Japanese in 18 Months? No way!!!

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Poke2201
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Japanese in 18 Months? No way!!!

Post by Poke2201 »

Yes its true, if you really wanted to challenge yourself, you yourself can learn Japanese in 18 months. Now everyone, DO NOT GIVE ME CREDIT FOR THIS, because this isnt even my work, all credit goes to the guy who made this site, a Multilingual African(Or so he says) who can now speak English(Swahili seems to be native for him), Cantonese(Mandarin failed due to him not following his own course), and the All famous Japanese Language. Now enough with the intros, lets go on to the Method itself.


Do you like Anime?
Do you like Manga
Do you like Light Novels?(IF YOU DONT LIKE LIGHT NOVELS WHY ARE YOU HERE? :shock: )

Well If you literally did just that, watching anime, reading manga and Light novels for 18 months without stopping, the creator theorizes that you could become a NATIVE level speaker.(Thats better than LVL 1 JLPT) But there are some rules as well, even though his method is more about you having fun than actually, deliberately learning. His main rule, and the name of the method....


All Japanese All the Time or AJAT for short.


Your life is now a Japanese child's life, you have given up your English lifestyle for a Japanese one. If your friends laugh and make fun of you, then go get new Japanese friends, :P . Music: Japanese, theres enough bands to replace the english in your life. Movies: Japanese(DUBBED NOT SUBBED!) TV: Japanese(There are japanese TV programs on the internet.). Your FLOOR MUST BLEED JAPANESE!(Note you need 10k hours of japanese listening, non-consecutively due to real life happenings that are unforseeable)

2nd Rule: F.U.N. If it isnt fun then it isnt good for you. If you have even the slightest feeling of boredom in your show or music, THEN SWITCH.

3rd Rule: Never stop, Never ever stop. This language will kick your but if you take too long off.

Those are what I believe are his main rules. And that's what i follow also.

As we move on, delving deeper into his method you're probably thinking,"What about those 2046 general Kanji I still gotta learn?!" Well, you are going to tackle that first. With a book(or file he has on his site) to help you memorize all the general kanji you will pass by them like a breeze. That book is called Remembering the Kanji Vol. 1. That book has all the kanji you need to memorize, and in a way that makes it easy also. There are 3 volumes by the author: James Heisig but you only need 1. If you wanted to you can also get Vol. 3 but its not required. To memorize all this in a way that wont waste your time, but maximize your memorization, you must get an SRS. SRS is spaced Repetition system, in which the computer spaces out review times so it can train your long range memory, and help you memorize the monstrosity of kanji in a small amount of time.

Now you are probably thinking, "What about Katakana and Hiragana?" Well, those come next. With another Heisig book, Remembering the Kana. Just like the kanji, you lather rinse and repeat.

After you learn both you still have the monstrous end goal of this method. 10,000 Sentences. Also, you must understand sentences, NOT TRANSLATE. Once you have put all those into the SRS(10k sentences?! Big deck eh?)you can understand how the sentences work and you will have both learned grammar(the most annoying part) plus words that you can now mix and match in japanese sentences.

At the end of all this craziness, I can positively say you are now a Native level speaker.

For more info go here: http://www.alljapaneseallthetime.com/blog/about
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b0mb3r
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Re: Japanese in 18 Months? No way!!!

Post by b0mb3r »

SRS still confuses me. what do you mean by computer? that we are to have chips in our brains?
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Dan
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Re: Japanese in 18 Months? No way!!!

Post by Dan »

No...

SRS is like flashcards, but regulated so that you review material that's easier for you only once in a while. Anki is a decent free SRS program if you want to try your hand at it.
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Re: Japanese in 18 Months? No way!!!

Post by Poke2201 »

Think of it this way...


You have 5 cards in an SRS.


2+2, 3+3, 5*2, 2^0, and 0+1.

if you know what 2 plus 2 is quickly you press easy on Anki(4 buttons on Anki: Easy, Good, Hard, Again.)

But say you it takes you a while to remember 2^0 then you put hard, and it will show much much earlier than 2+2(Depending on how many times youve seen the card, if you see it more than once without pressing again it will get longer)

Then you bomb 3+3, you press again, and sometime within the review session the SRS program will show it to you again.


So in a way, SRS is designed to make you remember lots of things over a long period of time, and helps you remember it for a long period of time. Also, this is the best way to study a course with a final, if you add in cards as you move along, and if you study them daily.
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b0mb3r
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Re: Japanese in 18 Months? No way!!!

Post by b0mb3r »

^ wait so cards as mean paper? not computer?
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Re: Japanese in 18 Months? No way!!!

