So I finally got off my ass to start learning Japanese. I started laid back by doing about 30~60 minutes of Duolingo every day and I've since moved to reading a proper textbook. I've got the Hiragana down and maybe 1/3 of the Katakanas down. Some simple Kanji too.
How much must I know before I can start thinking of tackling simple games? I know it's a long process but I'm prepared. The life of an EoP is a harsh one.
how do you not have all of the kata down already, it's 1000x easier than hiragana?
Not really the answer to your question, but I hear Animal Crossing is actually really helpful to learn Japanese with.
I can tell you my experience with english, just read, hear music, watch movies with subtitles in japanese. Practice and practice, you can even begin playing your games even if you don't grasp it 100&
decade. now fuck off.
>Duolingo
Not gonna make it
Simpler when languages share the same alphabet.
Duolingo is a good supplement and vocabulary builder. It certainly won't make you fluent, but it helps.
I think that comes down more to personal preference. I find Hiragana easier to keep straight than Katakana, but they're basically the same as far as difficulty goes.
Duolingo is a meme. Finish learning Katakana, then grind vocab with an Anki deck and learn grammar from Tae Kim on youtube. While you're doing that, start to read stuff. Most games are pretty simple, and with the aid of context clues you'll get the gist of them fairly easily. That said, you'll miss out on the finer points of any plot, and if it's a wordy or complex JRPG then forget about it. Stick to simple games to start with. Keep a Japanese-to-English dictionary on hand and look up stuff you don't understand. Jisho.com is good for that, free, and lets you draw kanji if you miss the pronunciation or the game doesn't have furigana.
any good programs/sites for learning the katakana? My instincts tell me to learn with stroke sheets
just do it, man. English is fucking horrible because vowels can sound completely different depending on the word.
Use WaniKani, KaniWani and Kim’s grammer guide instead
I mean that Japanese are fucking symbols, not as simple as learning english, probably even harder than memorizing the cyrilic alphabet.
t. ESL
Dude, you should know 100% hiragana and katakana by day two.
Stroke sheets are only really necessary if you plan on writing Japanese on paper a lot. If that's the case then yeah, stroke sheets are great for drilling. That said I haven't written anything significant on paper since I got out of school, so digital practice is more than enough. I use a phone app called Kana Mind to practice. It's free, lets you drill hiragana and/or katakana, and even lets you choose various popular fonts to practice since even all printed type isn't identical.
Do nothing but learn Hiragana and katakana first. Learn them all. Do not do anything else until you are 100% finished learning them and can sight-read them.
From that point forward, do not use "romaji" or english phoenetic japanese. Use only Hiragana and Katakana to learn more japanese.
What book? That's hot as fuck
From what I understand, Japanese teaching methods always teach Hira before Kata so it's natural that Kata takes a little more time. I don't find it hard, I just haven't practiced it as much.
I'll take note of that.
I've been consuming media in Japanese for 14 years, I'm sure I'm covered in that sense already.
I thought it was an easy and accessible tool that helped me get started.
I'll probably start phasing out Duolingo for better tools eventually but I feel I can still learn from it for a little bit.
Thankfully I already knew that.
>Japanese teaching methods always teach Hira before Kata so it's natural that Kata takes a little more time
yeah, they do, but Kata still isn't that hard, and a majority of the time you still learn katakana before you really get into most kanji(since a lot of kanji actually have kata inside of them or are straight up the same thing like ニ and 二)
Honestly user, I think you can learn Japanese.
HOW THE TIDES HAVE TURNED
meme dump time, I've been hanging onto these for too long.
3 months
WHERE ARE THE VIDEOGAMES
Jap
It's going to be difficult unless you can read kanji. Most games don't use only kana.
CAN CONFIRM
I've been studying for so long and I even did a homestay thing in Japan. I went over there so cocky cause I had a certification or some bullshit. But nah, bro. The real world is a cruel place.
>Duolingo
You mean the thing that still has incorrect audio files for some of the characters? Memrise is better than that shit
Kana alone won't really help beyond content made for young children. Even then, it might be difficult since you won't know what the words mean, even if you can read them. I'd say to stick with your textbooks until N5 level (all the kana, about 80 kanji and a few hundred words) and then start to learn by reading some material. Animal Crossing is good and will force you to learn the names of lots of everyday objects. Pokemon usually has a no-kanji option too that might be good.
