn them as you go and you'll quickly pick up common words. you can use flashcards to reinforce less common words if you want.

>>14855675
why is 巨乳 kyonyuu then?

There are many inconsistencies in this thread.

So, let's get down to the actually important question:
What parts of Japanese are ACTUALLY worth learning?
As in, just stuff to get by on a day-to-day basis.

What is a good book to learn about the structure and syntax up to meaning and pronunciation?
Something that can go from knowing absolutely buttfuck nothing to becoming competent enough to be able to spend a week going about interacting with other people in Japan all day preferably.
Is that Genki one good enough for that? I seen a few people mention that was good.
I'd probably read that Heisig one as well, I like reading things and seeing a topic from different angles anyway.

Better yet if there are any books or guides on learning from a childs level straight to last day at school.
I'd find that easier and more beneficial than learning to convert to Japanese from English since you gain none of the benefits and all of the complexity that makes language translator tools shit, but just slightly better because we can understand abstractions better. (for now)

The flashcards thing would probably work well with me.
I've made like 7 different glyph character sets for encoded languages since I was a 13 just for fun and basically remember all of them.

Idiots, all of you. How could anyone think Heisig is a good idea?
I'll upload boosted KanjiDamage deck today/tomorrow.

>>14855948
>doing it out of order like that is stupid though.
It's based on the idea that learning words based on their parts is helpful in remembering kanji. At least one component is usually connected to the whole kanji in meaning. (Unfortunately the reading half is usually a Chinese reading so old nobody cares anymore).

I actually have never read Heisig, but learning the radicals thoroughly was a big help in learning the kanji faster.

>>14855172
>>14855948
You learn much faster by building up on current knowledge than grinding random shit. Radical order is far superior to jouyou. However order is the only good thing about RTK so in the end it isn't a good resource.

I've got a copy of Genki (1?).

Is Genki good? It's the textbook they use at my local uni.

>>14856527
im using genki now. though ive only read a tiny bit of it so i cant say if its good or not

ive seen it recommended here though so it cant be too bad.

>>14856118
>What parts of Japanese are ACTUALLY worth learning?
Everything besides classical shit which would still be useful for countless references. Writing isn't really necessary but at some point you will want to learn it as well.

>What is a good book to learn about the structure and syntax up to meaning and pronunciation?
There's none. Use Tae Kim's Grammar Guide as base (not the other one) and DoJG for details. Japanese the Manga Way is good for learning grammar bit by bit without getting bored to death. There is no book good for learning kanji or vocab which are the most time consuming parts.

>Is that Genki one good enough for that?
No. It's shit but admittedly less shit than most of stuff.

>I seen a few people mention that was good.
saw/have seen*
They're retards who think any progress = automatically great or used it in uni at snail pace and now feel the need to defend it.

>I'd probably read that Heisig one as well, I like reading things and seeing a topic from different angles anyway.
If you read several of his essays and think they can work, go ahead. It's still better than many language courses. However I dropped it hard after a single "mnemonic". The book is almost literally written for retards.

>Better yet if there are any books or guides on learning from a childs level straight to last day at school.
The guide (CoR).

>>14856579
Ah, I just missed your reply, had to go do something.

I will get to it right away.


Also, for anyone that knows it fairly well, how strictly do people stick to the sentence order in Japanese?

I was reading some basics on that and sentence structure, like verbs being last, topics and subjects of sentence.
Do most people adhere to it?
I know that English barely sticks to it for most speakers that bastardize the language, myself included.

>Heisig

I'm actually going to take a break from new vocabulary after Core 6k (around 700 cards left; should finish three weeks from now) to focus on kanji writing practice. I find that I'm memorizing the shapes of words, which means that I often fail to recognize kanji that should be familiar. I also mix up similar kanji.

I actually started doing them alongside each other (got about 300 cards into the NihongoShark deck), but it that was WAY too much fucking time in anki every day.

I'm not sure if I'd recommend getting 常用 out of the way before Core or not. On the one hand, it would make your road easier. On the other hand, it means delaying accumulation of raw vocabulary, which will make reading much easier and more enjoyable, and will in turn motivate you to push onward.

>>14858436
>>14858721
Here's the KanjiDamage Plus+ deck.
https://mega.nz/#!CQg0SKyI!Ufho0RKmmW8P6XRx8KiDY1JeAXoGOgmjrEscayil8cA

I'm not the original author, he was lost somewhere in the Internet. The deck was created to solve some of the problems with KanjiDamage - namely the often criticized style of mnemonics. They're still there but often toned down or changed to something more logical/less crude. Some mistakes are fixed. Furthermore, the kanji base got significantly expanded, now the deck has 2136 cards (that should be ~1900 kanji, rest are radicals). I'm not sure which revision it is but there were at least two or three of themplus I improved this deck further. It should be better than anything normally available.