Post by Dan »

"Cards" is the term used for the information. You can download Anki, and then download a "card pack" then use them like flashcards (only on computer).
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Re: Japanese in 18 Months? No way!!!

Post by Poke2201 »

But if i were you Id just find the file on Katzumotos site, and learn how to import .txt files through Anki. The Heisig decks I find on there do nothing to help me remember. Once i finish the Heisig Kanji, I will upload my deck to this thread so people can use it also with extra help with meanings in bold and building block kanji underlined.


Ex. A THOUSAND MOUTHS combine to make one huge TONGUE.



Thats what the deck i upload will look like.
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Akirasav
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Re: Japanese in 18 Months? No way!!!

Post by Akirasav »

Isn't it a bit strange to learn kana after you learn your kanji?
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Re: Japanese in 18 Months? No way!!!

Post by Poke2201 »

We all have to learn Kanji in the path to japanese -_-... Its like learning English through the street, you know some words, but you arent going to survive long in an official thing.(For you people who dont understand.... Anime Japanese DOES NOT CUT IT FOR LIFE. Knowing how to say 馬鹿犬!!! like Louise in Zero isnt going to get you far)


Quote from AJAT:

Why do you use so much kanji in your Japanese?
Good question. At least 9 reasons:
1. They’re beautiful
2. They’re logical
3. They carry more meaning
4. Why not?
5. The more you use them, the more people get used to them.
6. They’re easier to look up in a dictionary
7. It’s free!
8. They’re an integral part of Japanese — all kanji, no matter how apparently rare, do get used somewhere :D
9. Kana are just variant kanji
10. People should use or not use kanji out due to stylistic choice, not ignorance.

In every Japanese media, that have characters, will have Kanji. Theres no avoiding this, you cant just press a button and everything turns into kana, thats just too easy. Also...

”きしゃ’のきしゃ’わきしゃできしゃ’した”
Can you even under stand this?! Its like read and reed. They are the same, but the words are different.

Kanji:

貴社 の 記者 は 汽車 で 帰社 した。

See the difference? Its much much easier to read than that horrible hiragana line up there.(I wont translate because of the AJAT rules)
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Re: Japanese in 18 Months? No way!!!

Post by Akirasav »

Thanks for the response Poke.

I don't doubt the necessity of learning Kanji, I'm thinking about the order in which you learn the two.

Seems to me that you should learn kana first, then kanji.
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Re: Japanese in 18 Months? No way!!!

Post by Poke2201 »

I know it seems that way, but you gotta remember theres only 80 something kana...


and about 2k general kanji.



What would you do first that wouldnt waste as much time?

Also... If you know kana, you might be more inclined to NOT learn kanji because you know one set of japanese writing. But kanji is every where, and tbh, they are much easier to read than a block of kana. Also, if you know kanji first, you can practically read many documents in japanese. Kana is nice, but Kanji is more important because you can create words with kana. Kanji is only that word, and knowing 2k words in japanese already? I say thats a win.

Also the fact that kana is your japanese alphabet means there is a huge number of words that can be said through them.

Kana is easy, but you dont really learn much. Kanji, while harder because of 2k words... is much more beneficial because if you cant understand the kanji you cant read much japanese.
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Re: Japanese in 18 Months? No way!!!

Post by shichinanatsu »

.. wasn't sure which thread my query is supposed to be in, so i guess i'll wing it..

i'm in a bit of a pinch regarding name choices for characters in a story of my own.. to all the nihongo-literate in here, are these acceptable forms?

恋二 Renji
美恵 Mie

i thought of using kana, but as we all know kanji allows for more meaning..
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Re: Japanese in 18 Months? No way!!!

Post by joay_b »

Kanji usage in personal names is pretty much arbitrary, as far as I can remember. This makes for interesting situations where a man has a feminine personal name or the other way around. Kanji wordplay in personal names is a real possibility here :wink:

In short, it's your call 8)
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Re: Japanese in 18 Months? No way!!!

Post by cenatu »

i heard of this on myanimelist.net
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Re: Japanese in 18 Months? No way!!!

Post by altux »

actually, altux got some files(*.avi)
for a TV program named Let's learn japanese
There's 2 season, but there's some files missing

actually, it's pretty good, but as i don't have the patience and there are many work.
(well the actual reason is i easily got distracted and do other things)

There's also some files from Micheal thomas(but it's audio)
many say it help's you feel familiar with japanese language
haven't tried it though

what altux need maybe, is a friend that also want's to do the same thing,
and a teacher, without these two, it's hard to accomplish it
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