/jp/ - Otaku Culture

Very nice! Downloading.

>romaji

Both of these sound awesome. Thanks.

http://avaxhome.ws/ebooks/cultures_languages/4889960759ss.html

Forgot to mention, the first book also has the audio book of the novels in .mp3

>>2516531
I don't know if I trust the second one. My experience with those kind of books is that they have extremely exaggerated translations, as in a simple "He's a jerk" in Japanese being "translated" to some rant half page rant.

>>2516619
I'm giving it a try right now, here's a sample.

..it kinda seems to treat nips like some race of hateful demons.

>>2516637
I wish these book writers would stop ruining my GLORIOUS NIHONGO with their shitty romaji

I lol'd.

>>2516637
No one said that Japanese people will spit these insults at you as soon as you exit the airplane.

It's just a collection of words and phrases that aren't found in any textbooks.

Second book looks terrible from the two scans

I was going to make a thread for this but this one will do nicely.

Who else remembers the Let's Learn Japanese series?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t58Hblk8xQM

Not really that helpful for serious students but they're fun to watch even if you have no interest in learning japanese. Also Yan-san owns.

The Japanese program at my school is starting to use the latest Lets Learn Japanese series and it has anime and some robot and duck thing, it's embarassing and no where near as good.

>>2516724
Kisama! You're dere for Yan?

>>2516724
He looks so sad now ;_;

What happened to the cheerful Yan-san as we all knew him?

>>2516724
Wow, time has not been kind to Yan-san

>>2516740

I wish my Tokyo trips were as cool as Yan-san's :(

Man, Kenny is a total douchebag. I like that in a protagonist.

>>2516742

He had a wife, kids and they grew up :(

He seems to teach music now as well as being a full time musician, still lives in Japan

http://www.japanprobe.com/?p=623

His full name is Nick Muhrin, google it and you'll find some japanese music sites talking about him.

>>2516637
Those translations are EXTREMELY loose. Japanese expletive meanings are too heavily based on context and the way they are said to just make a sheet of direct translations like that.

In case you're wondering this is what the new series looks like, the glory of Yan-san is now replaced with exchange student Erin-san, half the time she's animated like this with her robot and duck friend.

>>2516724
I loved that series. It helps with learning the basic grammar a lot for people like me who don't attend classes.
If one's going to study alone, in my opinion LLJB series followed by Tae Kim is the best way to learn the grammar.

Is 100 Heisig Kanji enough to read the first one?

>irete kudasai
I'm sure this phrase will come in handy someday.

>>2516797
No, because Heisig teaches the kanji in a logically structured order instead of teaching the common kanji first. In other words, you will meet essential kanji even on the last few pages of the book.

>>2516797
No, because Heisig teaches the kanji in a logically structured order instead of teaching the common kanji first. In other words, you will meet essential kanji even on the last few pages of the book.

The book has furigana, though, so strictly speaking you can read it with zero kanji knowledge. You will have to use dictionaries a lot, though.

Whats Tae Kim?

>>2517034
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=tae+kim

>>2516804
>I can't even get a date in my own country but my super powers activate in glorious nippon making me irresistible to the ladies.
>Kinda like super man on earth.

I have something. If you aren't dead set on using heisig and only heisig, this is another great way to learn kanji.

Kanji Kenken DS 2
--------------------------------
Its a Japanese kanji aid for the nintendo DS. If you have a a flashcart for the DS then you can download the game here.
http://frozen-roms.in/details_15268.html
The Kanji Kentei (漢字検定 "KanKen") is a Japanese language aptitude test that's administered thrice every year. The test measures a person's proficiency at reading, writing, and recognizing kanji characters of every stripe and stroke.
This game takes you through about 12 levels where you learn 100-200 kanji per level. The order is the same as a Japanese person in school. Its a great study aid being portable and saving paper rewriting the kanji tons of times trying to memorize. Also it has a built in dictionary that lets you draw out any kanji you see in the world and spits back a reading.

The game is entirely in Japanese but it only takes 5 minutes of feeling around blindly to get a feel for the layout.

Here is a review for skeptics or those that want to know more if they plan to buy.
http://naruhodojapan.blogspot.com/2007/10/kanken-ds-2-review.html

>>2516804
I sure hope not....
But hey, maybe Anon likes it in the tail.

>>2516804
I think you are using the wrong reading anon.
unless....

>>2517236

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charisma_Man

>>2517300
Kanji Kenken DS 3*
They released a new version this month. More features, and questions than the last.

>>2517236
wat
>>2517317
>unless....
That.

>>2517335
Superman didn't have super powers on krypton. It's because of the Sun's rays or some shit like that. If he went back to his not planet, he would just be some regular faggot.

>>2517344
But how is that related to the post you were replying to?

>>2517354
He think that going to Japan will make him any less of a loser than he is in his basement. irete kudasai will never be useful to him because he will never be in that situation.

>>2517331
Any recommendations for a decent -cheap- flashcart?

Good thread so far.

>>2517300
downloading!!!

