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Learning to Read Japanese


Kyoroto

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I have been reading English/Fan - Translated VNs for only a short amount of time and there are so many more VNs I want to play in the near future.

But there are still so many visual novels untranslated and translating them can take years of time. I have also seen a lot of dead translation projects which were dropped half way through.

 

That's why I have a questions to those who have learnt or are currently learning Japanese:

 

* How long does It take to read fluently?

* How difficult is the language to learn?

* Is it really worth learning?

 

 

 

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I'll answer the last first:  The answer is yes, Japanese is worth learning.

The answer to the second is varied depending on your talents and personality.  In my case, learning Japanese was easier than Spanish, because there were no obvious common elements to trip me up.  For other people it seems to be different.

Depends on how willing you are to devote time to it in the first place.  Going to a college-level class, you would need at least two years to be able to achieve something vaguely approaching Japanese mastery.  Learning on your own, you could probably pick it up faster, if you had the right level of obsession, situation, and state of mind. 

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* How long does It take to read fluently?

* How difficult is the language to learn?

* Is it really worth learning?

As a person learning Japanese I felt like dropping my personal thoughts

 

1 - It depends on many things but mostly your own personality. You can manage to "read" it pretty quickly (hell if you know kana and put furigana on every kanji you can literally read everything), but you will likely not manage to "comprehend" it that fast. There's no set pace, it's all up to you.

 

2 - I wouldn't say it's that difficult when compared to other languages. I find my own language (Portuguese) way more complex (grammar wise) than Japanese is. The hardest part to learning it is mostly interiorizing the fact that it's entirely different from anything you've seen before (assuming you live in a western country) and you need to make room in your brain to create new concepts for a completely new language whereas more western languages usually have concepts that relate to each other. At least that is how I personally felt when I started learning it but once you start thinking in Japanese (key step to learning any language is to think in the language you're learning) you can get a much better grip.

 

3 - Yes. It is always worth learning. This goes for any language, not just japanese. Knowing more languages opens up new doors for you in many occasions.

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1.  It took me ~2 yrs spare time study, and then ~1 yr of reading to go from dog-slow to pleasantly-brisk speed.  Keep in mind that I have never been to Japan and that I deliberately avoided spending time on speaking and writing practice

 

2.  I found it hard compared to the other foreign language I studied (German) because it was so different from what I was used to in English--Japanese vocabulary doesn't match up with English at all, and neither does the grammar, and neither does the writing system.  But I never thought it would be impossible.  If your average Japanese person can learn to read English (and even write a little though it's usually odd), then why can't your average English-speaking person learn to read Japanese?  Anyway that's what I told myself.

 

3.  If you have to ask if it's worth it, then maybe that means it isn't worth it for you.  But it was worth it for me.  Here are some reasons why:

I really like dating sims and visual novels and other games which mostly don't get translated.

I'm fascinated by languages for some reason.  So studying a language is not boring.  And reading in a foreign language doubles the fun of whatever I'm reading.

I don't like putting up with the inaccuracies, incorrect English, and/or excessive localization of the translations they offer us (by "they" I mean the professional publishers as well as the fan translators...)

 

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I'm learning Japanese, so I guess I'll share my personal views and experience on it.  (I took 4-semesters of it in school, and so far ~1.5yrs self-study).  Also, in that self-study time I only focused on improving my reading... so my speaking/writing is quite dismal in comparison (only basic level from school).  

 

1.  Being able to read the more basic Japanese (limited kanji), probably in only a couple months.  To read fluently and comprehend though, it depends how much grammar you've learned coupled with kanji & vocabulary so that could take years.  The amount of years depends on the individual I think (how much time they spend to study, methods, motivation, etc).  I'm not really sure if I'd even consider myself fluent yet... I could read more easily with help of text hooker though.

 

2.  I personally felt it was very difficult because it's so different from what I'm used to (English was the first language I learned to read in, and second language I spoke in).  I also understand/speak Vietnamese, but its thinking & structure is very similar to English too so that didn't help much at all.  I have to completely change the way I think when learning Japanese (like open my mind up more, and think differently? Almost learning from scratch.  I feel like English is very 'closed/direct' while Japanese is more 'open-ended/flowing' if that makes sense).  Japanese to me is difficult, but not impossible, which is why I keep trying to get better at it.