I also made a deck out of jukugo listed on KanjiDamage site so that you can learn words that are using kanji which appear in KD's order, making the process much easier. However creating the cards is annoying so I stopped a bit before reaching 1000 mark and switched to mined decks at that time. It should work as a good base nonetheless, especially for someone who is close to starting. I'm not sure if this deck will be of much help to someone who finished core6k.
https://mega.nz/#!GRwTzQST!xI3FxR8kRFpdbdWl47X2Jf1o1w-irsUCHNuIP4BCKhw

What alphabet are video games generally written in?

>>14859447
Kiddy stuff and very old games in kana because resolution was too low for kanji. Everything else with varying mixes.

>>14859489
What about Omega Quintet?

>>14859492
waa ai/kmTp
Was it really that hard?

>>14859507
I still don't know which characters are which, I haven't started learning and I want to start with the right alphabet. Can you just tell me?

>>14859517
Sure. https://waa ai/kmTY

>>14859528
You could just tell me which one is used in the game.

>>14859530
Or you could use your brain and think about why I'm not doing that.

>>14859537
Wait, you have to learn all of them, don't you?

>>14859543
Exactly. You have no business thinking about learning resources if you don't know both hiragana and katakana. Start with http://realkana.com/
You should be done in 2-7 days. After that there are several paths you can take. Kanji, vocab or mix.

>>14859554
Thank you. Shouldn't I learn basic vocabulary first, though?

>>14859572
Nope, you have to learn the "letters" first.
You most likely have some base from watching anime already. A lot of stuff, especially for teenagers, uses furigana which lets you read kanji you don't know.

Most popular method of learning words is with help of core deck (check out DJT on /a/). Other option is starting with kanji >>14859261
First method gives you more usable knowledge at early months but latter makes learning kanji easier and once you know the kanji, learning vocab also becomes easier. In the end, both methods lead to similar results.

Important thing is supporting your studies with grammar - either Tae Kim's Grammar Guide or Japanese The Manga Way. First one is more concise while latter is easier to read. I would recommend starting with TK. You can of course read both as no source is perfect. In the future you'll switch to DoJG but that will take some time.

In short
1) learn kana
2) learn everything else
a) once you know a bit of grammar, start reading easy stuff like Yotsuba. /a/ threads comes in handy again.

>>14859609
This RealKana site is great. My frustration fuels me to do better. I've already mostly gotten the "a" and "ka" sets down and I'm grinding them right now. Thanks for your help.

>>14859672
lol'd.

What are some good mangas a beginner could read (preferably with furigana)? Aside from Yotsubato, of course.

>>14860005
Anything shounen/shoujo. Prepare for shitload of new words.

>>14859609
As it turns out, the game is in Katakana. Is it safe to just learn that and not Hirogana for now?

>>14861462
No.

>>14861468
I don't know, it seems like if I don't have to read any Hirogana for quite some time, that I could learn it after I learn vocabulary.

>>14861472
You can stop now, seriously.

>>14861478
I just want an explanation.

>>14861487
You already got it. I'm afraid I won't be able to help you anymore because you're too dumb.

>>14861491
I know that you have to learn the alphabet first, I just don't see why I need to learn both Hirogana and Katakana when I only need one right now.

>>14861491
I'll learn both if I have to, and I know I'll need both eventually, but why do I need to now?

>>14861491
In that case, I'll just trust you and learn both. Don't worry, I've been saging the whole time.

>>14861510
im new as fuck but i know hiragana is used for kanji. i think the case is the same for katakana too

all i know is to have any hope of reading anything you need to know both

>>14861597
The japanese seller said it was in Katakana...whatever, I'm already almost done with Hirogana. Thanks!

>>14861510
Christ, stop crying about it already. Why do you need people to hold your hand through this process? You've already been given advice but all you do is argue on why you shouldn't follow it. If you don't want to learn Hiragana now, then don't. If you don't want to learn it at all, then DON'T. It's your problem, not anyone else's. We're only here to offer guidance, not spoonfeed you.

>>14861828
What do you mean, stop crying? All I did was ask a simple question out of curiosity. At least have the decency to sage when you post stupid bullshit, like I do.

>>14861837
>All I did was ask a simple question out of curiosity

Actually you asked if it was a smart idea to not worry about Hiragana for the time being. You got a response. And then proceeded to debate it rather than just moving on. No one cares in what order you learn the language in, that's your issue, and no one is going to give you an "explanation" (aka a validation) for why you shouldn't learn a required part of the language. Tailor it to suit your needs. Simple as that.

By the way, sage just for your candyass.

>>14861878
Yeah, my question was a simple one about why that order was preferable. I didn't get a response to that particular question until you answered it just now. Sage is so I don't piss people off because they think actual important things are going on in a recently bumped thread, but get bullshit like what the two of us have been posting instead. Basically, you're bumping a thread that hadn't been bumped in an hour and a half with stupid obnoxious shit and expecting a reply, which for some reason I gave you.