>>2517361
B-but.. If I ask politely... ;_;

>>2517396
You can get r4ds for quite cheap. Its firmware has not been updated for more than a year, though, so i heard there are some games that won't work with it. That said, it worked with everything for me so far.
CycloDS is better but more expensive.

If you want to learn slang just watch Cromartie High School.

>>2517421
This. Also if you have the DSi, some flashcarts won't work in it. I hear acecard does though.

I bought the cyclods and it works great. They run on firmware so I'm sure it will be updated to work on the DSi eventually (although I still wouldn't want one).
IMO its the best deal for the quality you get plus free games forever means no matter which one you choose, it pays itself off in like 2 games.

>>2517396
Acekard 2/2i either one but 2i if you like the DSi

>>2517300
Its like I'm really flunking first grade in Japan.

>>2517300
Has anyone else every used this? Is it worth the time?

>>2517475
I tried some of these NDS programs, more than 5 of them in total. I have to say Kanken ds is the best one out there, so in the end I settled with this one.
However, it's useless for learning new things. It doesn't teach you anything, it's essentially an exam software for testing your knowledge.
It's very good at that, though. It has tons of questions and sentences on each of its 10 levels, so once you get some basic grammar, a few hundred words and kanji you can start using this program to test and maintain your knowledge.

in b4 AJATT. But seriously guys, he's right. Shit works.

>>2517555
I disagree. Like you said its a good AID. If you use it alongside a dictionary, there is no reason you can't learn new words and meaning from it. I know I did.
Still yes, it is a great game and you should definitely get it if you can.

>>2517564
>let's try to contribute some original content
This is why it hasn't been mentioned yet. Though I do agree that all of these books are superfluous, you only need the very basics and then you can go right into simple manga.

But whatever, that's not what this thread is about.

>>2517475
Its great. You learn all of the reading through context and practice, perfect writing and recognition plus the game tracks your progress to show what areas you need improvement in.

>>2517576
At the very least you'll need some kind of SRS to go with it if you want to learn new things.

>>2516767
I like Erin better than Jan-san. Shit was so moe. Also Erin kinda looks like an AV-star whose name I can't remember right now.

>>2517595
If you insist but this is how I did it.
Start a new section and come across a kanji whos meaning I don't know. I write down the reading that the game gives me and then look it up. After that I know the meaning vaguely and go about playing the gmae again. Next time I see it in the game, I can guess the meaning from context and it sticks with me. Of course if you are some kind of crazy and try to learn kanji before learning basic japanese, this won't work but its worked for me.

>>2517612
>try to learn kanji before learning basic japanese
Don't do this.
Its a stupid idea.
Basic grammar and vocab==>hiragana katakana==>more advanced grammar and vocab==maybe more vocab and grammar==>kanji.
Seriously it should be the last thing you do since you aren't learning the language naively. Just think. How did you learn to speak your native language? They didn't slap a pen in your hand and tell you to write cursive as a baby did they?
You learned to speak, then basic writing then somewhere down the line, cursive.

>>2517642
Kanji makes learning Japanese a lot easier. And it's really not all that hard.

>>2517642
You're an idiot. That's like trying to destroy a house with a sledgehammer because you're too lazy to learn to use an excavator

>>2517671
No I'm saying that its easier to learn kanji through context rather than jamming them in through memorization. Most everything you would read at a basic level of japanese has furigana so kanji isn't even necessary until much later.

Its possible to teach a child in first grade advanced physics, but he would understand it better if you let him learn advanced math first.

>>2517708
Using furigana can only teach you readings if you already recognize the kanji. Completing Heisig book 1 transforms written Japanese into something easy. You'll have to learn the kanji at some point, so you might as well do it first and make everything else easier.

黒人は動物と思う。

>>2517724

動物「だ」と思う。

>>2517713
Thats where you misunderstand what I am saying. I mention furigana because you can progress in learning japanese without knowing any kanji at all. You can even read comic books just fine. You waste a lot of time trying to learn characters when you can't even use them properly in a sentence.
Also from what I saw, you can't really learn all of the kanji until you go through ALL of his books since the first one only teaches the meaning without any mention of the multiple readings it may have. Also I hear that some of the meanings, he makes up to fit the story. Not saying you can't learn using him but trying to learn to write before you can speak is just stupid.

>>2517708
>Most everything you would read at a basic level of japanese
Some of us have other goals than being able to read Genki's stories and after 2-3 years of studying moving on to children's books and shonen manga.

If you want to start reading real Japanese text as soon as possible then learning the most common 2000-2500 kanji before you do anything else is by far the fastest way.

>>2516531

I'll check those links out. I've always enjoyed furigana for practice because I just can't read Japanese even if I know what the kanji means because I get stuck in trying to pronounce it.

It just feels wrong to read "Watashi wa mountain no road de driving." I need to read it completely in Japanese first, then let my brain translate it.

>>2517757
You can actually start reading stuff without knowing any of the on/kun readings after finishing Heisig's first book and picking up some grammar from going through Tae Kim's guide a few times.

If you read something like voiced VNs you will pick up the readings and words quite rapidly without much effort.

