Learn Japanese Together: Super Challenge 2013

[Forythos]

The free version of Slime Forest was pretty good for learning kana and some kanji, I recommend it as well. Feels less like studying and more like playing, and helps setting some goals within the game.

I finaly managed to get Anki working. Seems like it was my own fault for messing around with my timezone and stuff to get past the "This Game is Japan Only!" message from the Clannad Memorial Edition, while still retaining the time from my actual timezone.

[zoom909]

Not sure where else to put this, so I'll put it here.

I'm trying to use light novels to improve my reading ability.

Started on Mayoi Neko Overrun in earnest today.

Just like the old days with manga, and VNs, I had tried a couple of times in the past, found it way too hard, & gave up.

This time, it seems to be working. I know it's going to be slow--there's no AGTH/EDICT/mouse-over dict to fall back on. Just an endless wall of vertical text.

But that's okay. If I have to study, then at least I'll be practicing on something I like...

[Sprinkler]

Maybe this question got already answered but does it really take around one hour per day only for learning 25 new kanji plus reviewing old ones? I remember me trying to use Anki and soon got overwelmed by all the reviews and I was only doing 10 or 5 new cards per day. How do you get through them that fast?

[Zakamutt]

Well, learning 34 kanji tends to take me about 40 mins to an hour - I put a lot of effort into my story memorization and am usually a bit mentally tired after that. Reviews are usually 30-50min as I do one card per 25s while reviewing (and generally have a few fails). In general I would advise splitting up reviewing the old kanji and learning + reviewing the new into different sessions if possible. It's also possible that we're just more mentally suited to it

[jaxter0987]

Maybe this question got already answered but does it really take around one hour per day only for learning 25 new kanji plus reviewing old ones? I remember me trying to use Anki and soon got overwelmed by all the reviews and I was only doing 10 or 5 new cards per day. How do you get through them that fast?

Well it usually took me around an hour to learn 15 new kanji a day + reviewing old ones. It might take you a bit more but after awhile, you start noticing that you never take more than x amount of time to do your studying each day. Plus, once Anki became a routine, I felt like I was breezing through reviews (that is, when I don't run into trouble remembering some of them).

[garejei]

I'm starting to think I'm the only one on the planet who learned kanji without ever using Anki. haha. I see people swear upon it all the time but it just never worked out for me personally. Instead I kept -and still keep- an actual physical notebook, so this improved my writing as well. Soon enough I was writing kana as fast as latin letters, without having to stop to think.

In any case this topic isn't really for me, but if we're allowed to share advice, then here goes my wall o' text. It's actually something I wrote for a beginner friend a while ago, so I'm only going to copy/paste it here. It's about memorizing kanji. I'm not saying this is the best and only way, it's just what worked for me.

As for memorizing kanji, my own method was to first learn the most basic kanji (starter textbooks help with this, see Genki 1-2) to give me a good, solid base to work with. There are also JLPT vocab lists, look 'em up. But then it's all about the kanji compounds and mental connections. I don't think you really need to sit and memorize each reading individually (onyomi/kunyomi). Way too time-consuming. Although, as always, I have no right to declare what's a "good" or a "bad" method. I'm just sharing what worked out for me. Instead, you should consider learning new kanji by associating it to stuff you already know. You will also, over time, naturally familiarize yourself with the various readings of each kanji. Random example:

You will learn very early that 来る (kuru)　is "to come". Then a bit later you'll learn that 未来 (mirai) is future. Oh shit, the kanji for kuru is pronounced as "rai" in that compound! You've just learned a new reading, which you will also see in 来年 (rainen - next year, the "coming" year)、来週 (raishuu - next week)、来月 (raigetsu - next month) and so on. Similarly, one of the first kanji people learn is 食べる (taberu), to eat. Then, still as a beginner, you'll come across 食事 (shokuji), which can also mean "meal". As you can see the kanji for taberu is pronounced in compounds as shoku, as in shokuji. Then, when you see stuff like　食材 (shokuzai - food ingredient)、食欲 (shokuyoku - appetite) and so on, you'll already know how to pronounce it. There are always exceptions, but at this stage you shouldn't worry about it. Then, having seen 欲 (yoku), you might move onto something like 欲望 (yokubou, desire/lust), and you might also go, hey, isn't that second character "bou 望" from 希望 (kibou, hope/wish/aspiration, a desire for sth. in a way), HOLY CARP ALL THESE LOGICAL CONNECTIONS. This is just the surface of things, but you get what I mean.