Consuming media is great, but games (and anime, manga, etc.) can't completely substitute proper study. So make sure you stick with your textbooks and/or Anki and consult the DJT threads on /int/ or /jp/ for help. In the end, you'll just need to grind out kanji and vocab, which anki is great for. Lots of people tell you to skip learning production (speaking and writing) and just focus on reading and listening (so you can consume Japanese content), but I want to stress that production is really important. Not only will it allow to to speak Japanese if you want, but it helps get a better understanding of how grammar works when you have to make your own sentences. It also boosted my retention a lot more than just recognition alone did.
Shit's hard work, but you'll get there. Best of luck user!
So far I haven't done any writing and I don't intend to, I just want to consume Japanese media. I do want to be able to type though.
Can you recommend some more games in addition to Animal Crossing and Pokemon?
Maybe a next step after those two?
This is pretty much all the Kanji I know from maybe 1 month of on and off 10-20 minute studying once a day or so. Other kanji like speak/correct/car/think/name/open/closed as well. Some of it was useful when I went to japan on vacation especially being to ask for very basic things like price and locations. However google translate app is literally the greatest thing ever.
meat looks soo delicious
How the fuck did you manage to learn so little
I always heard that after a certain age, your brain would have more difficulty learning a second language than it would when you were school age. Anyone know if this is true?
That's fair enough. I don't really write that much myself. I just do it when I really need to drill a certain kanji into my head that I keep forgetting. But even with typing, you'll need to be able to recall the words and grammar you want, so practising English to Japanese will prepare you for that. Just doing Japanese to English, which some anons recommend to save time, might make it difficult for you to remember words and sentence structures when you want them in the long run.
That's still a fair way down the track for you though and mostly related to Anki flashcards (especially the core 2k/6k deck, which is all Japanese to English and I'd recommend making reverse cards - English to Japanese - for). In the meantime, just focus on your textbooks. They're structured to teach you the basics in a certain order, so it's best to stick with that until you're more confident.
Probably more shonen stuff at that point. Things made for 8-14 year olds. So if you're into One Piece, Jojo or any other Jump franchises, they'd be perfect for you. Other things that might work are more simple JRPGs like Dragon Quest (stay away from games with complex themes like Final Fantasy and Shin Megami Tensei). The step after that is to consume more young adult content which would be Yakuza, etc.
I include that month with all the kana
Its definitely harder but not impossible. Kids obviously have an ez mode time since their brains are still forming. Adults brains stop forming in their early 30s at the latest. So you can still learn.
>How much must I know before I can start thinking of tackling simple games?
Probably around half way past N2 Kanji.
Not at all true. I picked up learning Japanese at 35 and had a far easier time with it than learning languages in high school. As you get older you know yourself better, know how to learn and how to teach yourself. Unless you're a moron, but then you're going to struggle learning languages either way.
> As you get older you know yourself better, know how to learn and how to teach yourself.
Why do boomers(actual boomers) have this attitude where it's too late or too old to learn something new?
Because it's an excuse not to do anything new.
Boomers are creatures of habit and sticking to what they already know till the day they die.
It's not even a boomer thing, it's an everyone thing. Think back to when you were in school and remember all those dumb fucks who never tried, refused to try, convinced themselves they couldn't. Boomers just use age as their excuse.
If my 60 year old dad can figure out an ipad you can figure out some new words
>Katakana
>Easier thsn Hiragana
It may be because I literally NEVER use Katakana, but I find them harder to remember, except for the characters to spell my name.
Name more based kanji.
How Kata is the most fun to learn because its just english words 90% of the time.
>3 women stacked = fucking
Is google translate fucking with me lmfao.
>not knowing the happy funtime kanji
Do you even JAV?
>that cuneiform tab
That's one hell of a waste of language learning time but damn if it isn't oddly tempting
Thanks for the dolphin porn.
you are a scholar, and a gentleman
A lot of these Japanese books are pretty redundant and/or outright not very useful, but thanks anyway.
Any more pictures like this? It kinda makes me hungry, haha.
How much japanese do I have to learn to achieve the extremely complicated and challenging art of reading hentai?
read the ones with the uk or us flag
But there aren't a ton of Megumin doujin with US flags
I've been told I am Caucasian for way too long for these characters to be so absolutely foreign to me.
we all know that feel user
>tfw want to learn moonrunes and ayy language
>afraid i'll just forget it all within a month because my brain is broken
fuck
The incorrect scapula anatomy in that image triggers me.