>>14861510
Honestly I'd really try to learn both. If you already know all your Katakana, you shouldn't have too much of a problem with most hiragana. A great deal of them look like less stylized versions of their katakana counterparts, such as hiragana き remembling katakana キ.

Of course, some katakana bear little to no resemblance to their hiragana counterparts, but you at least have a decent starting point if you've learned all of one set and want to learn the other as well.

>>14861927
I was using realkana as the first guy recommended, and I was mostly finished with Hirogana, I was mostly just asking because the accented ones are hard to remember and I was hopeful I could procrastinate on that, but what you said sounds more legitimate than my bizarre thought patterns. Thanks for the help, I think I'll go to bed now.

>>14861950
Here's a rundown of accents:
>a (あ) series- none
>ka (か) series- accent means ga (が)
>sa series (さ)- za with accent (ざ)
>ta series (た)- da with accent (だ)
>na series (な)- none
>ha series (は)- ba with accent (ば), pa with little circle (ぱ)
>ma series (ま)- none
>ya/yu/yo (や/ゆ/よ)- none
>ra series (ら)- none
>wa/wo/n (わ/を/ん)- none

>>14807936
It totally got me. But I stopped after a month or so anyway and just read/listen to Japanese media.

>>14825998
No they fucking can't.
Modern Mandarin Chinese is not at all like Chinese a few hundred years ago. Where the fuck do you people come from with such confidence without knowledge?

>>14830638
Why don't we use the thousands of common English words using the original script it came from?
ビール is as Japanese as 正月。

>>14839552
The Daily Japanese Thread on /a/ has an all in one user package for people who have no idea. It has all the resources you'll need with a step by step guide, in a zipped folder. Check out the desustorage archive.

>>14830638
>>14862674
I think names could be written in alphabets instead. It servers no one to force a foreign name into kana or worse into kanji.

>>14830638
>>14862674
I think names could be written in alphabets instead. It serves no one to force a foreign name into kana or worse into kanji.

>>14862707
Or you could not try to dictate what people want to do in a culture that you aren't a part of!

>>14807936
>>14862092
It's not a troll. You're supposed to do it with Anki or some other SRS. After doing this whole book, I am able to remember readings and vocab as well as recognize kanji MUCH easier after doing Heisig.

I have been learning nip for about a month and a half and have been enjoying it so far, but what struck me as strange is that I don't see any guide mentioning how names actually work.
Like, how they're read, how they're written, if there is a specific set of Kanji used, why there are different readings and stuff like that, something like that would be useful but no learning resource from the DJT has anything to tell me about this topic, or if there is I'm too blind to spot it.
Can anyone give me a short gist of it and maybe point me to something I can look up?

I'm currently using an android app called "human japanese" to learn grammar, it cost me $10 but I'm enjoying it. anyone else have experience with this system? if so, how does it compare to the other methods mentioned (Tae Kim/Japanese The Mange Way)?

>>14862915
Read a lot and with time you'll start to recognize them. That's it, really.

>>14862707
I imagine most elevens aren't as comfortable with the latin alphabet as they are with kana.

>>14839552
I do hear voices, but i think it's some sort of CIA experiment.. and I'm not even kidding. It's called schizophrenia either way.
The periods I lacked motivation I would just draw over and over kanjis on Skritter. After I passed N5 I started feeling better so I dropped japanese and just continued university, but it was slowly working.

>>14862718
>>>/tumblr/

>>14863665
> After I passed N5 I started feeling better
I have some bad news for you. N5 is so easy that Japanese people will spit in your face and laugh at you when you tell them about your ``proficiency''.

>>14864057
>N5
whats n5?

i knwo i can google b-but i miss talking to you guys

>>14864121
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=JLPT+levels

Here you go, friend.

>>14864153
>want to talk to bros
>direct me to machine

do you work in customer service?

>>14807936
To each their own. I enjoyed RTK+Koohii even as a learning experience and making up stories that sometimes dig into the background of what kanji are made of and where they come from.

>>14864162
I talked to you; you talked to me. It was a perfect and harmonic conversation.

wish I had a real study plan. I'm not lazy but I am unmotivated. I need in depth guide with strong instruction

>>14859261
I was trying to find that deck, thanks!

シ
ツ

Who the hell thought this was a good idea.

>>14864870
ガソリン

>>14864870
Probably the same prick that made b, d, p, q, 6 and 9.

>>14865121
Don't forget s, z, and 5 or 1, 7, I, and L

Probably the most irritating part of learning a new language for me. Why the fuck couldn't these people make some other random combination of shapes and lines instead of just reusing ones they already had but slightly different? Bastards.

>>14865149
God knows.

Worst is when websites use fonts that have such a stupidly similar look with these letters.
Those fonts should be BANNED.