The Japanese language is awesome in a weird way because sometimes you can also guess the meaning of a kanji if you don't necessarily know how to pronounce it, just by examining the kanji it's made up from. Example: 後悔（する）(koukai(suru))　By this point you may know that 後 is generally speaking "after", and 悔 (from 悔む, kuyamu) is to lament something. Put them together, you have a general meaning of "lament something after(wards). You guessed it, the meaning of 後悔（する） is to "regret" something. And as we know regretting is done *after* you've fucked up. Another cool example is 助言 (jogen), which is constructed from (助, 助ける - tasukeru - to help someone) and 言 (to remark/say something, generally related to talking/language), therefore the two put together as 助言 is literally "helpful saying/remark". It's not very hard to figure out that 助言 means "advice/suggestion". Pretty cool, amirite? And guess what, you've also just learned that the kanji of tasukeru can also be pronounced jo, like in 助手 (joshu - assistant, the two kanji literally meaning "helping hand"). 助言 (jogen) also tells you that 言う (iu, to say) can appear as "gen" in compounds (like 発言, hatsugen - utterance), and from joshu (助手) you can also find out that the kanji for hand (手 - te) becomes "shu" in compounds, which you will later see in other examples such as 手術 (shujutsu - operation/surgery), or 手段　(shudan - method/means/way of doing sth, handling sth), and so on. My point here is that everything is connected to everything, so you learn new things from... well, everything rather quickly if you pay attention and take the time to read and jot down everything. It's all a big puzzle waiting for you to solve it.

My method worked out for me personally just fine. Still, if my applied linguistics/language pedagogy studies taught me anything, it's that there is not "best" way to learn a language. So I think you should always be open to other methods and finding out what is the most comfortable for you. (I actually haven't read any of Heisig's books either, although I keep telling myself I should find the time to skim through it at least)

One book I found really useful is マンガで学ぶ日本語会話術, especially if you want to be able to speak as well, not just read. It gives you the various nuances and is basically a "what to say, when, and how" sort of book. Its greatest advantage is that it contains language the way it's actually spoken by natives instead of boring and stale "classroom Japanese". (half the book is basically a manga illustrating various situations in daily life, the workplace and so on).

So anyway hopefully this was at least a bit helpful to some of you who are still uncertain regarding how to go about studying.

[zoom909]

I'm starting to think I'm the only one on the planet who learned kanji without ever using Anki.

Nope.

As for memorizing kanji, my own method was to first learn the most basic kanji (starter textbooks help with this, see Genki 1-2) to give me a good, solid base to work with. There are also JLPT vocab lists, look 'em up. But then it's all about the kanji compounds and mental connections. I don't think you really need to sit and memorize each reading individually (onyomi/kunyomi). Way too time-consuming. Although, as always, I have no right to declare what's a "good" or a "bad" method. I'm just sharing what worked out for me. Instead, you should consider learning new kanji by associating it to stuff you already know. You will also, over time, naturally familiarize yourself with the various readings of each kanji.

I agree. It feels natural to learn this way. Eventually, I think you do need to memorize the individual readings. But I only did that _after_ I learned to read basically using the same method you outlined in your post.

The Japanese language is awesome in a weird way because sometimes you can also guess the meaning of a kanji if you don't necessarily know how to pronounce it, just by examining the kanji it's made up from.

Well, I don't know about "awesome". Basically I think an ideographic writing system has to have that property in order to survive. Otherwise, how could it hope to compete with the efficiency of an alphabet, where you can look up any written word immediately...

Besides, as you say it only works sometimes.

空調 as air conditioning makes sense, because it's literally "air/sky, tuning/regulation"

空港 as airport makes sense because it's literally "air/sky, port/harbor"

速度 speed is "fast, degree"

But what about these:

素人 how do you get Novice from "bare/plain, person"?

非難 how do you get Criticism from "not, difficult"?