OP here. Thanks for all the content and advice. I don't know the sauce of the image I used but here's some more reference material.
>So make sure you stick with your textbooks and/or Anki and consult the DJT threads on /int/ or /jp/ for help.
/djt/ will probably tell you to drop Anki and textbooks and just read instead
Which is the correct choice
>How much must I know before I can start
Not gonna make it.
>Which is the correct choice
I guess it depends on the individual. I tried doing it that way and felt like I wasn't learning much since I was just coming across words I didn't know over and over and it was frustrating. I used textbooks when I studied in school, so I know they can be helpful at explaining things, but personally don't use them any more. Now I do a mix of reading, talking to Japanese people and Anki.
user should just try out all different things and see what works for him in the long run and stick to it. But I still think textbooks and a more structured study plan are better, at least for a beginner.
holy shit that girl doesn't have any skin
I started learning Japanese a bit back. The best advice I can give is don't take advice from people still learning, only those that have accomplished.
>the irony in this whole post
Are you by chance a Cretan?
That's kind of the point. Don't listen to people like me who are still learning Japanese ABOUT how to learn Japanese. This advice is not about how to learn Japanese, this is general life advice for learning any skill and so OP can take it.
>I've got the Hiragana down and maybe 1/3 of the Katakanas down. Some simple Kanji too.
So how was your first day of studying, user?
The number 1 advice from DJT is don't listen to other students only teachers. A student telling a student to ignore students and listen to teachers is solid advice don't be a brainlet.
Drop duolingo.
Finish learning hiragana and katakana until you can read full words without having to think. Then get NihongoShark's Anki deck for kanji which has Heisig and kohii comments. After learning all of them you can fresh up on grammar and then play games and fill in holes.
>DJT
I hope you mean the non-shit one.
They're all shit actually. Study don't hang out on Yea Forums.
Man, the fact that there are literally multiple people here that are honest to god learning Japanese so they can watch anime or play some titty schoolgirl jap game without subs is just... don’t even know what to say. Not gonna throw insults your way guys, you know where you stand. I just have one question, is there literally nothing better you can find to do with your time? Because you realize the effort it takes to learn Japanese, put elsewhere could have serious impacts on your life right? Anyway I know none of you will do that so have fun with the anime and whatnot
@460437130
the most reddit post I've seen today. congratulations
@460437130
>as he posts on Yea Forums
>learning a completely useless language like japanese when chinese is going to be the more likely world language within the next 50 years
lmao enjoy wasting your time weebs
>Because you realize the effort it takes to learn Japanese, put elsewhere could have serious impacts on your life right?
Explain.
just draw
he means that you could instead get an education for a "well paying job" and then spend that money on... uhhh... tropical vacations?
Spend 6 months learning the kanji and then learn to read with them. Knowing like 10% of them is no use to you when reading materials aimed at adults.
There's no scapula in the pictures, sperg. That dark red area on the bottom left pic is the infraspinatus.
It takes a good two years of daily training, and travel to Japan if you're serious, to become fluent. You could pick up any other skill you want with the same time and effort. If you're just learning for anime, there's literally subtitles available for 99% of content. Learning Japanese for cartoons is a waste of time.
I'm artistically retarded so I need a thousand more GIFs like this please
If you're learning for anime you don't need to learn the 2000+ jouyou kanji. Understanding the spoken language is WAY less effort than just being able to read and write it. Same for Chinese (Mandarin, Cantonese, etc), even with the tones you have less work there than you do learning 3,000-4,000 hanzi
Ha soundfile is Wa on duolingo
>a thousand more GIFs like this please
Have you tried studying actual anatomy instead of gifs with anime loomis heads?
I already established I'm a retard. That sounds too sensible.
>month with all the kana
user, a simple game like this would teach you hiragana and katakana in an HOUR
genkistudygames.com
I remember these from back when I had Chinese in school
>I already established I'm a retard
So is the entirety of /ic/. They still pretend they study Hogarth and Goldfinger.
>Japanese
>use fucked up Chinese characters with varying pronunciation
>have to memorize all the fucking combinations of characters, so basically memorize every word
I'd rather learn Chinese desu. At least their Kanji is consistent.
