Best start for learning japaniese ?

[nff21]

the guide in forum kinda confusing for me so i want to ask is there a web for begginer learning japanase language ? or an online course ?

[pual]

Tae Kim is easy to digest, iKnow.jp used to be good for vocabulary but sadly it's not free anymore.

[Infernoplex]

Some random sites I came upon while browsing several days ago, I can't tell you how good they are since I didn't get serious into them so far but they definitively look like something that might help in Japanese studies, at least beginner level if nothing else:

- https://www.erin.ne.jp/en/ (Something by Japan Foundation, should be helpful);

- https://www.nihongo-pro.com/kanji-pal/ (good for learning Hiragana/Katakana and Kanji I guess, I did play a little with it, and somehow I managed to even learn some new Kanji, can be useful too);

If you need a good software for Kanji memorization and practice (as well as learning new vocab and stuff) and you have an android tablet or telephone, you should definitively look at Obenkyo because it's really an awesome program and unlike some other Kanji software, it's free (I think) and I didn't stumble upon any features that need buying though there might be some, I don't know, I use it for Kanji primarily and it looks like it doesn't have restrictions based on JLPT level, some other Kanji software do restrict it to only JLPT level 5, this one allows you to work with all jojo (standard) kanji up to level JLPT 1 (the levels are in reverse) ... and so it's good for that ...

There are some other memorization software out there like Anki and some others but I didn't really like them, the flashcard system is kind of a bother and I am more into quiz type of learning ... That's why another software of recommendation would be MemRise (also for Android OS), it's something I use too, so you should check it out if you want ...

As for other Japanese related stuff, like grammar, and other things, you should check Tae Kim's guide mentioned in the post above me. But if you want more you'll have to either buy some good Japanese textbooks like Genki and some other, from what I have seen there, they are very good beginner-oriented textbooks ... I guess you could pirate them if you aren't able to buy them now, those books aren't even available in my country so can't really judge anybody for pirating xD Though you should look out for different versions, I think it has two editions of the book, the 2nd one should be the latest (or so I believe) and it has Genki I and Genki II, it's two preety long textbooks + workbooks, tons of material and it looks aproachable from what I have seen.

Something also approachable is Japanese by Rosetta Stone though that one lacks in many stuff but I found it fun to go through, but it takes time to go through units there. Though you can't really learn stuff from there because it expects you to "figure it out" yourself, so it's preety much like a guessing software, but it's a fun experience to me, it could be much better if it had a textbook of some kind though

And yeah, start Kanji immediately if you plan on learning Japanese ... That's probably the most laborous thing about Japanese that I have found so far.

 

[Asonn]

 

[Fiddle]

33 minutes ago, Infernoplex said:

Some random sites I came upon while browsing several days ago, I can't tell you how good they are since I didn't get serious into them so far but they definitively look like something that might help in Japanese studies, at least beginner level if nothing else:

- https://www.erin.ne.jp/en/ (Something by Japan Foundation, should be helpful);

- https://www.nihongo-pro.com/kanji-pal/ (good for learning Hiragana/Katakana and Kanji I guess, I did play a little with it, and somehow I managed to even learn some new Kanji, can be useful too);

If you need a good software for Kanji memorization and practice (as well as learning new vocab and stuff) and you have an android tablet or telephone, you should definitively look at Obenkyo because it's really an awesome program and unlike some other Kanji software, it's free (I think) and I didn't stumble upon any features that need buying though there might be some, I don't know, I use it for Kanji primarily and it looks like it doesn't have restrictions based on JLPT level, some other Kanji software do restrict it to only JLPT level 5, this one allows you to work with all jojo (standard) kanji up to level JLPT 1 (the levels are in reverse) ... and so it's good for that ...

There are some other memorization software out there like Anki and some others but I didn't really like them, the flashcard system is kind of a bother and I am more into quiz type of learning ... That's why another software of recommendation would be MemRise (also for Android OS), it's something I use too, so you should check it out if you want ...