In fact, it seems like the more advanced/technical words can be broken down by meaning, whereas the more everyday words can't (as if they've been around so long that the meaning has drifted somehow)

My method worked out for me personally just fine. Still, if my applied linguistics/language pedagogy studies taught me anything, it's that there is not "best" way to learn a language. So I think you should always be open to other methods and finding out what is the most comfortable for you. (I actually haven't read any of Heisig's books either, although I keep telling myself I should find the time to skim through it at least)

Well, for me it was clear I didn't want to use Heisig, or any method that tries to teach you kanji without learning the core language. Why? Because on my shelf are dozens of manga that I successfully read, all shounen (and some shoujo) manga which all have furigana. Clearly, I would not take advantage of those if I had spent my time studying kanji first. It's a similar story with VNs, except that you have to know at least a reasonable number of kanji, or the reading pace will be terrible.

[jaxter0987]

I'm starting to think I'm the only one on the planet who learned kanji without ever using Anki. haha. I see people swear upon it all the time but it just never worked out for me personally. Instead I kept -and still keep- an actual physical notebook, so this improved my writing as well. Soon enough I was writing kana as fast as latin letters, without having to stop to think.

I was under the assumption that keeping a notebook to write your reviews in while doing Anki was the norm.

[Zakamutt]

The main (potantial) difference is that you only write it down once per review (or only once, while learning it. Not sure about this anymore...).

[garejei]

Well, like I said, my post above was partly a pep talk given to a friend who wanted to learn Japanese but was intimidated by the kanji. Hence the "awesome". =P

Honestly I have no idea what "the norm" is, everyone has a different way of learning I suppose. But I did know people who kept vocab in just a text file without any actual notebooks.

Hell, just by browsing through online threads related to learning Japanese all over the internet, one could assume that Anki + RTK is the norm, based on how often people recommend them. And I did neither of those things. *shrug*

[jaxter0987]

Well, like I said, my post above was partly a pep talk given to a friend who wanted to learn Japanese but was intimidated by the kanji. Hence the "awesome". =P

Honestly I have no idea what "the norm" is, everyone has a different way of learning I suppose. But I did know people who kept vocab in just a text file without any actual notebooks.

Hell, just by browsing through online threads related to learning Japanese all over the internet, one could assume that Anki + RTK is the norm, based on how often people recommend them. And I did neither of those things. *shrug*

When I said norm, I just thought that everyone who was trying the Super Challenge was doing this. As everyone has already stated, everyone has their own ways of learning. I just though that was what the description was asking of the viewer.

[Okami]

Please help me

The more I reed here the more confused I get so can someone please explain some things to me? I started learning Japanese Faw mounts ego but I am pretty much doing the opposite thing from what people are doing here. You see I started with learning how to speak Japanese and I didn't spend my time on Japanese latters/characters it seemed as logic thing to do as it is the same way I learned to speak the 2 languages that I speak now my native language and English and only once that I had good knowledge in speaking and understanding them I started learning how to write them and read them. But for some reason everybody who is trying to learn Japanese is doing the opposite way and it totally confuses me. I downloaded the books remember the kanji 1,2,3 and Remembering the Kana 1 and 2 from James w. Heisig (I will post the links at the end of the post if someone needs them) and there is something that bothers me and that is that there is (in kanji case) the kanji character than meaning of it and short explanation but it doesn't say how it is pronounced in Japanese so I really don't get how can I learn Japanese that way and I can't find the book that have an explanation of how are they pronounced too. And when it comes to Kana it is even more complicated and I don't get anything at all. I have a pretty good memory so learning this 3000 kanji characters from book 1 & 3 isn't problem for me and most probably I could do it for 3-6 months but I really don't get where would I go from there, no matter how long I try to figure out Kana I don't get anything about it if anything I am only more confused the more I look at it. And even if I somehow manage to figure it out I still don't get where would I go from there, so can someone give me the bigger picture as I really can't see it. I don't say that this method is bad I just don't understand it and I need someone to explain me this method of learning as I used completely different method for learning English but than English is a lot different from Japanese and they are both even more different from my native language. The reason why I don't get this method is probably because of my native language where once you know how to speak it, you don't need more than a few hours to learn how to write it read it as there is only one rule "write the same as you speak" and because of this when I learn a new language I always start with learning how to speak it. But till now I never saw this as a problem as besides my native language and English that I speak very well I also know a little bit of 3 other languages. 2 that I learned in school (Russian and German) and 1 that my grandmother was teaching me when I was a kid (Slovakian) because she was Slovakian and she wanted me to know it. (I latter drooped learning those languages as I was never interested in them in the first place and I was learning them only because I had to, also I wanted to concentrate more on learning English but that doesn't really matter). The point is I always learned a new language by starting to learn how to speak first so I really don't get this method and I need someone to explain me to it.