Then it will evaporate from your brain. Keep practicing and re-practicing. If getting a textbook for self-study, absolutely get one like Genki that forces you to read in kana after the first few pages, to get that practice. Do NOT get one that uses rōmaji.
>needing a month to learn 23 characters
just quit now
literally chinese
>Then it will evaporate from your brain
The idea is that you do it more than once, user
this desu
also, chinese is better grammatically
I'm learning Japanese just so I can play Boku No Natsuyasumi
为什么不学习两个都?
Not even just what those other anons said. That effort could be put to getting a good job yes, but also to finding a good girl in your life(if you want) getting in shape, you could use it to do any number of actually useful hobbies. Just saying like, watching anime or playing video games takes very little effort mostly, and is in itself the hobbie you enjoy(in theory anyway). Putting this kind of effort so that you can possibly enjoy a pretty useless hobby more seems insane. But hey, you do you man. Like some other user said I’m here shitposting so I can’t throw too many stones but damn. Seems like an insane waste of time and effort even by Yea Forums standards
Because I will be dead when China takes over
>That effort could be put to getting a good job yes, but also to finding a good girl in your life(if you want) getting in shape, you could use it to do any number of actually useful hobbies
You can learn a language comfortably sitting down, not taking a step from your computer. You can't achieve any of those things "with that effort".
Well that's just as hypocritical as spending leisure on anything. People like to "waste their time" if you haven't noticed. If you're learning Japanese just play big titty anime games or watch anime without subtitles for entertainment, then that's just a hobby. With this you can pretty much imply that the effort to learn Japanese is completely for entertainment purposes.
For an English speaker it takes over 2,000 hours to learn Chinese or Japanese. And these measures are actually based on a same of people deemed to have "above average aptitude"
state.gov
That's a full-time, 40-hour work week for more than a year. And for what? Fapping to hentai visual novels in their native language? Gotta have a better motivation than that, user
I'm also learning japanese to provide better translations and critique shoddy localizations.
You'll still want to find more reasons to enjoy the language over the next few years of dedicated effort it will require to reach a JLPT 2 or 1 level. You gotta fall in love with all those funny ass symbols in their own right.
>Learning another language isn't having a serious impact on your life
I think it's funny when someone says "I'm not gonna throw insults" and then proceeds to belittle someone for actually spending time learning something new
Some independent data from a Japanese agency to compare to that FSI data.
When you know about ~2000 kanji and 10,000 vocabulary words you're far from done, by the way, but you're proficient enough to learn more naturally. There's still about 1,000 more kanji in common use in materials aimed at adult native speakers, and highly educated Japanese who can pass the Kanji Kentei's highest level, which goes off into more estoeric, academic study of the language (obsolete kanji etc) know 6,000+ kanji
Don't worry, I have fallen in love with the moonrunes.
I'm so hype to finish and no longer have to rely on anybody. Play and understand Touhou on its release date, import the books, watch manzai and gameshows, pop into JP servers on MMOs and just talk to people, gauge the opnions of japanese people on things, travel to Japan and just explore.
The hype alone is enough wind in my sails to just keep trucking with my studies and why it's been so enjoyable. I'm always so satisfied being able to recognize recently learned kanji or get the basic gist of a sentence. It's just fun to me.
Hell yeah, refugees starting to integrate.
their method of integrating seems to involve a lot of rape
Try to learn JLPT N4 kanji & some grammar basic rules. You can’t understand the gist of a sentence without knowing how a sentence is structured. Kanji & vocabulary can be learned through medias but expect to go to your dictionary a lot to check what a word means at the beginning. It can be irritating & counterproductive, so i suggest you to first read some japanese children books before starting to pick up some simple games like Pokémon or Yokai Watch. You probably already played Pokémon games, so it’ll be fine for you to play through & knowing what’s going on in there. Sun & Moon could be the easiest way to get vocabulary since there’s a TON of cutscenes lol
>duolingo
Not gonna happen, duolingo is shit for asian languages, it's ok for vocabulary i guess but doesn't teach grammar properly.
Just pirate genki 1 book and save yourself a disappointment.
>use fucked up Chinese characters
Better than simplified Chinese
>the most basic necessity for moving to any foreign country
>integration
That's good. If the learning itself is fun, providing an intrinsic motivation beyond the end-goal of ANIMU and VIDYA GAEMS, then you just might make it
I learn 10 kanji a day with anki, wtf are you doing?
What is your study routine?