Worse yet is when text editors have them enabled by default. Even MORE annoying when it is a code editor!

I've made well over 100 random characters before when making up encoding languages that never shared any similar shapes.
Damn stupid glyph creators.

>>14864881
the text versions are so much worse than writing it by hand.

>>14863665
i feel you bro im currently studying for n3 at my local kumon classroom here in shizuoka, japan

i recommend you go to a doctor if you keep having auditory hallucinations cuz thats not normal at all, keep going in your studies and youll get somewhere somehow

ganbattene :P

>>14864556
you should go to a classroom, i feel like it has a kinda magic effect when learning new things.

things just stick into your mind and never leave that kinda stuff

>>14867728
>guy lives in japan
whats it like? is the work life there as shit as everyone says?

There is also a general languages torrent on /t/ if anyone is interested.

Has Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Russian and a bunch of other languages. Also some niche and dying languages.


>>>/t/585088

Let's see if they fixed the auto-linking code as well:
>>>/t/585088
The auto-link code was/has been broken ever since it was added, never did check if it got fixed.

Odd request coming up, but bear with me here.

By chance does anyone know of a website (or just have a text file handy) that has just a massive amount (the more the better) of Japanese words followed by the translation(s)? the catch is it has to be in this format or close to it:

Japanese word - Translation 1, t2, t3, t4
Japanese word - Translation 1, t2
Japanese word - Translation 1, t2, t3
etc.

Could also be
Japanese word
Translation 1, translation2, t3
Japanese word
Translation 1,
etc.

Setting up a smartwatch app for vocab practice on the go, but I really need to get a massive amount of words to work with and translating one by one is not very efficient. Using my massive brick of a phone is just not feasible at all times, so this will help me immensely since I'm on the go a lot.

>>14871896
this is a horrible way to learn japanese

>>14871919
I already know Japanese, minus stumbling at vocabulary occasionally. just trust me on this, I know how I learn stuff, it just may not work for others

>>14871919
>Learning more words is horrible

>>14868600
Im a neet so i dont know but i guess in the next years ill know and shitpost about it

>>14871896
edict? It's what 99% English onlice dictionaries use

>>14871919
Why? if you didn't know what a character/set of characters was before but now you know, how is it bad?

Enlighten me because I've mainly been learning words during my off time just by looking up translations and committing the words to memory

>>14807936

you FUCKING retard

can you tell me why the FUCK would you want to learn Japanese?

If you want to be successful and happy in Japan

LEARN ENGLISH

NOT. JAPANESE.

Just look at this video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7vEwVNDHZQ

this guy, a fucking LEGEND of youtubers in Japan (not a JVlogger) tells it like it fucking is

everyone will treat you as an F.OB (fresh of the boat) even if you been living in Japan for 16 FUCKING years and your Japanese is in the top 1 percentile of foreingers

just unbelievable

but hey look how that gaijin hunter loser Grandpa got blown the fuck out at least

Ryan rules!

>>14874746
You seem to have some serious issues.

>>14874767
no, YOU've got some serious issues if you think learning Japanese is a good idea

WEABOO LOSERS

TASTE THE DICK, SON

>>14874746
LMAO that Ryan Boundless guy literally fucked that Japanese cunt over so hard. Those Japs are so fucking racist against white people in their country...treating them as second class citizens n shit.

>>14874746
>Just look at this video
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7vEwVNDHZQ

grandpa status=rekt[x]

bet he saw americans drop the a-bomb on hiroshima as a kid, now Lyan dropped another a-bomb right on his elderly ass!

>>14875093
>>14875118
>>14875439
You do understand we can see that you're the same guy posting all these, right?

>>14875447
>everyone who isn't a weaboo who sucks Japan dick 24/7 is the same guy

Some guy posts a video about the cold harsh reality of the treatment you get in Japan and all you weaboo trash can respond with is this? Shaking my head.

>>14875778
Anon please the IP counter didn't change and the chances of someone who had already posted unleashing their inner autism is low.

You're also (nearly) the only guy abusing quotes.

>>14875800
>Anon please the IP counter didn't change

>>14875808
Yeah, on >>14875778 it did but on the others it didn't.

I'm sorry your visa got denied Muhammad, better ahhlack akbar next time ;)

なぜだろうか、ZMAPちゃんとキュアーちゃんが可愛いのは

Does anyone know what the hell this means? I can kinda get "Zmapp-Chan" and "Cure-Chan" out of it, but I know jackshit other then that.

>>14875825
Russian weaboo how pathetic.

>>14874746
I really don't understand the harm in chatting to some guy for a few minutes because he wants to practice his English in a country where less than 1% of the population knows the language.

According to this guy he only gets approached a couple of times a week by someone trying to speak English to him, so it's not quite the same as his analogy of everyone in America trying to talk to you in Japanese.