 

3.  Sometimes it's frustrating to learn… but in the end, I do think it's worth it.

  • Although I came to appreciate fan-translations, I was also tired of entirely relying on them to play/read what I wanted.  So I thought learning it myself would open a whole new kind of world to me that I could enjoy… and it does (hopefully more when I can get better).
  • I also love Anime/JRPG/Visual Novels and Japanese-related stuff so I thought it'd be a perfect addition to my hobbies.  It's interesting when you notice more things you wouldn't have caught before.  Like the way english translations could be different from the literal meaning, character kanji names or anime titles, sometimes character personality, etc.
  • It's something I can keep getting better at for a loonnng time… so in a way, it's a nice challenge and can also be fun to learn sometimes.  There's a sense of accomplishment when you can look back and see improvement.

I think this is an important question that you seriously have to think about before learning Japanese (since I personally think it takes a lot of effort and time).  You should only learn it if you feel like it's worth it, or it'll be easy to give up on.

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As a person learning Japanese I felt like dropping my personal thoughts

 

2 - I wouldn't say it's that difficult when compared to other languages. I find my own language (Portuguese) way more complex (grammar wise) than Japanese is. The hardest part to learning it is mostly interiorizing the fact that it's entirely different from anything you've seen before (assuming you live in a western country) and you need to make room in your brain to create new concepts for a completely new language whereas more western languages usually have concepts that relate to each other. At least that is how I personally felt when I started learning it but once you start thinking in Japanese (key step to learning any language is to think in the language you're learning) you can get a much better grip.

I am South Korean so I dont think I should have to many problems getting used to Japanese since sentence structures, etc. are similar to Korean.
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I'll answer the last first:  The answer is yes, Japanese is worth learning.

The answer to the second is varied depending on your talents and personality.  In my case, learning Japanese was easier than Spanish, because there were no obvious common elements to trip me up.  For other people it seems to be different.

Depends on how willing you are to devote time to it in the first place.  Going to a college-level class, you would need at least two years to be able to achieve something vaguely approaching Japanese mastery.  Learning on your own, you could probably pick it up faster, if you had the right level of obsession, situation, and state of mind. 

 

 

As a person learning Japanese I felt like dropping my personal thoughts

 

1 - It depends on many things but mostly your own personality. You can manage to "read" it pretty quickly (hell if you know kana and put furigana on every kanji you can literally read everything), but you will likely not manage to "comprehend" it that fast. There's no set pace, it's all up to you.

 

2 - I wouldn't say it's that difficult when compared to other languages. I find my own language (Portuguese) way more complex (grammar wise) than Japanese is. The hardest part to learning it is mostly interiorizing the fact that it's entirely different from anything you've seen before (assuming you live in a western country) and you need to make room in your brain to create new concepts for a completely new language whereas more western languages usually have concepts that relate to each other. At least that is how I personally felt when I started learning it but once you start thinking in Japanese (key step to learning any language is to think in the language you're learning) you can get a much better grip.

 

3 - Yes. It is always worth learning. This goes for any language, not just japanese. Knowing more languages opens up new doors for you in many occasions.

 

 

1.  It took me ~2 yrs spare time study, and then ~1 yr of reading to go from dog-slow to pleasantly-brisk speed.  Keep in mind that I have never been to Japan and that I deliberately avoided spending time on speaking and writing practice

 

2.  I found it hard compared to the other foreign language I studied (German) because it was so different from what I was used to in English--Japanese vocabulary doesn't match up with English at all, and neither does the grammar, and neither does the writing system.  But I never thought it would be impossible.  If your average Japanese person can learn to read English (and even write a little though it's usually odd), then why can't your average English-speaking person learn to read Japanese?  Anyway that's what I told myself.

 

3.  If you have to ask if it's worth it, then maybe that means it isn't worth it for you.  But it was worth it for me.  Here are some reasons why:

I really like dating sims and visual novels and other games which mostly don't get translated.

I'm fascinated by languages for some reason.  So studying a language is not boring.  And reading in a foreign language doubles the fun of whatever I'm reading.

I don't like putting up with the inaccuracies, incorrect English, and/or excessive localization of the translations they offer us (by "they" I mean the professional publishers as well as the fan translators...)

 

 

I'm learning Japanese, so I guess I'll share my personal views and experience on it.  (I took 4-semesters of it in school, and so far ~1.5yrs self-study).  Also, in that self-study time I only focused on improving my reading... so my speaking/writing is quite dismal in comparison (only basic level from school).  

 

1.  Being able to read the more basic Japanese (limited kanji), probably in only a couple months.  To read fluently and comprehend though, it depends how much grammar you've learned coupled with kanji & vocabulary so that could take years.  The amount of years depends on the individual I think (how much time they spend to study, methods, motivation, etc).  I'm not really sure if I'd even consider myself fluent yet... I could read more easily with help of text hooker though.

