Japanese in 18 Months? No way!!!

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Cosmic Eagle
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Re: Japanese in 18 Months? No way!!!

Post by Cosmic Eagle »

Hayate-sama wrote:
For food ?
To get more LNs and other otaku stuff.....

I cook my own food when I'm at home....
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――罨――
阿謨伽尾盧左曩 摩訶母捺囉摩抳 鉢納摩 人嚩攞 鉢囉韈哆野吽
地・水・火・風・空に偏在する金剛界尊よ
今ぞ遍く光に滅相し奉る!
天地玄妙神辺変通力離――
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Hayate-sama
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Re: Japanese in 18 Months? No way!!!

Post by Hayate-sama »

Cosmic Eagle wrote:
To get more LNs and other otaku stuff.....
those are the food for your brain :lol:

you are a Singaporean right ? I heard Singaporean eat out mostly from my tour guide when I visit there :?:
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Re: Japanese in 18 Months? No way!!!

Post by Cosmic Eagle »

Obviously I'm not damned effing rich like the rest of my country-men (read: I have better things to spend on than mere food)
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――罨――
阿謨伽尾盧左曩 摩訶母捺囉摩抳 鉢納摩 人嚩攞 鉢囉韈哆野吽
地・水・火・風・空に偏在する金剛界尊よ
今ぞ遍く光に滅相し奉る!
天地玄妙神辺変通力離――
卍曼荼羅ァ――無量大数ゥ!
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YoakeNoHikari
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Re: Japanese in 18 Months? No way!!!

Post by YoakeNoHikari »

Ah...What's this word? Sorry, don't have/use AGTH.

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Re: Japanese in 18 Months? No way!!!

Post by rpapo »

YoakeNoHikari wrote:Ah...What's this word? Sorry, don't have/use AGTH.

Image
Using http://kanji.sljfaq.org/mr.html, I was able to decipher the characters to be「痙攣」.

In WWWJDICT, we find
痙攣 【けいれん】 (n,vs,adj-no) convulsions; cramps
この薬を飲むと胃の痙攣が治ります。 This medicine will ease your cramps.
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Re: Japanese in 18 Months? No way!!!

Post by YoakeNoHikari »

I see, thanks a lot!
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Re: Japanese in 18 Months? No way!!!

Post by YoakeNoHikari »

Is 置かぬ a verb, or 置かねば an old conjugation for 置かなければ?

Pretty sure it's the latter as in 置か-ぬ negative -> 置かねば, but just wanted to make sure.
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Re: Japanese in 18 Months? No way!!!

Post by iamaidiot »

(Actually Archmagination2002, stuck in limbo with a new password that can not be set since B-T mail is down)

Once again the fire has been lit for me! TIme to self-study and teach myself Japanese!! Thanks to this http://matthewreeves.wordpress.com/2011 ... on-part-1/ I will once again throw myself into the struggle. I am a huge, I mean huge reader. It is at least a book a day habit for me, but I find myself re-reading books again a lot of the time because there isn't enough new books released that interest me.
Every year or so I attempt to teach myself japanese.. last year I managed to get much farther than I normally do.. I memorized hiragana/katakana, 20 Kanji, some grammar/sentence structures and some new words. Then RL got in the way.(Work, Car crash, mother arrested for drugs, brother tried committing suicide, new stressful job) In other words.. hell!

Thanks to those articles I am once again really motivated to study Japanese. I plan on starting from the beginning again and making sure I still have the basics memorized since I haven't studied in a year. Because I am a huge reader I managed to work out a method that works for me..

1)I find that actually writing down the kana helps me memorize it a lot better, I got Learning Hiragana and Katakana Workbook and Practice Sheets and Easy Kana Workbook. I also just ordered the Kodansha's Hiragana Workbook: A Step-by-Step Approach to Basic Japanese Writing and Kodansha's Katakana Workbook: A Step-by-Step Approach to Basic Japanese Writing. All of those will hopefully help me with memorizing and learning.

2)I mix it up to give myself a break from writing by using flashcards.. I got Kana Cards(Tuttle Flash Cards) which I prefer, but I also got Kana Flashcards by White Rabbit Press for something different.

3)For Grammar the only thing I really have is Japanese the Manga Way. Lets just say reading that a helped me out, but it also blew my mind with suru and modifying nouns.(In other words I got a headache)

4)For Kanji I have Kanji de Manga volume 1 and Japanese Kanji Flashcards Volume 1 by White Rabbit Press(Complete set for JLPT 3 & 4)

5)For Dictionary I have Kodansha's Furigana Japanese Dictionary. The rest I would just use the internet.

6)For a change of pace I have Kanji Flip, Japanese Flash, Japanese Flip, Kotoba!(Japanese dictionary) on the iOS. I tend not to use them because it feel strange, but I have them.

Any suggestions to help me out.. I NEED TO READ JAPANESE!! Do not care about speaking it though.
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Re: Japanese in 18 Months? No way!!!

Post by Zell_ff8 »

iamaidiot wrote:Any suggestions to help me out.. I NEED TO READ JAPANESE!! Do not care about speaking it though.
Search my previous posts on these topics, I already explaining my studying method, I also did self study and I'm sitting for JLPT N1 next month.