I don't understand how this is racism. No shit, you're being singled out, but it's for a fucking desirable trait. How anti-social have you got to be to get angry about people wanting to talk to you?

>>14876166
>I really don't understand the harm in chatting to some guy for a few minutes because he wants to practice his English in a country where less than 1% of the population knows the language.

Imagine you're an English teacher in Japan who been living there for 16 years and speaks near-native Japanese language himself yet everyone always talks to him in English as if he was fresh of the boat tourist.

It's fucking disgusting.

>>14876269
So imagine I'm an English native in a country where there are almost no English natives, and a large number of people who want to practice their English skills.

The real issue is with his mindset. You're always going to be the outsider in a country that homogeneous, nobody is going to be welcoming you into the fucking celebrations just like a native American, or an Indian, or an African wouldn't.

His Japanese isn't anything fantastic, and he has a very blatant "I'm a tourist who studied for all of 6 months" accent, not even close to what you'd expect from someone who had lived somewhere for 16 years.

The reason he hates his life is because he has a terrible job and the crushing reality of being 40 years old with no friends because you can't handle people asking about your native country is finally getting to him.

>>14876312
>His Japanese isn't anything fantastic, and he has a very blatant "I'm a tourist who studied for all of 6 months" accent, not even close to what you'd expect from someone who had lived somewhere for 16 years.

t. a Weaboo who been learning Japanese for 6 months, judging a professional English-Japanese teacher

>>14876322
>professional English-Japanese teacher
This basically means nothing. Teaching English in Japan is a glorified babysitting job. If you're going to complain about something, that's where you should start, not people being curious about your life like every other human being anywhere ever.

>>14875992
Just fucking google it, lazy fuckers.

>>14877317
Google Translate sucks though.

>>14876269
Why do you care

Why would anyone care

I earn like 3x the average Japanese person, why should I give a shit what their preconception of my language level is? They're not even on my radar

>>14876269
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TofNjIjt0TQ
not a lot of people will talk you back in english if you are a gaijin in japan as demonstrated in this video

>>14875992
its something like, why could it be that zmap chan and cure chan are so cute

I have a really old copy of the Hepburn translation book from my grandfather. Says this edition was published in the 30s.

I gotta say, for a doctor who did all this shit purely from experience, it's amazing how much he standardized japanese to english translation.

>>14877732
Doctors are good at carefully compiling all of their data.

>>14877417
>I earn like 3x the average Japanese person,
Sure you do, English teaching loser.

>in b4 this guy does the "I am an elite computer programmer in Japan" meme again

The only thing you "programm" is all the hentai to run successfully on your Eng PC with Applocale LOL

>>14874746
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7vEwVNDHZQ

The best laugh I had all week long. Fucking cheap-ass grandpa wanting just free English lessons / speaking practice.

He should at least donate to Lion's PATREON.

>>14877974
I don't teach English

>>14878136
So what do you do then? PRofessional gigoglo?

Considering my family has government connections, if I learn to speak the language well enough I can probably get an interpreter job at the US embassy.

>>14876166
Yeah, agreed. The older Japanese guy seemed friendly enough, the fact he said he messes with HAM radio shows he's interested in meeting people from different parts of the world.

>>14876312
>nobody is going to be welcoming you into the fucking celebrations just like a native American

It depends on what part of America you're in. Some regions are very much into the whole "be a good neighbor" hospitality attitude. It's why it's hard to judge America as one culture or population because it isn't, it's an amalgam of many different peoples and cultures living side by side instead of assimilating.

>Learn Hiragana
>"man that shit was pretty easy..I thought
it'd be far more complicated. Well, time to
tackle Kata, I'm sure it's just as eas.."
>シツケクウタヌ

SEND
HELP

>>14881402
You're not even at the fun part yet.

>>14881402
it's easy just practice.

If you read a lot of manga, translate the sound effects, they're almost always in katakana.

>>14881413
How many of these are actually in use?

>>14881402
Come on, it's not that bad.

>>14881430

>>14881413

And people bitch about they're/their/there. This shit is mind-boggling.

>>14881402
>Learn both
>"hell yes, time to read!"
>..........
>What the fuck am I even reading??

Having no vocabulary is killing me here, even when I can read all the runes.

>>14877659
Thanks a ton anon.

>>14881591
>know a lot of vocab
>zero fucking grammar aside from skimming through tae kim

just fuck me up

>>14881663
How do I learn a lot of vocab?
How did you?

>>14881678
Be a Memrise/Anki fag or whatever SRS app. Also don't forget them.

Name 1 good reason to learn Japanese (if you want to live in Japan).

JUST ONE

>>14881732

>if you want to live in Japan

I mean, if you can't see the advantages of being able to speak the native language of the area you inhabit, then you're clearly too dumb to be worth discussing the matter with.

>>14881732
>good reason to learn Japanese (if you want to live in Japan).

