How do I start learning Japanese?

[apple pro]

(I'm starting a new thread so not to hi-jack t he other one.)


What's the easiest way to learn how to read japanese? I don't care about talking, I just want to be able to read original japanese manga.

I can spend about $50 and am open to any way possible.


Thanks all! :D

[Hikari Tsukishiro]

If you are in high school, take Japanese classes. That would be the best way.

Books and tapes help, but they won't help you fix your bad habits you pick up learning.

[apple pro]

If you are in high school, take Japanese classes. That would be the best way.

Books and tapes help, but they won't help you fix your bad habits you pick up learning.


I am a 25 yr old working for a boring corporate entitiy.

Any book in particular?

[Hikari Tsukishiro]

Then I would suggest college classes, but that costs way over 50 bucks.

As for books, I wouldn't know. I just used my japanese textbook.

I would suggest using Rosetta Stones, a Japanese learning computer program but that is also way over 50 dollars.

[Cowlander]

Then I would suggest college classes, but that costs way over 50 bucks.

As for books, I wouldn't know. I just used my japanese textbook.

I would suggest using Rosetta Stones, a Japanese learning computer program but that is also way over 50 dollars.
::cough filesharing cough::

[Pikachu]

I've used both the Yokoso and Genki textbooks. Yokoso tends to have more vocabulary, but Genki was more well ballanced and easier for me to follow/comprehend.

The transition from beginner book to intermediate is also smoother in Genki.

After I passed the intermediate state I found the 200 Essential Japanese Expressions guide book. This and the subsequent 500 Essential Japanese expressions for advanced users have been the best texts I have ever used.

For first time learners, I would recommend Marc Bernabes Japanese in Mangaland series. These text books combine manga drawings with practical Japanese language lessons which are excellent if you want to learn how to read, learn some Japanese, and be able to understand certain elements in manga that differ from every day language.

As for my dictionaries I ust the Kodansha's Essential Kanji Dictionary for looking up 2,000 plus Kanji characters. It has three easy kanji look up methods including: by radical, on/kun readings look up, stroke order/number look up, which make finding the exact kanji you need to locate easy and efficient (often times faster than using the electronic dictionary).

I also use an electronic dictionary, and for any Japanese person or advanced Japanese speaker, this becomes the must have tool for high end users. It also works well for beginner, but I recommend you study hard & memorize as much as possible before relying on just an electronic dictionary. They may be marvelous tools, but they can act as a crutch as well. My model is a few years old, but I use a CANON IDF-4600 Intelligent Dictionary series.

Top that off with 4 years of formal university language classes, and having lived in Japan I am considered fluent in Japanese. This means I can hold a fluent conversation for considerable time with listening around 90% comprehension, and read a book with limited assistance. The goal of almost any Japanese language student is to be able to read a Japanese newspaper, as it is the most complex form of the language. However, it's not exactly a language you can peg as being 100% fluent in, because there's always more kanji or new hogen (regional dilect), and zokugo (slang) to learn. Not to mention the difficulties of kego (honorific) words, which is a language itself within the language. The only way to really get a grasp of the language, like anything else, is to experience it first hand by going to the country it is spoken.

Manga isn't cake however, because reading it and knowing all the kanji and words doesn't necessarily mean you'll understand it. Manga uses so much contemporary slang and is written in conversational format (much like American comics) that understanding the conversational style dialogue means having an awareness and comprehension of certain "speaking" elements of Japanese that you typically don't see in standardized text books or novels.

Although, there are manga for most every level of reader, so finding something within your skill level range is doable. For instance most SHONEN JUMP titles have furigana (the small hiragana a katakana) printed alongside the difficult kanji so understanding the words becomes easier. These books are typically targeted at a 15 age group. However books like Tenjou Tenge or Vagabond are targeted for more adult level readers and so the furigana is non-existant making these books more advanced reading.

These are just the means I have implimented in learning the language. Manga itself becomes one of the best tools later on, as my drive and love for the medium forced me to study manga and so study my vocabulary & grammar too. It really does help you improve if you're motivate to do it correctly and take the necessary time to work hard at it. One of my roomates wasn't big on manga but loved J-Pop music and so he translated the Japanese from the CD booklets and improved his Japanese that way. Japanese is not a language you can learn overnight. It's not latin based like Spanish or other languages, so picking it up by ear or merely reading thoroughly won't happen at all.

You can find all of the textbooks and certain electronic dictionaries at www.j-list.com. Although they are a bit expensive, you still can find things there that most American books stores don't carry.

Pika!

[Paploo the Ewok]

There's a series of books called Kanji de Manga, that teaches Kanji to english speakers.

Although I might suggest a quick http://www.google.com which'll probably find you assorted websites. Look for .edu ones, which'ld be academic institutions, as a lot of teachers post supplemental stuff online, as well as hirigana and katakana charts.

Also handy are Japanese-English and English-Japanese dictionaries. These are VERY affordable, and a great start. Mine set only cost about 12 bucks cdn each, although my English-Japanese dictionary is a bit better formatted- look for reliable publishers on them. Also, check out your local library, whcih might have something on it, and obviously won't cost much :) If you have a University nearby that teachers japanese, they probably won't mind you browsing their library stacks either.

Once you've gotten a start, you'll get a better idea of which texts will suit you.

[apple pro]

thanks all,

i may take a adult continuing education class. i just did my taxes, deducting this stuff is pretty awesome.

[Robin3]

By the way, there's a program called "instant immersion japanese" that is sold for $30 or less at CompUSA in the discount area. you might try that if your budget is low.

[sanada]

I honestly wouldn't recommend most Japanese classes taught in high schools or colleges, as they simply don't give you enough immersion in speaking or writing. That's why few people who take their 2 years of high school Spanish acquire much conversational or reading ability, and why they tend to forget it all pretty quickly. Learning set phrases like you do in most intro language classes also isn't very helpful if being able to read manga is your eventual goal. Likewise, concentrating on reading won't help you as much if you want to speak Japanese, so it really depends on what your interests are. If you want to *speak* Japanese, books really aren't that useful.

First, realise that it's going to take time, probably years, to read well. But that doesn't mean you can't read anything more interesting than beginner textbooks. Once you get a good foundation in basic Japanese grammar and verb/adjective conjugation, along with a really quick grasp of hiragana/katakana, you can actually start reading. Find a fairly easy manga and just start plowing your way through it. You'll have to look up a LOT of words, and it gets very frustrating, but it feels more "real" than the scripted dialogues in Japanese textbooks. Transcibing the text of the manga will also help you learn to write more naturally and recognise characters, but it's important to learn the proper stroke order for kanji. This is so you can use the Microsoft Japanese IME to draw kanji into Word using your mouse, and use that to look up totally unfamiliar words in an online dictionary. ^^;; You may also try Japanese children's books. At some point you'll need to approach Japanese in a more formal way and learn proper grammar and essential kanji and all that, but if you're just starting out you should try to keep things fun and natural so you don't get frustrated.

I started out with the crazy idea in high school to teach myself Japanese using only a hiragana chart and a few Japanese copies of "The Violinist of Hamelin" manga... and somehow or other, it actually worked, so now a few years later I translate for a scanlation group and I can talk to my Japanese friends. Of course classroom training and lots of interaction with native speakers was needed to speak Japanese, but I have to say that hands-on translating, even at the roughest stages when I was just starting, has taught me how to read more than any class did.