As for other Japanese related stuff, like grammar, and other things, you should check Tae Kim's guide mentioned in the post above me. But if you want more you'll have to either buy some good Japanese textbooks like Genki and some other, from what I have seen there, they are very good beginner-oriented textbooks ... I guess you could pirate them if you aren't able to buy them now, those books aren't even available in my country so can't really judge anybody for pirating xD Though you should look out for different versions, I think it has two editions of the book, the 2nd one should be the latest (or so I believe) and it has Genki I and Genki II, it's two preety long textbooks + workbooks, tons of material and it looks aproachable from what I have seen.

Something also approachable is Japanese by Rosetta Stone though that one lacks in many stuff but I found it fun to go through, but it takes time to go through units there. Though you can't really learn stuff from there because it expects you to "figure it out" yourself, so it's preety much like a guessing software, but it's a fun experience to me, it could be much better if it had a textbook of some kind though

And yeah, start Kanji immediately if you plan on learning Japanese ... That's probably the most laborous thing about Japanese that I have found so far.

I quite agree with these resources, but let me be persnickety and personally veto Rosetta Stone . There are a few good aspects inherent to Rosetta Stone; for example, I personally concur with the philosophy that a language should be learned from scratch, not bouncing off of one's native language, which Rosetta Stone accomplishes by merely offering the user pictures and situations rather than English words. However, this also turns out to be something of a bane when it comes to Japanese specifically. Japanese involves learning a convoluted writing system, which requires some careful thought on the part of the learner how to learn in balance with the language's other aspects. The reason Rosetta Stone is unable to address this is that their program fits every language into the same format which appears to have been based on some Romance or Germanic language. So, for example, it might introduce Spanish words to the reader (whose native language is presumably one that uses the Roman alphabet) to be learned, and in Japanese, those same words will be presented, but the reader will not know how to read the kana/kanji―of course, there's an option to use roumaji, if I recall correctly, but now the reader is skipping a pretty essential part of learning the language, which is being able to read kana/kanji fluently, because roumaji isn't helpful. Moreover, this situation that I spoke of, in which every language gets shoved through the same hole, causes even greater problems in terms of grammar. For example, having used Rosetta Stone for Spanish, I recall them teaching at length the concept of "acabar de" (to have just done something) relatively early on. Yet, in Japanese, this piece of grammar is not nearly a 1:1 translation. Rosetta Stone had the same concept taught, presenting it as merely appending ところ to the end of a clause, and there are several un-parallelisms here: 1) that structure in Japanese presents nearly no grammatical difficulty, so it should not be labored upon to the same degree as the Spanish version, 2) there are other, more subtle ways to express the same grammatical concept, yet Rosetta Stone presents it as though this is the only one, and 3) by virtue of the previous point, the phrase is not nearly as common as it might be in Spanish and English, so in no other learning context would it be taught as early as it is in Rosetta Stone.

So, out of the resources above, do stay away from Rosetta Stone. I can only imagine it being helpful for somebody who's traveling to Japan on business for a week and doesn't want to get lost and die.

[Infernoplex]

1 hour ago, Fiddle said:

I quite agree with these resources, but let me be persnickety and personally veto Rosetta Stone . There are a few good aspects inherent to Rosetta Stone; for example, I personally concur with the philosophy that a language should be learned from scratch, not bouncing off of one's native language, which Rosetta Stone accomplishes by merely offering the user pictures and situations rather than English words. However, this also turns out to be something of a bane when it comes to Japanese specifically. Japanese involves learning a convoluted writing system, which requires some careful thought on the part of the learner how to learn in balance with the language's other aspects. The reason Rosetta Stone is unable to address this is that their program fits every language into the same format which appears to have been based on some Romance or Germanic language. So, for example, it might introduce Spanish words to the reader (whose native language is presumably one that uses the Roman alphabet) to be learned, and in Japanese, those same words will be presented, but the reader will not know how to read the kana/kanji―of course, there's an option to use roumaji, if I recall correctly, but now the reader is skipping a pretty essential part of learning the language, which is being able to read kana/kanji fluently, because roumaji isn't helpful. Moreover, this situation that I spoke of, in which every language gets shoved through the same hole, causes even greater problems in terms of grammar. For example, having used Rosetta Stone for Spanish, I recall them teaching at length the concept of "acabar de" (to have just done something) relatively early on. Yet, in Japanese, this piece of grammar is not nearly a 1:1 translation. Rosetta Stone had the same concept taught, presenting it as merely appending ところ to the end of a clause, and there are several un-parallelisms here: 1) that structure in Japanese presents nearly no grammatical difficulty, so it should not be labored upon to the same degree as the Spanish version, 2) there are other, more subtle ways to express the same grammatical concept, yet Rosetta Stone presents it as though this is the only one, and 3) by virtue of the previous point, the phrase is not nearly as common as it might be in Spanish and English, so in no other learning context would it be taught as early as it is in Rosetta Stone.

So, out of the resources above, do stay away from Rosetta Stone. I can only imagine it being helpful for somebody who's traveling to Japan on business for a week and doesn't want to get lost and die.

Yes, that's true what you said, I mentioned Rosetta because I actually found it very interactive and I liked the approach of it, but after going through the first 4 lessons (1 whole unit) I realised all of its flaws and right now I am not using it even though I have it installed (I do intend to finish it off regardless of the flaws). You are right, they do use basically the same "template" if I may say so, for all languages, I have learned that by actually trying out Russian too (another language I might want to learn) and I noticed they basically use even the same pictures for everything, but I am not really bothered with that, I know Rosetta isn't meant to be real study material nor its addapted to the language it tries to teach and as I already said, it's flawed in the sense that it doesn't have any guidelines or helpbook or anything to even tell you what anything means other than your guessing based on the input you are given like pictures and situations ... I find that fatal when you simply can't guess stuff, even with pictures, though I did find on the net some resources, people who have been completing the course and they've tried translating everything but even with all of that, I find it lazy that the developer himself didn't include it. And there is absolutely no way to learn grammar with it, I know, it does have some kind of "testing" some little bits of grammar but it never explains what it is or why is it like that, for that I need to google stuff up to see what's up with particles and other grammar stuff.

The reason I am using it is because I think that I am memorising some stuff preety good with it, like vocabulary for example, and by the way, yes, it does have 4 writings - romaji/kana/kanji/furigana ... In the beginning I was using only romaji but soon ditched it because it feels un-natural to read it like that and then switched only to kana ... I have actually completed the first part of unit 1 when I stopped Rosetta to look at other learning sources when I heard people saying that I should use kanji as much as possible ... And since then I am switching between kana and kanji, I actually found a use for Rosetta, I think I am memorising some vocab very easily with it now, as well as kanji (as well as some readings for kanji too), for example - whenever I think of 牛乳 (gyuunyuu) now I am suddently reminded of a picture of a kid with milk from the Rosetta Stone, and I know what these two kanji have as a meaning, so I do remember some stuff that way, it helps me visualize it and Rosetta is very interactive in the sense that it isn't just read-through, it's basically a quiz which I like about it the most, though I did find bugs in voice-recognition and such, it's still a fun experience even though it's far from perfect.

I mentioned it because I thought OP might like something like that but it's probably not the solution if he wants to get serious into the language and Rosetta as you said is preety much not adapted to Japanese, which as an exotic language that cannot be taught in the way you teach Western languages and that's where it fails, I guess you're right to veto it.

Right now I am going through this textbook: http://www.tuttlepublishing.com/books-by-country/beginning-japanese-textbook-paperback-with-disc

It seems to be okay-ish I guess, in my opinion it might be even easy but that's the way I am fine with it, I am currently not at the level to learn through any complicated material, after I am done with it I will probably go for Minna no Nihongo or Genki but more advanced stuff will have to wait for at least a year or two before I get the sense of kanji and some other stuff ... I preety much learn Japanese out of a hobby, not in school and such so I am fine with the methods I am using so far.