I don't know, so that I could understand and talk to the native people?

I mean, subs don't magically appear below them as they speak.

>>14881769
>I mean, subs don't magically appear below them as they speak.
Phone app when

>>14881413
Pretty sure most of those don't exist.

>>14881792
They were showing an app like this about 3 days ago in NHK when they were talking about gaijins taking part in Tokyo Marathon, I didn't catch the name though

>>14881413
Only two of those actually exist and it isn't hard to tell 犬 and 太 apart, stupid /a/ fag and your meme pictures.

>>14882149
>>14881889
Congratulations on issuing a Japanese 101 correction to a joke originally aimed at native speakers.

>New security guard job allows me to bring reading material to work
>Literally 8+ hours that I could be spending studying vocabulary, my main weakness right now.

I literally just ID check people through a garage gate and yell at drunks occasionally, I have A LOT of free time in between. How can I make use of all this time to improve vocabulary? I can't bring electronic stuff sadly (too distracting according to management) so phone has to be kept pocketed (not gonna risk losing the job, it's a pretty sweet deal) but reading is fine, I don't get their logic either, but whatever. Idk if there's just a book for vocabulary considering that a book for vocabulary would just be called a dictionary, but I hear just learning off a dictionary is not an effective way to retain new vocabulary? I need to make use of this time to improve, It really is a huge block of time doing mainly nothing.

Because of no electronics this means no Anki, so Idk. Should I just print some dictionary pages with translations and start memorizing? I read that's more useful if you just want to pass a test and you'll just forget all the words in no time. I don't want to dictionary study if it's not gonna stick, man.

>>14882510
You could bring reading material and a dictionary.

>ゴスロリ服でまわるところ
Can someone translate this ?

>>14883314

Boku no Pico

>>14882513
I'm too used to rakaichan and Jisho, I don't even own a physical dictionary and I'd imagine it'd be a pain to have to search through it for each specific word without a handy ctrl+F feature to find it. Technology makes things too efficient man

>>14883871
you'll be fine. remember that these are made for jap dicks on top of the fact that onaholes are made out of squishy rubber. If you needed to have a monster cock to get sensation these wouldn't be very profitable.

>>14882196
np senpai

>>14884095

>>14883871
Dictionaries organized by SKIP code aren't too bad for lookup other than the whole page turning thing (sometimes I wish I'd just got one sorted by radicals because I think it'd be easier to learn on).

I do usually end up putting it away after a few lookups in favor of Jisho on my phone, but whatcha gonna do.

>>14818307
I am using "An integrated approach to intermediate japanese'' at the moment and I have fully finished Genki I and II. I planned to use this one once Im done.

>>14881430
がそりん？

>>14884560
ガソリン。

>>14884560
>>14884844
軽油

>>14884560
>>14884844
>>14884890
>hey
>hey guys..
>hey..
>what if..
>we had 3 different ways to say the exact same things?
>BRILLIANT

FOR
WHAT
FUCKING
PURPOSE

FUCK THIS LANGUAGE

>>14881755
>>14881769
Too bad that both Ryan Boundless and Ken Semenroi - legends among Westerners living in Japan - agree that the #1 language to socialize and succeed in Japan is ENGLISH not Japanese!

>>14885238
LEGENDS!

>>14886326
I'm more surprised that anybody in /jp/ knows or cares who they are.

>>14885238
Literally who and literally who

>>14885238
>Ken Semenroi

>>14807936
>what a waste of time this was

agreed, I think only a small amount of kanjis can be memorised by a story

Is Kanji absolutely vital? Will I do okay with, say, playing a game in Japanese when I don't know Kanji yet?

>>14890485
If you don't know any kanji, then playing vidya that has it will be hell for you unless they have furigana.
Honestly, I don't know why you would ever want to learn Japanese and not Kanji. It's like saying "yeah I like math but I don't like multiplication :/"

>>14890546
Understood. I was just making sure. Thanks for the advice.

>>14890485
Would knowing how to read japanese help with playing a japanese game?
Think about that for a moment.

>>14890557
I was under the impression that Kanji was less important, then I discovered that it's more important, and was just double-checking. No need to be a dick.

>>14890565
>No need to be a dick.
It's often a proper response to ignorance.

Though it does astound me that you have apparently managed to amass a working command of spoken Japanese without knowing that kanji are useful.

>>14890546
"Learning Kanji" is dumb. Does anyone study all the latin and greek roots of english words to learn English?

>>14890565
Wasn't my intention to be a dick, but your question was a bit silly. (especially when you already discovered that knowing kanji is actually important)
No need to be a mimosa.

>>14890581
I haven't, though. I just started, and was double-checking the order I should be learning in.

>>14890590
I was just hoping I could do grammar and vocab with just Kana for now. I don't have a ton of time to study.