PS: And I wanted to write a small post, but I started explaining my situation and whenever I start talking about myself I just can't stop myself. It is a bad habit of my so sorry for the long post.

Oh yea I said that I will post the link for those books so here are they.

Remembering the kanji 1-2-3

http://kickass.to/remembering-the-kanji-t1413901.html

Heisig's Guide to Remembering the Kana 1-2

http://kickass.to/heisig-s-guide-to-remembering-the-kana-t879097.html

[zoom909]

Seems like that method is for people that don't know any real Japanese yet at all.

If you already know the core spoken language, the traditional method of learning the characters might work faster for you than the Heisig method.

[Zakamutt]

The idea of RtK is for the characters to stick in your memory, not to learn everything about the characters. This way, you can later memorize the kanji in compounds, and other meanings / readings / etc for the kanji more efficiently... or at least that's what I imagine the point to be. If you want to become proficient in reading japanese, it seems like a pretty clever solution, though hardly the only one.

Oh, and... you should probably use paragraphs a bit more often :s

As for the kana that's kind of easy to learn to be honest, so I'm not sure what your problem is

[Okami]

As for the kana that's kind of easy to learn to be honest, so I'm not sure what your problem is

This is my problem with kana:

There is 2,3 different characters that are pronounced the same and I can't figure out meaning for it (This is the bigest problem). And also it seems that when you read words in Kana some characters are pronounced differently like for example:

Wolf in Japanese is sad Okami but it is written like this のオオカミ

の-No

オ-o

カ-ka

ミ-mi

But it can also be written like this オオカミの or this オオカミ. The last one is understandable there is just 2 of オ because of some grammar thing but the other 2 オオカミの and のオオカミ is what confuses me as this の isn't pronounced "no" anymore but when you learn kana it doesn't say that の can be pronounced any differently.

[shcboomer]

I think most Japanese people or at least a lot of them would just use the kanji 狼 and not worry so much about the rest.

[zoom909]

Kana phonology is regular. And there is no meaning for individual kana. Only sounds.

Kanji phonology is irregular. And each kanji has meaning.

Spoken words can be written with either kanji, or kana, or both. Maybe that is the hardest part to understand...?

[Okami]

I think most Japanese people or at least a lot of them would just use the kanji 狼 and not worry so much about the rest.

If I am not mistaken not all words can be written in kanji and even if that is not the case it is still like trying to use English with knowing only half Latin letters as Japanese is written with the combination of both Kana and kanji.

[Mephisto]

Kana is like any alphabet, you have to get used to it. You'll hear everyone say it's easy, because it is easy once you have seen it a million times. You need to dedicate at least a week to getting the basics of hiragana/katakana down, maybe longer if you're short on time, and then you just have to constantly come in contact with it and you'll find it to be easy eventually.

Don't worry about the seemingly contradictory information here, as there are numerous methods to learn a language, and the best one varies for each person.

Since this hasn't seem to have progressed from the kanji stage... I guess you could say that the method described here is mostly for learning/memorizing the radicals that make up kanji.

With this method you are learning the kanji's that make up japanese(and chinese for that matter), but you aren't learning the things that make up the japanese language (the kana, how to say it, grammar, how it's used).

I've found that trying this out is a good motivator to get you started in learning japanese, and it may be a helpful supplemental tool, but you will want to use other sources as well.

Also, regarding your "knowing how to speak it", this will definitely help. I learned how to speak Chinese first as well [which is why my speaking ability is much higher than my reading/writing capability]. Since you probably won't have anyone in real life to speak japanese with, your best bet to developing it further is by listening [watching anime, reading VNs]. If you ever decide to try to translate something, I believe there are a lot of add-ons that can turn kanji in to furigana (hirigana above the kanji's). Of course, you need to learn Hiragana and Katakana first before doing that. [it s

[Okami]

Mephisto thanks now I undertand some things but I still don't get the stuff about kana that was bugging me the most and that is why there is 2-3 different Kana letters that are all the same. look at the picture that I posted above there is 3 different characters and they are all read as KA than 3 different characters that are all read as KI and it is all the same there is always 2-3 different Kana characters that are read the same or at least it is what it looks like.