>>2517757
That's why I said book 1 only. I agree it's best to learn the readings in context, but you'll never remember them unless you already know keyword meanings for the kanji. A few Heisig keywords use uncommon meanings, but it doesn't matter, the point of the keyword is not to tell you exactly what the kanji means but to give you a kind of mental hook to attach more information to.

>>2517771
Again. Progress. Where you reading college level novels before you knew how to speak? Its useless information you are learning until you actually learn the language at an advanced level. Assuming kanji gives the meaning to every word you see, you would still be lost without grammar that completely changes the meaning of a sentance. It makes more snese to learn the basics first then go onto mastering all 2000 basic use kanji. Children's books and and manga don't have to be where you stop but they make great stepping stones to pick up slang and other basic grammar skills.

>>2517757
>write before you can speak is just stupid
Maybe. Learning to read before you can speak, however, is not. Writing =/= reading. I can read almost everything I see, I can however not write worth a damn. But hey, it's not like I need to.

If you try to learn to speak first you're just memorizing seemingly random patterns, you have no idea what is what. Kanji are incredibly useful for sorting everything out.

When you hear a new word, you'd have to just remember it by brute force. For example, if you heard "zenpai" then that would just be a series of characters for you, it however paints a vivid picture in my head, "全敗". Even if I forgot how to say the word, I'd just have to remember how to describe it (complete, defeat), and there it is.

Some of the meanings Heisig gave to kanji might seem weird and you may think it has nothing do with what a dictionary says about that kanji, but a lot of times he gives you the most common meaning that kanji gains when used in composite words.
It's not completely random. Once you start learning words a lot of the pieces of puzzle fall to their place.

>>2517788
like this?
>>2517787
>Watashi wa mountain no road de driving

That sounds awful. I guess it doesn't matter for anyone on /jp/ but how would you use the language with anyone else when that is your understanding?
After about a year of studying my way, I was able to write back an forth with a japanese penpal. I still haven't mastered kanji yet but rikai chan helps for furigana and meanings plus once I know the missing words, I can fully understand the sentences.

>>2517757
Actually you'll just know how to say the kanji but you will have no real idea what it means. The whole point of kanji is that they represent different meanings of words that sound the same. OK, a lot of kanji can be quite pointless. Like, kokujin - what those two just said - means "black person" and you don't really need the kanji for that but then again, when you take away the "jin" kanji, you aren't left with "koku" but rather "koro".

If you learn the kanji, you can learn the different pronunciations (and meanings) that they have in different contexts which is a lot easier in the long run than thinking well I have こくじん (black person) but when I put a space between them, they become　ころ (black) and　ひと (person).

>>2517823
>ころ (black)
ಠ_ಠ

>>2517804
You are, however, not a Japanese child. You don't have 10 years to slowly learn how to speak and write. If you want to learn the language as fast as possible you can't really afford to go through all the steps a child does. It is needed in elemental education because you can't really tell a 6 years old to learn 2000 kanji.
However, You, as an adult, can do it just fine. With some patience you can skip all the hiragana-only crap, furigana books and all that crutch that just slows you down.

Go with the method that classes use if you want to be able to order meal in a restaurant, ask the time and reserve a hotel room in a polite manner after a year of studying. Or grind the kanji and grammar if you want to read novels made for adults after 1.5-2 years.

>>2517831
typo. I obviously meant "kuro" or くろ.

>>2517836
That's what I thought the first time you said it.

But then you did it again.

I wish to submit my thoughts regarding the kanji subject. It is correct that context is an excellent way to learn, but learning 2500 kanji through context is extremely ineffective. It's just too much. You'll have to look up kanji all the time for a hell of a lot of time. The reason kids learn listening and talking before reading is because that part is automatic through their whole childhoods, while you have to be at least 6 before you think to yourself "hey, I wanna give this reading shit a try". Which means that they got 6 years of learning the language for free before they were even interested in reading. Most of us, however, are mostly interested in reading and wants to learn it as fast as possible. That's why it's fair to speed up the process a little.

My suggestion, create a decent SRS routine. 10 kanji a day, for example. Very painless and you can just do that for a short time every day while focusing your studies on the absolutely vital stuff. the kanji you catch through context, consider them a nice bonus.

>>2517817
With common words you probably know them already, but the real benefit is with words like 全敗. Eg. you probably already know 全部 and 失敗, so you get 全敗 for free. If you didn't know the kanji you'd have to learn it as a whole new word.

>>2517840
Well we'll have to get the psychologists on that one. Maybe make the typo in English carried over into my typing it into JWPce that way. "Kuro" is one of the first words any weeaboo learns, along with the basic honorifics, neko and kawaii.

>>2517850
Yes, as in forum names like "Kuro Neko-sama", which is really annoying since it should be "Kuroi Neko-sama", surely.

>>2517850
Hm.. I can remember learning kuroi from a TL note in Black Cat. Didn't think it was among the common newbie words, though.

>>2517853
I don't like you.

>>2517873
Kuro is the noun black and kuroi is the adjective black. Same as aka/akai, ao/aoi and so on.