Some recommendations:
1) Don't bother with kanas, if you really try, in just 5 days you can memorize them all, hiragana and katakana. Write them down, read them 30 times each out loud and that's all. It's quite simple and it's the ABC. Once you get them you don't have to study them anymore. It's like the english alphabet, when was the last time you studied them? since elementary school right? I studied them in 3 or 4 days, and never again. A good excercise: listen some japanese music and try to transcribe it with kanas, since its phonetic, you can perfectly write down what you hear, even if you don't know what they're saying.


2) If you take breaks, I suggest you to watch subbed anime or translated visual novels with full audio. The point is to read in english and hear in japanese so you can remember phrase structures. This way in an exercise you can tell "ahh, this sounds right, don't know exactly, but seems natural", or "this doesn't sound to me". Don't mean to study while watching anime, but just naturally that feeling will stick to you the more you are in contact with the language.

3)For Grammar structures, check the series "A dictionary of ____ japanese grammar" by The Japan Times. Very easy to understand and a good section of similar structures and when to use each. Those are to memorize, sorry.

4)For Kanji, The Kodansha Kanji Learner's Dictionary. Buy it. It's the best kanji dictionary out there. Unless you have a touchscreen japanese electronic dictionary, it's the best way to find kanji. Even faster than online doing stroke counts or radicals. It have several search methods so its mean feature is "fast to search". Have over 2000 kanji with examples, stroke order, all readings, ranks, codes. You can go one by one or -what I used to do- use it "table by order of frecuency" and learn from the most used and frecuent kanji to the rare ones.

5)For Dictionary, any will do, but I suggest you to get a kokugo jiten (a japanese-japanese) dictionary when you had some more level. Only that way you can get the real meaning of something, understanding it in japanese. Even if you can't understand it all, looking up a word in a dictionary in japanese will make you link concept more accurately than with "close approaches" used in a japanese-english dict.


And for practice, if you are so fast reader, start with manga. Short sentences and balloons. You can even start from childrens manga, then shounen, then seinen, and then take the big step to light novels. You can improve reading speed and also reading comprehension more easily (since images will aid to the meaning and context)-
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Re: Japanese in 18 Months? No way!!!

Post by Mystes »

Having a hard time differenciating the particles はand が...what's the difference?

(BTW, I kinda skipped the katakana learning. I'd rather learn them into contxt.)
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Re: Japanese in 18 Months? No way!!!

Post by rpapo »

Kira0802 wrote:Having a hard time differenciating the particles はand が...what's the difference?
Even the Japanese have a hard time explaining it. What's a poor 外人 to do? :lol:
Kira0802 wrote:(BTW, I kinda skipped the katakana learning. I'd rather learn them into contxt.)
Knowing the katakana is useful. After all, nearly all English words borrowed into Japanese are spelled with katakana. They even do a little French that way... :roll:
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Re: Japanese in 18 Months? No way!!!

Post by larethian »

Kira0802 wrote:Having a hard time differenciating the particles はand が...what's the difference?

(BTW, I kinda skipped the katakana learning. I'd rather learn them into contxt.)
I actually have a handbook for teachers to teach this. I haven't have time to read it though. Additionally, は has other functions besides topic particle, such as contrast and emphasis.
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Re: Japanese in 18 Months? No way!!!

Post by Mystes »

I really feel bad about these two particles...

Anyways, I get most of the hiraganas right (about 95%) and decided to learn Japanese with the iPhone app 'Human Japanese', which is by far the most useful Japanese-learning application I've ever tried. Rather than some learn-by-heart stuffs, it explains more on the grammar from an North American point of view, which is very helpful.
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Re: Japanese in 18 Months? No way!!!

Post by Zell_ff8 »

You don't need to be picky about は and が. You can just use it naturally and learn them by use without having to know the "correct" way, if there is any rule.
There are times when only が is acceptable (e.g. subordinate sentences, sentences inside greater sentences, so to no repeat は), and times when only は is. And times when both can be replaced. BTW the emphasis particle is わ, not は pronounced "wa".

You won't say 私が音楽は好き :P

The criteria I use is mostly:
the subject of noun and adjectival phrases is indicated with は (e.g. 彼は医者だ、父は厳しい)
the subject of verbal phrases is indicated with が (e.g. 彼が合格した)
the main overall subject is は (thus 彼は合格した means the same), and subordinated are are が (e.g. 彼は彼女が失敗したと云いました)
There is a slight, very subtle meaning of は stating something "unknown" to the listener, and が showing some familiarity. so using は you are showing a stronger emphasis on the subject, stating it clearly, "this is it", introducing new information. using が is like you're relying in that your partner has some information so it doesn't need to be that strong. But in the end, what I rely most is in that "emphasis" difference, は being stronger and clearer than が, I don't usually consider wherever my partner knows or not the subject. Maybe that's a vice, but still got no complaints :P

That without taking into account grammatical structures that force some use, like the ones who uses ~は……~は
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Re: Japanese in 18 Months? No way!!!

Post by Mystes »

I note that down...

But what are はand が esactly. Are they conjunctions , are they adverbs, are they relative pronouns or simply pronouns? And if they are conjunctions, what specific conjunctions are they?
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