Edited September 3, 2016 by Infernoplex
typo

[sanahtlig]

Tae Kim, hiragana + katakana memorization, then text hooking VNs and using JParser as a reference for a few years should do the trick.  That's more or less equivalent to what I did (I started out with a year of Japanese courses instead of Tae Kim).

[nff21]

3 hours ago, Infernoplex said:

Some random sites I came upon while browsing several days ago, I can't tell you how good they are since I didn't get serious into them so far but they definitively look like something that might help in Japanese studies, at least beginner level if nothing else:

- https://www.erin.ne.jp/en/ (Something by Japan Foundation, should be helpful);

- https://www.nihongo-pro.com/kanji-pal/ (good for learning Hiragana/Katakana and Kanji I guess, I did play a little with it, and somehow I managed to even learn some new Kanji, can be useful too);

If you need a good software for Kanji memorization and practice (as well as learning new vocab and stuff) and you have an android tablet or telephone, you should definitively look at Obenkyo because it's really an awesome program and unlike some other Kanji software, it's free (I think) and I didn't stumble upon any features that need buying though there might be some, I don't know, I use it for Kanji primarily and it looks like it doesn't have restrictions based on JLPT level, some other Kanji software do restrict it to only JLPT level 5, this one allows you to work with all jojo (standard) kanji up to level JLPT 1 (the levels are in reverse) ... and so it's good for that ...

There are some other memorization software out there like Anki and some others but I didn't really like them, the flashcard system is kind of a bother and I am more into quiz type of learning ... That's why another software of recommendation would be MemRise (also for Android OS), it's something I use too, so you should check it out if you want ...

As for other Japanese related stuff, like grammar, and other things, you should check Tae Kim's guide mentioned in the post above me. But if you want more you'll have to either buy some good Japanese textbooks like Genki and some other, from what I have seen there, they are very good beginner-oriented textbooks ... I guess you could pirate them if you aren't able to buy them now, those books aren't even available in my country so can't really judge anybody for pirating xD Though you should look out for different versions, I think it has two editions of the book, the 2nd one should be the latest (or so I believe) and it has Genki I and Genki II, it's two preety long textbooks + workbooks, tons of material and it looks aproachable from what I have seen.

Something also approachable is Japanese by Rosetta Stone though that one lacks in many stuff but I found it fun to go through, but it takes time to go through units there. Though you can't really learn stuff from there because it expects you to "figure it out" yourself, so it's preety much like a guessing software, but it's a fun experience to me, it could be much better if it had a textbook of some kind though

And yeah, start Kanji immediately if you plan on learning Japanese ... That's probably the most laborous thing about Japanese that I have found so far.

 

wow thx XD especially obenkyo i never heard of that i found it kinda interesting XD

[Infernoplex]

12 minutes ago, nff21 said:

wow thx XD especially obenkyo i never heard of that i found it kinda interesting XD

Obenkyo is quite famous actually, wonder how you never heard of it before XD There's some other software too but I personally found Obenkyo the most appealing to me, there's also Anki which you will find mentioned everywhere and it's available for both PC and Android unlike Obenkyo that is available only on Android ... Though I guess you could use Blue Stacks to run Obenkyo on PC if neccesary, I was thinking about doing that but since I have a tablet I really don't have a need for it on PC too.

[Deep Blue]

1- Learn hiragana then katakana (find a method that works for you)
2- Learn N5 level of vocabulary
3- Start with this guide and then this one  for a more in depth explanation and more examples.
4- Keep studying vocabulary, 10-50 words a day.
5- Start reading, read read read read!
6- repeat 3 to 6 your whole life xD
 

[Infernoplex]

16 minutes ago, Deep Blue said:

3- Start with this guide and then this one  for a more in depth explanation and more examples.

That second link looks quite nice ... I mean ... Quite a lot of stuff there xD Insta-bookmarked for later references and uses