>>2517873
kuro, aka, ao, shiro are generally well-known. Then comes a huge gap, usually only those who actually bother to study the language know any other colors.
Besides PINKU

>>2517853
>it should be "Kuroi Neko-sama", surely.
That's the bit that annoys you?

>>2517847
If you only want to read right away learn heisig and some basic grammar. you'll be able to "read" in no time flat.
If you have any intention of writing or speaking take the normal approach and possibly combine heisig or some other kanji aid later down the road.

>>2517875
That's because I'm not a cartoon little girl.

>>2517724
Only one or two people in this thread will ever get further than this.
Have fun wasting your time.

>>2517898
I was being ironic...

>>2517901
The best way to enrich your knowledge of a language is always reading, reading, reading.

You will pick up tons of words, phrases and experience in grammar by that. Which means you will automatically learn how to speak it and write sooner or later(as long as you know how to write the kanji themselves, which is given considering you started with Heisig)

>>2517901
You'll never be able to speak eloquently unless you read a shitload of real literature. Your method will fail as soon as you try speaking anything complicated. Input before output is the only way to fluency, and you can't input enough content unless you can easily read it.

>>2517931
knowing kanji isn't all that comes with learning kanji. If you only do book one, you leave knowing only the meaning given to you with no feel for how to say it which results in people like
>>2517787
That can understand the sentences but would sound stupid trying to read it aloud. Plus one character can have 2 or more very common readings based on how its used. You can say learn through context but at a certain point you get content with what you can read since you have the full meaning and will never go to moon land or meet a real japanese person in your basement so you never bother to learn it properly.
I just don't see the point in learning a method that leaves you broken if you will just have to go back and correct everything later.

>>2517950
Why not do it at the same time like a sane person? Nobody says you need to learn 2000 kanji before you ever open the grammar book.

I'm using Genki right now.

>>2517979
Learning kana first is the broken method, because you have to go back and learn the kanji eventually. Knowing kanji meanings makes learning readings easier, but knowing kana words doesn't help much in learning kanji.

I'm happy with English because give if about 15 years and there won't be anyone you'll need to speak to that won't be able to speak it - it's nearly like that now anyway. Also it has LOTS OF WORDS so it's the best language.

>instead of asking the same old questions again and having a Heisig flame
>instead of
>Heisig flame

>>2518016

>Because give if about 15 years and there won't be anyone you'll need to speak to that won't be able to speak it

Weren't people saying that like 20 years ago?

Also, Mandarin is the language that will take over the world. English has reached it's peak.

>>2517979
The advantage of learning all the kanji first without the readings is that it takes a fraction of the time. You can go through Heisig's book in 3 months while not failing in university at the same time. After that, you can start reading real text.

If you do something like I recommended, playing voiced VNs, you will pick up the readings while having fun. It's very easy to look up readings with AHTH + JWPce's dictionary with auto clipboard lookup turned on.

This method only requires effort and patience until you get through the first book. After that, it turns into something that you do for fun, instead of serious studying.

If you learn the language with the classroom way with Genki or such you could spend years reading bullshit conversations and stories that bore the hell out of you.

>>2517998
what happens when a word is written in all katakana for emphasis?
Kana is the base of the language. Learn it properly and you learn every sound available in the Japanese language. Then you can combine them to make every word in the language. Those words are broken into parts that can be represented by the kanji. It just seems like you are learnin backwards all for the sake of speed when really you are just inflating numbers with no real way to apply the knowledge outside of eroge.

>>2517987
Because then you'll learn in kanji in an inefficient order.　 Eg. 寸 is a 6th grade kanji, which is fucking stupid because it's a radical for many lower grade kanji. You're going to have to learn all of them, so it makes no sense learning the common ones first. Heisig sensibly teachs 寸 early.

>>2517998
I'm pretty sure it's universally accepted that learning the kana comes first no matter what method are you planning to use. It's essential and can be done in a week easily.

>>2518062
I completed Heisig book 1 before learning katakana (I had already learned hiragana as a young weeaboo, but I had forgotten most of it). It's much easier to learn the kana when you can see how they developed from kanji.

>>2518044
I'm doing it that way but I used manga with furigana to learn the language and add on more kanji as I please. Not knowing all of the kanji isn't stopping me from understanding the language and I don't need the image to know what the words mean since I learned how they sound first.

I don't know. When I started learning japanese, I did so with the intention of using it outside of reading comic books. You can't have a conversation if every other word is in the wrong language. Still this is /jp/ so conversation is irrelevant.

>>2518069
You're saying you need to learn 2000+ characters before you can learn 45?
Just get some pen and paper and start writing. It took me a few weeks to master hiragana and katakana. It isn't that hard and you don't need to ignore it.

>>2518069
That doesn't make much sense. First, kana are simpler than most kanji so it's better to practice the stroke order and the feel of strokes on them before doing kanji.
Second, you will want to know the kana by heart before you do any real reading. If you do them after the kanji it will be "fresh knowedge" instead of something that you practiced for months, so you will spend a lot of time thinking about them.
Third, you can read a lot of things on Japanese games and websites with just kana. No sense not learning something so useful first.

