Learn Japanese Together: Super Challenge 2013

[shcboomer]

Welp completely confused sa with chi. I can accept my mistake with ko and ni though, as I often made that mistake back when I was trying to learn them.

I eagerly await the day I'm confident enough with my Japanese to attempt translation.

Just keep at it, there is no better way to learn but to read things and check if you are reading it correctly.

[Mephisto]

Watch watch watch does a part of the job too. Watching anime while paying attention to what is said - if you have the basic grammar done - will let you grab tons of vocabulary and expressions and understand in context the uses of the 123954 verb forms that are the only real grammar point of japanese. I found that learning the kanjis for adjectives or nouns you already know is quite easier.

Oh yeah I totally forgot, but my Japanese got a LOT better when I started actually watching anime. Watching helps a LOT, because things make more sense when they're heard.

As for writing, writing definitely helps a lot with recall, so if you are able to you should try to write as well. I simply find it easier to read than to write. [if it's like chinese, most people don't write anymore anyway, so it's not a completely necessary skill unless you want to send snail-mail or sign a document or something]

[Time]

I'm in, I start now. Or more accurately a long time ago. I already know kana, and am learning kanji and am somewhere between grammar and advanced. I think I will finish getting to advanced in the next month or so.

[Yukiru]

i'm going to create one of the weirdest memories that i can get by studying japonese on wikipedia~

i'll tell you the end of the story in more or less half a year  

[Tay]

i'm going to create one of the weirdest memories that i can get by studying japonese on wikipedia~

i'll tell you the end of the story in more or less half a year  

Oh, wow.  Please do.  What an interesting idea.

[shcboomer]

i'm going to create one of the weirdest memories that i can get by studying japonese on wikipedia~

i'll tell you the end of the story in more or less half a year  

This is going to be interesting...

[Silvachief]

I've been learning Japanese over the past few months. Having done Hiragana and Katakana, i'm now at the stage where i'm learning 25 words (kanji + readings or just hiragana/katakana) per week. It's not particularly fast but it's what I can manage alongside my university course.

 

Before I started learning the way i've chosen to, I had a look at the Anki/RTK method. I really didn't like the idea of not learning how to actually say the words in Japanese, so I decided to look for something else.

 

What I found was a website called Memrise, which works with a similar flash card method but also includes the pronunciation of words and even voiced examples. Better yet, it's all free and it even reminds you when you need to go over what you've learned to keep it in your long term memory. Rather than the 2000+ commonly used kanji, it's based off of the Japanese Language Proficiency Test Vocab. I'm not sure whether that's a good thing but I figure that by the time I finish it I should be able to read VNs while looking up the Kanji I don't know and making my own courses on Memrise. I've already started making a course for Tae Kim's grammar guide vocab, which is what i'll be using the learn the grammar, similar to you guys.

 

If anyone's interested, I recommend courses in this order:

 

Introduction to Japanese: http://www.memrise.com/course/12/introduction-to-japanese/

Katakana Enhanced: http://www.memrise.com/course/122395/katakana-enhanced/

JLPT N5 Readings: http://www.memrise.com/course/122927/jlpt-n5-readings/

And from there you can progress to N4, N3 etc.

 

Good luck to everyone else learning! Japanese is a real challenge to learn but i'm enjoying it, especially since i'm starting to recognize a lot more words used in anime and Visual Novels.

[jaxter0987]

I tried Memrise before taking the Anki method. I studied most of the Hiragana with it but I felt like it wasn't what I wanted to get from learning Japanese. I was more concerned with reading and writing in Japanese rather than speaking it. That said though, I took a long break from the Anki method during the summer so I'll probably end up starting all over from the beginning soon.

[Crimrui]

Just started the Japanese course, and I'm kinda happy that I'm given a chance to learn it... finally. I'm saying ''kinda'' cuz' I moved into a new city in a rented room and new job is killing me and classes are done pretty late so aside from that I don't have any free time. Still, little sacrifice for something even greater can't be that bad.

 

Anyway, I'm just a 3-4 classes in and I can say that it's kinda nice when Japanese letters don't like ancient/alien writing anymore. (no disrespect of course) I'm pretty sure that when I get to kanji it will be a nightmare...

[Dark Ariel7]

I may be a little late but I have to add my name to the list.

I have about 200 kanji down well over 1k vocab and crappy grammar. But I have confidence in my listening skills. I am the master of time-spent-watching-anime-over-a-condensed-period-of-time. Over 100 series in years including multiple series with over 100 epsiodes(*ahem* one piece naruto ranma bleach and more *ahem*)

This is my second year studying but I took a long break so it more like my first. I am far below what I want to be at but I will try hard and update every week.

My goal is the Benkei route in majikoi A-1 by the end of the year. It has weel over 1.5k Kanji but most of them are used less than 10 times. So I will learn the top 300~400 and hope that that is enough. If anyone here has tried the route how would you rate the difficulty?

[Dark Ariel7]

This is a blog I made to keep track of my progress and I will post here when I update.

LINK

[Dark Ariel7]

My update for the week!