 

2.  I personally felt it was very difficult because it's so different from what I'm used to (English was the first language I learned to read in, and second language I spoke in).  I also understand/speak Vietnamese, but its thinking & structure is very similar to English too so that didn't help much at all.  I have to completely change the way I think when learning Japanese (like open my mind up more, and think differently? Almost learning from scratch.  I feel like English is very 'closed/direct' while Japanese is more 'open-ended/flowing' if that makes sense).  Japanese to me is difficult, but not impossible, which is why I keep trying to get better at it.

 

3.  Sometimes it's frustrating to learn… but in the end, I do think it's worth it.

  • Although I came to appreciate fan-translations, I was also tired of entirely relying on them to play/read what I wanted.  So I thought learning it myself would open a whole new kind of world to me that I could enjoy… and it does (hopefully more when I can get better).
  • I also love Anime/JRPG/Visual Novels and Japanese-related stuff so I thought it'd be a perfect addition to my hobbies.  It's interesting when you notice more things you wouldn't have caught before.  Like the way english translations could be different from the literal meaning, character kanji names or anime titles, sometimes character personality, etc.
  • It's something I can keep getting better at for a loonnng time… so in a way, it's a nice challenge and can also be fun to learn sometimes.  There's a sense of accomplishment when you can look back and see improvement.

I think this is an important question that you seriously have to think about before learning Japanese (since I personally think it takes a lot of effort and time).  You should only learn it if you feel like it's worth it, or it'll be easy to give up on.

I would like to thank you all for sharing your experiences!

I have decided to learn Japanese by myself and take on this challenge

Even though it might take a very long time to learn Japanese I am confident in my determination

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  • 5 weeks later...

I am a self learner I'm still learning Japanese so I can't give you any appropriate advice.Lets hope the replies above gave you some useful methods to read and write Japanese.

It took me two months to completely learn Hiragana and Katakana.Now I think it's been one month after learning the basics that I'm stuck in Kanji.

If there is one thing that I can tell you,It's that Kanji sucks!It's too hard.I don't know about most people but learning Japanese was very easy for me until Kanji came knocking my door with a "YOU ARE NEXT" label slapped on it.I have memorized some Kanji but it is no where near 50 let alone 2000+ Kanji in order to understand Nihongo like a Nihonjin.

I don't mean to scare you or anything but if you really started learning Japanese then be ready for Kanji and Japanese grammar.

One method I used in order to familiarize myself with Nihongo was by watching many Japanese movies and of course animes.Thanks to that I learned some Japanese grammar and many useful one word meanings.

I just hope I'm finished by the time Key releases all its episodic visual novel of Angel Beats!

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* How long does It take to read fluently?

Depends on how hard you work and what kind of studying you do. In general, you can become fluent in speaking in about a year, and become able to read at a native level in 1-2 years. If all you want to do is learn how to read VNs (which in my opinion, isn't the same as learning Japanese) it'd take the average person a year.

 

* How difficult is the language to learn?

There are three major hurdles you must overcome when learning how to read the language.

1) Over 9000 kanji combinations

2) Learning to read between the lines through nuance and context (reading comprehension)

3) Slang (new ones seem to arise every few months...)

 

* Is it really worth learning?

If you have the time, and if you have nothing better to do, then sure. I mean, it definitely wouldn't hurt to learn a new language.

But if you're asking if it will be useful outside of reading VNs... In most cases, probably not.

 

I helps if you are either Korean or Chinese, because the former helps with understanding grammar while the latter helps with kanji.

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I guess it's been a month already since you've decided to start learning Japanese and I'd like to hear your initial thoughts :)

 

I've been studying Japanese for ~18 months now but I focus not only on reading but also speaking/writing and everything that's

important for someone who wants to live another country.

 

One question that's related to this topic arose in my mind and I'm asking the more experienced read-only Japanese learners here:

 

Do you just learn the Kanji and their meanings or do you actually study how to read it if you had to read it out loud?

It's something I've been asking myself over and over and I'd really like it answered

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I studied the readings, too.  I wouldn't have to do this if it were always possible to discern the meaning of a word you've never seen from the individual kanji.  Sometimes it is.  Sometimes is isn't.  But in fact, I don't see how you could get by without it unless

-your vocabulary is so vast that you never have to look up words with a dictionary

-you always use a text hooker or furigana, in which case you could argue that you don't really have to study kanji anyway

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2 - I wouldn't say it's that difficult when compared to other languages. I find my own language (Portuguese) way more complex (grammar wise) than Japanese is. The hardest part to learning it is mostly interiorizing the fact that it's entirely different from anything you've seen before (assuming you live in a western country) and you need to make room in your brain to create new concepts for a completely new language whereas more western languages usually have concepts that relate to each other. At least that is how I personally felt when I started learning it but once you start thinking in Japanese (key step to learning any language is to think in the language you're learning) you can get a much better grip.

