Learning Nihongo (Japanese)

[Rain611]

Good morning, all. Or rather, Ohayou gozaimasu.

I've been teaching myself Japanese for about a week now (technically 2, but I took a week off of my studies when my husband came home from college on his summer break) and have managed to learn something like 30 words/phrases and around 35 letters from the Hirgana alphabet.

I figured it would be worth a shot to see if anyone on the forums either speaks/writes Japanese and could help me out, or perhaps there is someone like me who would like to learn. I find that it's always easier if you can practice with someone

This is a project I'm doing to keep myself busy until my husband graduates from college. I'm hoping to learn as much as I can by then.

Arigatou gozaimasu.

 

[KennedyKiller]

I took two years of Japanese, and still have my notes, but due to such life changes, I haven't been able to study as much as I'd like. I still remember the basics, and I'd be happy to practice with you sometime somehow if you'd like!

 

[Rain611]

That would be awesome I think maybe simple sentences to start would help, maybe verbs. What do you think, having taken 2 years worth of classes?

 

[KennedyKiller]

I'd say basic words, coupled with Sentence Structure is probably the best way to go. That's how we did it at least lol.

 

[Rain611]

Ok, well I have a question as far as sentence structure goes then. I know that some articles are used to mark parts of a sentence, like using ni to mark the time. However, I have noticed some sentences where this isn't done. Is it only used for exact measures of time?

And as for words, I know numbers, days, months, and a few phrases.

 

[AgentZero]

I don't know it, but I would be interested in learning it. I'm currently teaching myself to speak Latin, but if I can squeeze time in, I would love to!

 

[KennedyKiller]

Ok, well I have a question as far as sentence structure goes then. I know that some articles are used to mark parts of a sentence, like using ni to mark the time. However, I have noticed some sentences where this isn't done. Is it only used for exact measures of time?

And as for words, I know numbers, days, months, and a few phrases.

Sort of. Basically, it depends on if you're wanting to speak in the traditional proper Japanese, or laymen's terms. Basically, it's grammatically correct to say it, however, much like the word "Ain't" it will be said just because it's become part of casual conversation, and isn't technically correct, but socially acceptable.

 

[Maestro]

I need to learn English first, after that I'll think about other languages

Now seriously, I also tried to learn Japanese, even bought some books (phrasebook, full alphabet and grammar rules), but after few weeks I lost my enthusiasm (and, honestly, I don't know why ), but I learned some grammar rules, basic phrases and even first 45 signs of Kanji (1st class of primary school in Japan, lol). Who knows, maybe I'll come back to learn this language some day (but first in order, after fluent English, is Finnish).

May I ask why do you want to learn Nigongo?

 

[Rain611]

My last post was deleted apparently lol. But basically it's a way to keep my mind busy during the times I'm separated from my husband because he goes to college 8 hours away. Also, learning languages as always been something of a pass time of mine.

Also, for those who said they would like to learn, I have a couple of web sites that I use to help, PM me if you want links- I'm not sure if I can post them here. But I've managed to finally memorize all 46 Hiragana characters and am working on Katakana still... it's taking me forever to memorize it for some reason. I've finally gotten around to actually making sentences too, which is always a nice breakthrough when learning a language.

And for those of you who do speak Japanese, have you noticed any patterns in the Katakana alphabet that would make it easier to memorize?

 

[KennedyKiller]

Honestly Rain, I find the Katakana alphabet VERY difficult. If YOU find a trick for it, lemme know. That's one of the hardest parts of Japanese...

 

[Rain611]

Lol, wow. I don't feel so bad anymore. I know there are a few characters that look similar to their Hiragana counterparts, such as he (obviously lol), ka, ko (loosely I guess), mo, ni, ri, se, te, and ya. So those I can usually identify, as well as the base sounds, a, i, u, e and o. Other than that, I'm not entirely sure how to approach it other than taking it a few characters at a time... but if I do notice something I will let you know

Oh, and I forgot to mention. One of the ways I've decided to learn more Katakana characters is to simply learn it as I go, which was my first strategy to initially learn Hiragana (since there were so many characters to learn), which is to basically learn a few words and commit to memory the characters from those words. Doing this, I was able to learn 4 or 5 words per day and usually twice as many characters.

There is a lesson I'm working on online about making sentences with "Watashi wa" in which it lists the different Katakana spellings for various nationalities. I've picked up a few extras that way. Hopefully that will work, at least until I have most of the characters memorized.

 

[KennedyKiller]

Lol, wow. I don't feel so bad anymore. I know there are a few characters that look similar to their Hiragana counterparts, such as he (obviously lol), ka, ko (loosely I guess), mo, ni, ri, se, te, and ya. So those I can usually identify, as well as the base sounds, a, i, u, e and o. Other than that, I'm not entirely sure how to approach it other than taking it a few characters at a time... but if I do notice something I will let you know

Oh, and I forgot to mention. One of the ways I've decided to learn more Katakana characters is to simply learn it as I go, which was my first strategy to initially learn Hiragana (since there were so many characters to learn), which is to basically learn a few words and commit to memory the characters from those words. Doing this, I was able to learn 4 or 5 words per day and usually twice as many characters.

There is a lesson I'm working on online about making sentences with "Watashi wa" in which it lists the different Katakana spellings for various nationalities. I've picked up a few extras that way. Hopefully that will work, at least until I have most of the characters memorized.

See, the way I went about it, and I'm not saying your way is wrong at ALL, is I started with the base of a, i, u, e, o, and from there learned ka, ki, ku, ke, ko. Well from those ten letters you can make several words. Once I was proficient with those, and had them memorized, I moved on to sa, shi, su, se, so. Learned even MORE words by stringing them with the aforementioned. And from there I would just add to the alphabet after becoming more proficient.

 

[Rain611]

Yea, and that's something I started doing when I came across one of the sites I found recently, because up until then, I hadn't even seen Hiragana (or Katakana) broken up like that, so I already knew most of the characters before then. I do think, however, that that may be my secondary strategy to learning Katakana. With me, the more organized my source material, the better off I am.