>>2518039
No it won't. The only reason Chinese is spoken by so many people is that there's so many Chinese people. Very few people that speak Chinese are not Chinese themselves, compared to the hundreds of millions of people that speak English that aren't from the UK, USA, Australia or New Zealand.

The thing is that most people that have learnt English haven't learnt for business reasons but rather for cultural reasons. American films and TV make it all over the world. I live in England and it's a fairly safe bet that there are several American programs on TV now and that most films at the cinema right now will be American. None of the TV or films will be from any other country (other than Britain) apart from the occasional foreign film that somehow makes it into the general release list for cinemas.

Unless Chinese culture can flood the world in the way that "Anglo-Saxon" culture has, i.e. British and American, with things like Hollywood, US TV drama, sports (particularly the English Premier League and World Cup) and networks like the BBC, unless that can happen, Chinese will only be spoken by the business people that need to speak to them.

America is a very desirable and glamorous-seeming country, even with most of the world hating them for political reasons, whereas most people would rather fuck a Mexican pig than go to China. Britain has done its part by (a) colonising most of the world at one point (b) the BBC (c) the odd British TV show or film that becomes more-or-less world famous (d) Shakespeare and other literary figures that get taught the world over. China just has the business angle (which is still nicely held up by America and other English-speaking countries).

>>2518078
As I demonstrated in >>2517849, it quickly becomes mostly the right language. And when I come across a word I don't know I look it up and add it to my SRS.

>>2518106
Also, as someone who's travelled a lot, it's amazing how many people not only speak English but are really happy to speak it with you. You'll pitifully know fuck all of their language or of their culture (apart from the blatantly obvious, e.g. Rome is where gladiators were) but they'll be saying, in English, "Oh I love your football teams, we saw Man U vs Chelsea, very good match! And have you been watching the Apprentice?" and so on.

>>2518097
This. You can actually play through the pokemon games with no kanji knowledge (there is no kanji) which would screw over anybody that knows only kanji and not the meaning without it.
Japanese isn't chinese. They don't use kanji for EVERYTHING. Sometimes its too troublesome and they just leave it out.

>>2518094
You need to learn both, so it makes sense to learn them in the most efficient order. Kana were made from kanji, so it's easiest to learn kanji first.

>>2518122
>Sometimes its too troublesome and they just leave it out.
What? You're talking out of your ass. Pokemon is in complete hiragana because it's for kids. An adult reading it will just find it annoying to read.

>>2518016

>best language

English is a bit silly. It's okay, from what I've seen Korean is probably a better language. Probably.

Anyway, There isn't really a wrong or right way to learn this language?

>>2517987

This guy probably sums it up, do lots of things.

>>2518122
They DO use it in everything apart from games or books aimed at children, like Pokemon. I have several Japanese Dragon Quest official guides and they all have kanji and furigana because it's aimed at the kids and at adults.

>>2518127
Sorry, but you won't find too many people here agreeing with that.
People may use Genki, Heisig, AJATT or whatever method to learn words, sentences, grammar and kanji, but it's usually accepted even during the fiercest of Heisig troll wars that kana comes first no matter what method you're planning to use.

>>2518134
No, that part was referring to a regular sentence. Not all words will be written using their kanji. For instance, an easy example is dare which is only two syllables
long but has a rather complex kanji. Sure its easy to type it out but in writing, the person may choose to exclude it. You see this in type as well. Everything isn't just a mass of kanji. They can skip on kanji, or even change it to hiragana based on the situation.

>>2518127
that is retarded. Why take a quarter of a year learning kanji just to learn kana when you can learn all of the kana perfectly in a matter of weeks? Knowing the root of the kana won't help you pronounce it any better. Just get a chart and memorize. The english alphabet has roots elsewhere but you don't need to learn that in order to know your abc.

>>2518139
English is good because despite often not seeming to make sense (it has lots of odd rules or "non-rules") it's really easy to understand what someone means, even if they're talking gibberish from a grammatical standpoint. Also, learning the letters for English means you know the letters for a shitload of other languages. Learning the kana just means you know the letters for moonspeak, kanji you know the letters for Chinese and moon only and Korean letters are just for Korea. Also, how many amazing films and legendary books can you read with Korean?

>>2518140
That isn't what I am saying at all.
In any given sentence, almost every word probably has a kanji that could sum it up, but the author will CHOOSE to just spell it out in kana because maybe the kanji is rare or he just didn't feel like it. If you only learn kanji, you are limiting yourself to what you can and cannot read. Also if anon shares my same reading interest you are probably reading a lot of doujin. Outside of names, they are heavy in kana and use the same set of kanji over and over again. Its probably the same thing for vn.

So how long has /jp/ been on this heisig fit?
Has anyone become fluent yet or is it just the flavor of the year that will eventually backfire (although by the time it does you won't care because you weren't very serious to begin with)?

>>2518193
The kanji are helpful for memorizing even if they are rarely used. Eg. ちょっと is almost always written in hiragana, but I know it's 一寸 so I'm not going to forget it.