[Link]

[Blackex]

If its not to late i would like to join to. I kinda started learnign kanji. I know the whole katakana or was it hiragana not so sure anymore and around 30 kanji i am kinda lazy to continue so i saw this thread and kinda got some motivation(hope it lasts)

[Arturia]

I have always wanted to learn...Only wish I found this earlier..Thank you for the Opportunity and I would really like to participate.
I do not know how long or when I will get the book to start myself but I will try my hardest till then..
By the way could I get a "Buddy" you could say.. One of the crappy habits I got is I don't stick with a single Objective for long so I would like someone to check my work and help me get motivated xD.

[Tay]

We're getting down to the wire in 2013 -- but I hope everybody's still working hard!  I've not updated my blog in ages, but I'm almost done with the Kanji and started learning some grammar on the side for fun.  I'd love to hear how the rest of you are doing.

[Flutterz]

I'm probably not going to bother making a blog, since I'll most likely forsake it in a few days. I've gotten a bit lazy with reviewing Kanji on Anki, if I don't remember a Kanji I just press good and hope I'll remember it next time. But I've been reading Da Capo III for a week now, adding every single word I come across to Anki, and as a result I currently have 807 cards in my Vocab deck.

[Zakamutt]

Sad truth is, I've got around 120 reviews stacked up and haven't learnt any new kanji in a week or two. Habit just dropped. Goddamn turkeys. over 600 kanji memorized, for what it's worth.

[Tay]

Don't give up!  Just work review time into your schedule!  Back down to something crazy like 4 new kanji a day if you have to, but don't stop!

 

Three sentences, three exclamation points.  I should probably go to bed.

[Yukiru]

i only have over 100, i used to know more, but laziness got me back and even though i know the meaning i forgot the Kun and On reading. Luckily angel beats! is getting closer and i'll do as much as possible to read it.

[Kaguya]

i'm going to create one of the weirdest memories that i can get by studying japonese on wikipedia~

i'll tell you the end of the story in more or less half a year  

 

That is indeed interesting, kouhai of mine. I want to hear in detail about what happened afterwards~

[cryofrzd]

I wish everyone good luck with this honourable mission!

 

You'll discover the beauty of the Japanese language, I myself will haste a little more slowly as I follow a Japanese course in University that goes a little slower (slower than my pace). But, I haven't scored below A on the tests yet (94% and above), and I'll try to keep that up. I'm guaranteed a exchange year/half year in Japan in 2 years where I'll concentrate on Japanese, and study it whole time ... in Japan! And of course read a bunch of VNs.

 

 

[Silvachief]

While i'm going slower than you folks (~ 25 kanji/week) i'm up to 175 Kanji learned. I'm thinking about creating a course to learn vocab needed for the grammar guide so I can get started on the grammar while i'm still learning kanji.

[Nosebleed]

I hope it's not too late to start this now.

I figured with all my free time lately i'd do something productive and learning japanese seems like something extremely useful to me.

I hope i can catch up with some of you at some point. Let's work hard~

Really big thanks to Tay for even posting this as i'd have never gathered up the courage to figure out how to learn japanese properly without a solid method.

Time to study now.

 

Just one doubt, I don't have a budget to buy the actual book so i downloaded all 3 volumes but they're the 4th edition. Are there major changes with the 5th edition or is it still useful?

I can alwas update my decks to match of course, i just wanted to know for sure.

[Flutterz]

I hope it's not too late to start this now.

I figured with all my free time lately i'd do something productive and learning japanese seems like something extremely useful to me.

I hope i can catch up with some of you at some point. Let's work hard~

Really big thanks to Tay for even posting this as i'd have never gathered up the courage to figure out how to learn japanese properly without a solid method.

Time to study now.

 

Just one doubt, I don't have a budget to buy the actual book so i downloaded all 3 volumes but they're the 4th edition. Are there major changes with the 5th edition or is it still useful?

I can alwas update my decks to match of course, i just wanted to know for sure.

Good luck, but keep in mind that you need to need to study consistently, taking breaks begets taking breaks, and quitting means you've wasted all the time you've spent. Hope I'm not being too negative ^^

There's a 5th edition download on one of the first posts, unless the download is down. Also you only really need the first book and the free supplement PDF, together they have all the joyo kanji which are by far the most important to learn.

[Bolverk]

I hope it's not too late to start this now.

I figured with all my free time lately i'd do something productive and learning japanese seems like something extremely useful to me.

I hope i can catch up with some of you at some point. Let's work hard~

Really big thanks to Tay for even posting this as i'd have never gathered up the courage to figure out how to learn japanese properly without a solid method.

Time to study now.

 

Just one doubt, I don't have a budget to buy the actual book so i downloaded all 3 volumes but they're the 4th edition. Are there major changes with the 5th edition or is it still useful?

I can alwas update my decks to match of course, i just wanted to know for sure.

It's a while since I did the RTK. But if I remember right. The best way of doing it for free was downloading RTK 5 and using a supplement RTK supplement pdf. That way you would get the most updated version.

 

Imo you should focus on completing RTK 1. Or more like, if you complete RTK 1 you don't want to do RTK 3 xD. Imo, you should learn the 2200 kanji by RTK 1. Then after that learn extra kanji's reading Native content. Not reading RTK 3.