 

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My roommate is the whitest guy you would ever meet and he's doing fine learning japanese. It may or may not be easier, but in the end it simply comes down to how much effort/time/thought you are putting in to it. Much like learning anything. 

 

I personally learned Japanese in the worst way possible, but I eventually ended up somewhere by putting in enough time and effort and embracing failure. 

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My roommate is the whitest guy you would ever meet and he's doing fine learning japanese. It may or may not be easier, but in the end it simply comes down to how much effort/time/thought you are putting in to it. Much like learning anything. 

 

I personally learned Japanese in the worst way possible, but I eventually ended up somewhere by putting in enough time and effort and embracing failure. 

Isn't your roommate black...?

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I am a self learner I'm still learning Japanese so I can't give you any appropriate advice.Lets hope the replies above gave you some useful methods to read and write Japanese.

It took me two months to completely learn Hiragana and Katakana.Now I think it's been one month after learning the basics that I'm stuck in Kanji.

If there is one thing that I can tell you,It's that Kanji sucks!It's too hard.I don't know about most people but learning Japanese was very easy for me until Kanji came knocking my door with a "YOU ARE NEXT" label slapped on it.I have memorized some Kanji but it is no where near 50 let alone 2000+ Kanji in order to understand Nihongo like a Nihonjin.

I don't mean to scare you or anything but if you really started learning Japanese then be ready for Kanji and Japanese grammar.

One method I used in order to familiarize myself with Nihongo was by watching many Japanese movies and of course animes.Thanks to that I learned some Japanese grammar and many useful one word meanings.

I just hope I'm finished by the time Key releases all its episodic visual novel of Angel Beats!

 

Maybe this will help you, when I started learning Japanese it was really difficult to memorize all the hiraganas and katanas (im starting with kanji now) but i found a book that explains all of them in a rather silly way with little stories, but it's working really well with me, (I wish i had it back then when i started learning) to give you an example the あ(a) hiragana is explained as a sword stuck in a "No symbol" which is too the の(no) hiragana (not exactly but it's similar) It is silly but maybe it will work for you too.

 

This is the book http://www.amazon.com/Remembering-Kanji-Complete-Japanese-Characters/dp/0824835921/

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One question that's related to this topic arose in my mind and I'm asking the more experienced read-only Japanese learners here:

 

Do you just learn the Kanji and their meanings or do you actually study how to read it if you had to read it out loud?

It's something I've been asking myself over and over and I'd really like it answered

 

I've been reading vn's in jp for about a year now. Btw I use TA, it displays furigana over the kanji's.

You don't really need to have much knowledge on kanjis if you use TA. I'd advice to study a few hundred basic ones though. As they are used in so many different situations.

 

I learned the kanji, meaning and readings in parallel as I got exposure to them while reading. Reading was a like studying the text at first. After a while you can read the words at a glance.

This way of doing it is kinda lacking in learning individual kanjis btw. As many kanjis being used are in compounds (ie 2 or more kanjis together). You practice the readings of each kanji though...

 

So no, I haven't bothered to study how what the kanji readings are. As I haven't needed to.. You need to know the readings to read in Japanese btw. Otherwise your subvocalizing would be mighty hilarious, you'd read like. I cute desu ka? I very nihonjin desu. Might as well take the rest of the day off and sign up to JLPT1 xD

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Do you just learn the Kanji and their meanings or do you actually study how to read it if you had to read it out loud?

It's something I've been asking myself over and over and I'd really like it answered

I actually learned Kanji individually first.. before tackling any real reading (not inside grammar books).  Like I went through ~1800 but then I stopped since I didn't really feel like I needed to go any further and it wasn't really helping learning Kanji I hardly ever encountered.  Some good things I got out from that.. I guess I noticed patterns, and I probably still have faint memories of what I learned stored in my brain somewhere.  When I encounter it again, it's easier to remember or re-learn since I've already seen it before.. and the ones I still recognize just reinforces better.

 

I'm currently trying a different approach.  Instead of learning the Kanji individually now, I'm learning kanji vocabulary readings and as I read them.. that way, I learn them in context which could help me remember better since I'm actually Using them.  I do think this is helping, and I'm also building more vocabulary at the same time.  

 

If you want to actually read.. it's probably better to learn Kanji in reading instead of individually.  But learning the Kanji individually doesn't hurt either I think.. it can help you remember the vocabulary better and even predict vocabulary reading/meaning you haven't encountered before (but not always).  I think eventually, you'd have to learn both somewhere down the line... I guess just learn it the way you're most comfortable with, and what works best for you.

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