>>2518173

Sorry I was refering to the "Best" part.

English is basically the world language, however it is not the most advanced / clever was my point.

>>2518202
Are many of us here even aiming for fluency? I'm not, anyway. I just want to read VNs and mango, which I can.

>>2518207
Right, you memorized a word and associated that meaning with the kanji. You would have to go through and do that with every kanji you learned in heisig otherwise you just have a bunch of pictures that won't help you in the case of using the kana instead of the kanji.

On the pokemon thing. It's not hard to read at all. The vocab and grammar are very basic but if you don't really know any japanese words without seeing the kanji to begin with, you are screwed. You should learn these things all together. No sense getting electrical wiring for your house if it doesn't even have a base.

>>2518202
Not fluent yet, but I'm able to read Japanese games/VNs thanks to Heisig and Tae Kim's guide. Never touched a textbook like Genki or went to a class.
So, it works if you put the effort in it..

>>2518236
Who said Pokemon is hard to read? I said it's annoying to read for adults. It's like readinglikethis,sureyoucandoitbutno-onewantsto

>>2518218
You guys should specify that wen you tell retards to go study heisig. Yeah you will be able to read because you can paint the image in your head. But, as soon as the situation calls for speaking, or just not using kanji, you have no knowledge at all.

-heisig if you want quick vn reading
-normal method if you want to actually learn a language

>>2518249
SPOILER: If you learn how to read and understand everything you will also be able to open your mouth and say it out loud. It doesn't magically work one-way only.

>>2518249
>But, as soon as the situation calls for speaking, or just not using kanji, you have no knowledge at all.

Wait. When did anyone argue that you should ONLY use Heisig? Heisig is the base to make learning from context a lot easier.

>>2518247
Actually no. There are spaces between the words.

>>2518249
What? I can speak fine, I'm just not fluent. I've only been doing it for a year, after all. I think being able to understand most of what I read and speak enough to be understood is fine for the time I've put in.

>>2518265
Not exactly. It's much easier to recognize something infront of us (read) than to pull it out of our own head (write). I'm not entirely disagreeing with you, but there is a bit more difficulty when speaking/writing than when hearing/reading.

>>2518270
Are you retarded? My point was, you're reading something that you can understand, however it's not the way you're used to reading, so it's just annoying.

>>2518265
They aren't learning readings. They are learning meanings along with grammar so they see the kanji that means run and then the kana ending that means wasn't able to and just combine it to understand the sentence. They have no idea how to pronounce most of the kanji that they "know". Its perfect like they said for reading vn and manga but won't get you any further than that.

>>2518236
The point is it's not just arbitrary noises or symbols, it's "one measurement", and I know that "measurement" is a specific short distance. So the compound meaning is a logical abstraction of the meanings of the individual kanji. Only in ateji like 珈琲 are the meanings no help at all, and even then the kanji still help as something to mentally attach the sounds to.

>>2518283
>They have no idea how to pronounce most of the kanji that they "know".
This is what anti-heisigfags actually believe.

>>2518282
Sure for you that only learned kanji but if you kana reading speed is pretty good, its not hard at all.

>>2518281
That's true for every language, even your native one. There are tons of words that you can read and understand in English for example, but you wouldn't remember to use them when speaking or writing.

However, you can increase both the vocabulary you understand and the vocab you can actively use by reading more.

>>2518297
Which book does he teach reading in? Which one does he teach writing in?
Do any of you bother to learn the actual reading for every kanji you learned in the first book or do you just move on and call yourself great for knowing the basic meaning?

>>2518301
Can you read English? Are the words that I'm typing getting through to you?

>>2518304
But what if inside your head, you read the words in Spanish? That doesn't exactly help your English speaking ability.

>>2518283
You are wrong. Pretty much every VN and game is voiced now, so even if you actively try to AVOID learning the readings it will stick to your mind while reading them since your brain is continuously associating what you read with what you're hearing .

>>2518314
He never claims to teach the readings, he's giving you a bun and telling you to go put a burger between it. Learn the readings from furigana. Yes, we learn the readings.

>>2518314
Heisig's method for learning readings is a waste of time. The proper way is to copy each new word into Anki and let it convert it to kana for you, or looking it up manually when it's ambiguous. Soon you'll find that you can guess the readings without having to look them up, because you understand the language at a deeper level than people who just remembered strings of noises.

>>2518314
You're an idiot. The point of Heisig is to be the first step towards learning Kanji. NO WHERE does he say that once you finish the book, you're an expert.

The point of Heisig is to let you become comfortable with kanji and turn them into something meaningful instead of a bunch of random lines.

Once you can actually recognize kanji, learning the readings becomes much easier.

No one is argueing that Hiesig is the only thing you need to learn kanji.

>>2518320
You're saying that an adult fluent in Japanese would find reading the text in a Pokemon game troublesome.
I am saying that its not because they already know the word and just breeze over it quickly, kanji or no. Its just like in English where we don't actually read every letter in the word, just the first and the last and the rest in reflex. They wouldn't be sounding out every character to know what it says. Plus the argument of no spaces in the language is negated since games that don't use kanji always have spaces.
I am in no way saying that we shouldn't use kanji. I think its a bit ass backwards to learn all the kanji first, associate them with just an English meaning then move on. You didn't really learn anything. You just memorized pictures.