>>14890600
>I was just hoping I could do grammar and vocab with just Kana for now.
That you can do, especially since you just started. Learning kanji will be imperative down the road, unless you skip reading or stick to stuff with furigana. (Why would you though?)

>>14890619
I have just one more question. How hard is Kanji?

>>14890619
Learning kanji on their own is entirely unnecessary and probably a waste of time, you can learn them in context.

>>14890631
I imagine it would be hard to use context when it's just a JRPG item.

>>14890627
Kanji having difficulty is a myth, you can learn Japanese the same way you would any other language.

>>14890643
And how is that again? Just practice and study?

>>14890639
You just look up the words you don't know, and then you learn them. Studying imaginary english equivalents of thousands of word fragments won't help you know what a 槍 is anymore than just looking up the word when you see it.

>>14890657
But the problem is, if the Kanji is on the game on the PS4, and I have an English keyboard, how do I look it up?

>>14890627
Harder than kana.
If you use them a lot and not just grind them out of context then (assuming you're not dumb as a bag of bricks) you'll have no difficulty.

>>14890588
So do you say people should learn each individual word on its own?
It's not like English- a much larger percentage of words in Japanese use kanji than words in English that use greek/latin roots.

>>14890663
Learning radicals is helpful.

>>14890663
Some things must have something like google translate does, where you can draw the symbol on your screen with a mouse.

I assume that would help.

>>14890665
Sounds good. I said that was my last question, but I have one more. Grinding kana is useful, right?

>>14890670
What's that?

>>14890671
I have somehow never heard of this. Thank you, that solves that problem.

>>14890672
Kanji are composed of some combination of a few hundred small pieces, if you know how to recognise them you can use those pieces to look a kanji up if all else fails.

>>14890672
>Grinding kana is useful, right?
More than useful it's more feasible than grinding kanji since there are a lot less. It's still better to use them properly, i.e. just read shit.

Seriously, just read shit.

>>14890672
Radicals go on the side of kanji.
for example- 海　洗　流 all have the three dashes on the side- linking these to "water"(ocean, wash, flow)

so you can use radicals to help your understanding of kanji. It also helps with learning to read/(write especially) and lets you distinguish similar kanji with completely different meanings(for example, 洗 and 先).

>>14890680
>>14890687
That sounds like a ton of work, but it also sounds incredibly useful. Once I get there, I'll work on that. Thank you.

>>14890682
So, once I finish learning Katakana (I have Hiragana down pretty well) I just go and read doujins and other untranslated stuff? Literally anything?

>>14890687
also, if you're having trouble remembering how to write kanji, breaking them down helps a lot, and radicals factor a little bit into it. for example 者 can be broken down into 土、ノ、日.

Pretty much the way I've been finding effective is learning meanings/readings by looking at a kanji in a sentence, and then also in compound words for onyomi. Writing is just breaking it up into pieces and writing them down a lot. Practicing kanji you learned a while ago is also pretty important but ofc doesn't have to be super rigorous.

>>14890693
>I just go and read doujins and other untranslated stuff? Literally anything?
There's a metric bumton of reading material on the internet aimed at beginners. Start with simple stuff, childrens' stories, manga, whatever. There are guides all over the place, check /a/'s DJT OP if they still have it. Bring a grain of salt.

Obviously try to not to overwhelm yourself, start from the bottom to give you a sense of progress and achievemnt.

>>14890716
Yeah, I already did overwhelm myself. Children's stories sound nice. First, I'll finish Katakana, make sure I can recognize both kana well, grammar, vocab, reading, then kanji. Does that sound about right?

>>14890731
I'd say do vocab and kanji together so you can graduate from the very simplest of text faster. No sense in sticking to the kiddie pool for longer than needed.

>>14890749
So vocab, reading, and kanji should all be one step, basically?

>>14884904
you realize that katakana and hiragana are basically the same as capital and lowercase letters right? Not in terms of function, but in what they represent. They are just 2 different ways to write part of a word, and the circumstance in which you use them varies from context to context.

Kanji is kind of a beast of a different nature, but consider that we also learn cursive in english which is perhaps less esoteric, but also less useful and just as archaic.

>>14884904
>>14891257
Weebs, please, educate yourself:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O27TgLW6pCU

So someone mentioned earlier that Heisig isn't much use if you just want to watch anime / read manga, which honestly is the only thing I'm interested in. I've browsed through my preferred manga and even with kana perfectly memorized and halfway through Genki 1, I still get completely wrecked by the flood of Kanji, it's literally just one after another and I have no clue what any of the characters are.

Currently I make time as I can in between my full time job for genki/vocabulary (by just reading and translating)/and anki decks, so I am a bit hesistant to add heisig to the mix if ultimately it's not useful? Isn't the purpose of it to help you read Kanji characters? this seems extremely useful even if you only want to read manga as there's a truckload of Kanji in them. Idk?