[Mephisto]

If I am not mistaken not all words can be written in kanji and even if that is not the case it is still like trying to use English with knowing only half Latin letters as Japanese is written with the combination of both Kana and kanji.

Don't think about Japanese like a single alphabet language.

Here's an example line from Eternal Heart. [if you don't want spoilers don't click it I guess?]

わかった。俺もほんとは、少しの間だとしても、メアとは離れたくないんだ

Hirigana: Wakatta (verb). mo (particle) honto (noun, typically appears in Kanji. Doesn't have to). wa (particle). shi(part of sukoshi) no (particle) dato (particle) shite (verb, conjugated with -te ending), mo(particle), to (particle) wa (particle) retakunai [part of hanaretakunai, conjugated with past negative] 'n da (particle/ er.. speech quirk?)

Kanji: Ore (subject), Sukoshi (adjective) Kan[subject being modified] Mea[name/subject| in EN its Mare] Hanaretakunai (verb)

What you can see from this sentence is that some basic elementary verbs exist in the hirigana form. (Wakaru, suru) It is also used to conjugate verbs. The base verb lies in the kanji, and the tense/negative/ect. is modified with hirigana. Hirigana also composes all the particles, which essentially define the grammar of the sentence. As for honto(本当), it has a kanji to represent it, but it doesn't have to be in kanji just because the word there exists for it, because a sound also exists for it, and people will understand by reading it phonetically.

As for the kanji, pretty much all kanji will be either subjects, adjectives, or verbs. They sort of help act as 'focal' points while reading I guess?

In case you care, I TL;ed the line to roughly:

"I understand. To be honest, even if it's only for a little while, I don't want to be separated from you."

Hope that helps, but I was kind of rambling so it's probably rather incoherent.

Edit: The sound of the kana never changes. It's always the same. The way the word itself is said may change.

[Zakamutt]

There are two alphabets, not three - hiragana and katakana. Hiragana is used for japanese words and iirc words of chinese origin as well most of the time; katakana is used for loanwords (and thus has a rather greater range of pronunciations which can make deciphering the feeble attempts to copy other languages fairly difficult at times). What you are looking at seems to be pictures of how the kana evolved from complicated symbols to simpler ones.

This should help: http://amaterasu.tin...e/Alphabets.php

[Okami]

What you are looking at seems to be pictures of how the kana evolved from complicated symbols to simpler ones.

This should help: http://amaterasu.tin...e/Alphabets.php

So wait if I get this right only the characters outside of the box (in this picture) matters and the one in the box are old version of them that aren't used any more? If that is the case then it greatly simplifies things. Thanks alot that was I great help (If I get it wrong please correct me).

@Mephisto also thanks you, I won't say that I completely get everything that you sad but still thanks.

[Mephisto]

The characters in the box are kanji.

The characters outside of the box are hiragana.

Kanji = words

Hiragana = alphabet

Different words may use the same letters of the alphabet.

So multiple words can be pronounced "ki" or "ka" or whatever.

[Okami]

The last few days I continue learning how to speak Japanese but I tried focusing a little bit on reading/writing too. I did it as when I learn how is some word sad on Japanese I go to Google translate and type that word so I can see how it is written, and now there is something that bothers me. For example I learned that key on Japanese is sad kage and it is written like this キー now this I what confuses me:

#1 "キ" should be katakana characters that is pronounced as "KI" so if key is sad "kage" then why would it be written with a character that is pronounced "KI" instead of the character that is pronounced "KA"

#2 But this second character "ー" is what bothers me even more a have downloaded 2 books one that has all katakana characters in them and a second that has all Hiragana characters in them together with an explanation of how they are pronounced, and in them this character "ー" doesn't exist. So it is neither Hiragana nor katakana and it can't be Kanji as Kanji are words so then what is it? Am I missing something and there is another Japanese alphabet that I don't know about or what?

Can someone please explain me what is going to hire.