>>2518322
As you read more real sentences you'll gradually start to ignore the keywords and read directly. But this is only possible because the keywords were there as a "scaffolding" to attach memories to. Human memory isn't like computer memory, it's based on associations. Heisig book one gives you a solid framework for associating things with.

>>2518343
Better to learn "just pictures" (which nobody does) than just noises. For example せい has a shitload of possible meanings, so of course it will be harder to understand without kanji.

>>2518343
>troublesome
This is where you failed. I said annoying.

Icanreadthisfine,Iwouldn'tcallittroublesome,itishowever,"annoying". Japanesepeoplefeelthesamewayaboutparagraphsoffullkana.

>>2518357
Again there are spaces and those two words are synonyms.
In a sentence, sei could make perfect sense with just kana. I think a more appropriate example would be writing in all caps. You can understand it just as quickly but it isn't generally done or accepted in fine literature. That doesn't mean you shouldn't be able to understand it. Nothing they say in the pokemon games or any other game that uses just kana is particularly difficult. Still you would need to know readings and actual vocab to understand it.

I wonder if Heisig threads are just pure trolling or people really don't understand that your brain doesn't magically start blocking the readings once you go through the book and you are still allowed to learn them.

>>2518389
Yes but you are basically correcting everything you learned in his book plus you don't know how to write any of it yet.

>>2518385
>Again there are spaces
You're a troll, right? You have to be trolling me. Please tell me you're trolling me. I already answered this, I'm using no spaces in English as an example.

>>2518402
Yeah but that isn't a very good example. kanji and no kanji doesn't translate to spaces and no spaces because someone that knows the language can read either kanji or no kanji just fine while you have to squint a little to read no spaces. I said it more like caps lock where its a strange way to type but still easy to read and you would look stupid for saying you couldn't read it simply because of the formatting.

>>2518417
Actually, using no kanji can confuse the hell out of adult Japanese people just fine. Because of the homonyms they could have a completely wrong idea about where the sentence is going until they reach the end and find out that it made no sense, so they have to go back and correct it with the proper meaning.

>>2518417
Do you think they use kanji because they like it? Their language depends on it

>>2518452
They look cute uguu~~

I'm a little over the 1,500 mark in heisig. One thing I noticed is that I typically completely forget the story after a few days, but remeber the Kanji/Keyword perfectly. Is this normal?

>>2518475
Whatever works for you.
Do you even remember kanjis that you last reviewed a few months ago?

>>2518485
Yeah, I do a complete review every two weeks-ish.

It just kinda tripped me out that I'm not actively remebering the story, maybe it's there subconciously.

>>2518516
I finished the book a few weeks ago. For the more recent kanji I usually have to remember the story first. For the easier ones that I learned months ago I don't really need them anymore and usually remember the kanji outright.

Why does anime and japanese shit attract the most pathetic of faggots? Every single weeaboo I know is ugly, the majority are fat, and most of them either have ADHD or assburgers/autism. All the girls are supposedly bisexual too, for some reason. Their only friends are fellow weeaboos, they rarely socialize outside of their circle. But I don't understand why an interest in japanese "culture" is common in all social outcasts (the ones that aren't completely friendless and alone at least).

>>2518516
>complete review every two weeks-ish.
lrn2SRS

>>2518557
I use an SRS, I still like to do a complete review because, well, I don't know. To make sure I didn't forget everything that is on queue for 20 days.

I know it's not needed.

>>2518539
You're late. The Heisig trolls came far earlier. Wait for the next thread.

>>2518569
Actively reviewing outside of your SRS can only make things worse. Not only is it a waste of time, but you also risk confusing your SRS's scheduler. Trust your SRS.

Jesus this thread turned into a steaming pile of shit

>>2518586
It sure did.
Anyone else bothered to download the first book in OP's post? People only talked about the second one, but the first looks promising to me.

It can help a lot if you're at the point where you're having problems identifying parts of the sentence and okurigana since each phrase is explained in detail.

>>2518586
>turned into
That would assume it wasn't a pile of shit in the first place

It seems to me that learning the kanji with keywords in English just adds unnecessary abstraction. Can somebody explain why I'm wrong?

>>2518672
Because it takes 1/10th the time of what it takes the orthodox way.

>>2518672
Japanese is a bitch to learn because of all the homonyms. You can either spend 10 years+ living there 100% immersed in the language until you can distinguish them all by context, or you can learn the kanji by keywords, which doesn't take long, and convert them to merely homophones. This means you'll be reading real books earlier, and reading real books is the best way to learn any language.

Anyone that do not speak English natively that find Heisig good?

I keep feeling like 50% of the English translations he uses are stuff I've never encountered in all my books and life. And I just feel so unmotivated to learn a kanji that has a meaning that I'll never use. Attach a stupid story that doesn't make sense and I'm just quitting.