Learning Kanji by Radical as you see them, using the method Halpern does has helped me much more than Heisig ever did.
Setting a keyword is meaningless unless you attach meaning to it in the language you are learning as well as the language you are learning in.

>>14891854
Which book did you use to learn? I googled the guy and there's quite a few. Honestly I'm just trying to pick the most effective book for learning Kanji, it really is my biggest weakness at the moment

>>14891874
His Kanji learner's dictionary is very good, I'd definite recommend using it, at least.

>>14891881
That's what teaches the "by radicals" method? or is it just a dictionary for reference? I mainly use Jisho as my go-to dictionary just for the purposes of looking up words, currently. I looked into Kanji radicals and honestly the thought of just being able to tell what a Kanji is by it's characteristics rather than just literally memorzing 2000+ symbols based on just visual differences seems to be a lot more logical, if that's actually a thing/method.

>>14891888
Please do not learn Japanese from radicals. These extremists do not represent the Japanese people!

>>14891893
drumshot for you, anon.

>>14891888
Breaking Kanji down into radicals is incredibly smart and definitely helps the learning process.

It is generally a dictionary for reference, but being organized roughly by radical makes it much easier to find something or to look through for reference.
Kanjdamage is often maligned, because it still retains the trappings of the Heisig method and has a few mistakes, but is still quite handy as a learning tool.

>>14891897
I'll definitely check it out. Is there any "difinitive" or at least highly praised book or whatever else that nicely teaches the whole process or breaking down Kanji into radicals and goes from there? Sort of like how Genki is usually recommended for Grammar, among others? Or is Kanjidamage my best tool at the moment?

I definitely need to add some form of Kanji study on top of my vocab/grammar studies, not like I have to rush it all in one day and I can cycle them.

Can anyone translate this?

フィリピンの既婚女性の海外出稼ぎを家族崩壊と結びつけたこの映画は、「女性の海外出稼ぎの社会的コスト」を典型的に指し示すものとして、他方では自分たちのすぐ隣で起こっている物語として、多くのフィリピン人の共感を誘い、国内のみならずフィリピン人の海外出稼ぎ先各国でも上映された

I know what it's "saying" but I can't get the sentence cohesion down.

>>14891907

It is the best I've seen thus far, but I am sure there are other methods. Wanikani is pretty good too I have heard, but I dislike it because you can't just pick it up halfway through kanji study.

>>14891823
I was trying to provide an analog to english. I understand that Kanji is more complicated than my shallow metaphor, and the reason it is used is more to make the language readable rather than whatever assbackwards reason people still use cursive. Its simply an easy way to point out english does the exact same shit and the only reason we don't notice it is because we are used to it.

>>14891912
What is it "saying"?

>>14887256
Wrong Ken. I'm talking about the LEGENDARY Ken.

http://japaneseruleof7.com/

This is a bit off-topic, but what is a nice color to be used for writing out the formal name of a Japanese deity? Something which commands respect and/or adoration.

>>14893182
Pink is the way to go.

>>14893216
Any reason why?

>>14893216
>>14893243
Any of these three look best? Or should I use a totally different color?

>>14893389
Sorry, I wasn't serious...

>>14893479
then what do I fucking use

>>14893389
The one in the middle looks great.

I need more input on the best method/learning to tackle Kanji, guys. It seems by radicals is the way to learn, so should I not use heisig and use kanjidamage?

>>14892202
the pleasure of being cummed inside

So if all I want to do is read manga, do I have to worry about all this onyomi kunyomi shit? It seems to be more how you pronounce kanji, not how to understand the meaning of it, but idk? Shit looked confusing.

>>14894177
Can confirm, double checked it.

>>14828690
I've been trying to learn kana and my only problem is the uncertainty of pronouncing some of them.
Like one example for Hiragana was /a/ and the example was antenna.

Hey guys, Sekai Project released an interesting app for learning Kanjis - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.SekaiProject.OwariNoKanji

It also has a pro version too which seems rad - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.SekaiProject.OwariNoKanjiPro

>>14817524
you'll get there mate, it took me almost a month just because i wasn't actively doing it
it feels good when you can read it perfectly though

>>14830638
so why don't you write toyota in katakana then?

>>14862707
Yeah anon its not like we make japanese people use english letters to write their name in our language.

My favorite 宮崎 駿 movie is My Neighbor Totoro btw.

What is the best, shortest way to say cock? 根?

>>14894624
Stop posting on /jp/ forever. Don't think we'll ever buy into your shit, SP.

>>14894804
Because the latin alphabet is perfectly capable of expressing every Japanese word correctly, while the opposite isn't the case.

>>14855675
Wow
Want to know how I know you're a JLPT5 and that the only word you know containing 乳 is 牛乳?

What's the point of having both hiragana and katakana? Why couldn't they just use hiragana for foreign words instead of giving them an entirely separate alphabet?

bump