I think I've quit 3 times so far while trying to get through Heisig book.

>>2518823
i suppose you wouldn't really use those kind of words in english, but i don't think you're learning kanji to speak english with it, are you?

http://www.hellodamage.com/kanjidicks/main.htm

>>2518823
I just translated the whole thing, so all of the keywords are in my native language. Yeah, it took some effort. There were a few words that I had to look up in a dictionary. The upside is that I could rename some of the radicals if I found an image that I considered better.
The downside is all those goddamn synonyms. There were a few occasions when I was tearing my hair out because my language ran out of words for something that English has 5+ synonyms for.

It ended well, though, since I successfully finished the book. Even with the extra effort of translating it, it was by far worth it.

>>2518241
About how long did it take you?

Are these good steps?

1. Learn Kana
2. Tae Kim http://www.guidetojapanese.org/
3. All About Particles
4. Kanjidicks
5. Easy Manga
6. Harder Manga

>>2519137
Not the guy you're replying to, but I'm the same position as him. It took me 2-3 months to read shonen manga like One Piece and such, and about a year to read fairly difficult visual novels.

>>2519144
Good steps. Good order? Maybe not as Tae Kim and All About Particles both use a lot of kanji. If you can memorize the kanji from Tae Kim and All About Particles without Kanjidicks or Heisig, though, that's good too.

>>2519154
Impressive. Did you devote all of your time to it? Or did you spend an hour or two a day on it?

>>2519166
Most of my time is spent watching anime and reading manga/visual novels so it's not something I had to go out of my way to do, I was doing it pretty much 24/7. Though the first month was spent reading Heisig and All About Particles, which I did put quite a lot of time into.

>>2519181
Thank you sir, you have given me confidence to continue once this term for college is over.

>>2519202
I once did the mistake of completely neglecting my Japanese for the sake of exams.
I forgot a lot of things. Even if you don't learn new things keep doing your SRS, it's worth those few minutes each day.

>>2519232
SRS?

>>2519312
BSNS

>>2519312
Google "anki"

>>2519312
Best SRS:
http://ichi2.net/anki/

Inferior SRS, but excellent website:
http://supermemo.com/

>>2519321
What I mean is what the acronym is supposed to be.

>>2519340
You, sir, are a saint.

>>2519312
spaced repetition software, like Anki

I failed at Heisig. Made it about 100 kanji in and had trouble remembering stories/how the kanji actually looked, and I just began to memorize the kanji in a rote fashion (i.e. writing them down repeatedly while repeating the story to myself). The possibility of me doing it completely wrong is great, so I'm not averse at all to never attempting Heisig's method again.

This Kanjidicks method, to me, seems more in line with how I thought Heisig's method worked to begin with. Has anyone actually used it, even as a supplement, and found it useful? I don't want to waste my time if it's just going to be a trash method to learning and remembering kanji.

>>2519406
Not sure but some are easy using those regular Kanji books out there.

I mean the basic kanjis and radicals (big, moon, sun, etc.) which you need for compounds.
You can learn them easily through repetion. Maybe that way you can restart heisig and use it more easily.

>>2519366
>spaced repetition software
system, actually.

>>2519406
How were you revising them? 100 kanji is about as much as you can learn with no revision at all. Ignore Heisig's advice to use active recall only, you should use both active and passive recall. And of course use a SRS, that will save more time than anything else.

are there any dl's out for the All About Particles book?

>>2519406
Did you use an SRS? Also, how many new kanji did you learn each day? Too many and you'll start confusing them.

>>2519436
>>>/rs/All+About+Particles

>>2519433
Was using Review the Kanji and Anki. Towards the end I used Review the Kanji more, since Anki was a bit confusing. I don't remember much of Heisig's advice, or the foreword for that matter, was a year ago when I first started to try Heisig.

>>2519438
Like I said, Review the Kanji and Anki. I was learning between 10-15 a day, I think.

The most important concept in SRS use is the "minimum information principle". Every card must be as short as possible. It's counterintuitive, but if can you split a card into two you'll probably spend less time on it total.

Time spent per card roughly follows a Pareto distribution - you get very few cards using a large amount of time. Supermemo calls these cards "leeches", and reducing cards to the minimum possible information context is the most important defense against leeches.

My method was

1. Heisig
2. Kana
3. Tae-Kim
4. Kanji Odyssey 2001 (Currently doing)

I would recommend it to anyone if you have the willpower to do Heisig(it can be tough).

I'm also taking classes cause I want a minor in Jap and that helps a lot with grammar.

>>2519438
The biggest problem I found with Heisig was memory interference. This still trips me up even now, as some keywords are stupidly similar, eg. "pole" and "poles". To fight memory interference, as soon as you confuse a kanji with another, add a card to your SRS asking you to distinguish between them. I've currently got 108 anti-interference cards in my Anki deck, and I should really add a few more.

>>2519504
And better yet is changing the keywords so they no longer interfere. It doesn't really matter if the keywords are perfectly accurate, you'll learn the real meanings eventually whatever you chose.

bump