Nothing inherently wrong with it. Some changes are stupid, yes, but then some of the traditional characters are such an absolute clusterfuck they genuinely both look and read better simplified.
Side note: English isn't my native language and I learned english back then for pretty much the same reasons, albeit for different media.
Except you get english at school and are influenced with almost everything, thus making it the easiest language ever because it basically requires you to just be alive and have tv and internet.
You can learn kana in a couple hours. The fuck are you doing?
Realkana
It's definitely easier than japanese, but I wouldn't go that far. I'm also influenced and surrounded by japanese, simply because I consume a lot of japanese media ontop of western media. It really just boils down to whether or not you want to sit down and grind through a language.
did my brain rot from being a neet? i for the life of me cant memorise all the hirag-
It takes several years for a westerner to even get to the point of reading books or games intended for children (that is, with hiragana on top of the kanji). To get to a "fluent" level, IE able to read a newspaper, it takes many, many years. Even more if you're over 25 years old. Just give up, it's not worth it unless you want this to be your job.
What is two women side by side then? ( I assume its just like 木 where 1 is tree, 2 is grove and 3 is forest )
Imagine being this fucking retarded.
Is the stroke order really nessary to learn? How does it help to have proper order ?
>started learning japanese in january
>made it to 800 words + kanji reading
>stopped at the start of February
>havent picked it up since
every time i try anything i follow a similar pattern, regardless of the hobby
-guitar
-music production
-warhammer
-video making
-youtubing
-cycling
the list goes on, and im surrounded by surplus expensive gear now
You completed 800 words plus kanji in a single month? How much time did you spend each day? Do you still remember the words and kanji?
>spending several years learning one of the hardest languages in the world just to play some shitty games that most likely have English patches too instead of learning an actually useful and 10x easier language like Spanish or German
Imagine being THIS fucking retarded. Seriously just learn Chinese if you want to spend the next 10 years studying shitty little characters you dumb zoomer, it's more useful than Japanese on the workplace. But you wouldn't know about that considering you're probably 15 years old if you think you can learn jap with a bunch of shitty apps and by watching anime in your free time. This shit takes hardcore study and practice.
Is there some kind of secret hidden bank of masterpieces the Japanese are preventing foreigners from translating? or do you just plan on larping and consuming tons and tons of worthless smut?
No, it's not necessary. Just like it's not necessary to take training wheels off your bike to ride the bike. What a fag, hasn't even started a process that usually takes several years and is already looking for shortcuts.
yes, all of them. They started getting really silly though, with stuff like oseibo and tetsuya. I think i spent an hour to two hours a day. such is life for me
depends if you want to write or not. write 鰻 without knowing proper stroke order will have it looking like shit for example
>with hiragana on top of kanji
Why are saying that as if reading kana is hard, I learned all of hiragana and katakana in a couple of hours.
Probably the easiest part of learning japanese.
Why are you
>It takes several years for a westerner to even get to the point of reading books or games intended for children
no? you can get reading pretty quickly, you may have to look some words up though
>It takes several years for a westerner to even get to the point of reading books or games intended for children (that is, with hiragana on top of the kanji)
Maybe if you have literal brain damage.
>Gotta have a better motivation than that, user
There is no better motivation in life faggot. Pass me with this productive member of society family man noise, I like porn, vidya, anime, and movies. God forbid someone put effort into their hobbies, everything in life is meaningless, what is "pointless" to you may be the meaning of life for someone else and neither of you are wrong.
my girlfriend has an 1 and a half hour session with a jap every night to study. shes locked into learning it, but i don't have that power. the only reason i might learn it, is because i have one of those dreams about living in japan. too many people think its the 'anime & manga fever' bullshit but i doubt anyone even thinks like that anymore. japan is beautiful, safe, and i can get behind the culture. i'm nearing 25 and i thought it was my calling, but i completely lost all motivation to try after hearing the words of all those online saying japan is just a hell hole, blah blah blah. fuck i dont even know what to do now
There's always people with opinions to discourage anyone. But remember, you got to work hard for the good things. If you dream of going/living in Japan, do it. It will change your life and your view in the culture. I know people who actually went and spent time in Japan and I have never heard them say they disliked it. In fact, they never wanted to leave.
>Doing something you enjoy for the purpose of doing something else you enjoy to a greater extent is a waste of time
What a shitty life you must lead.
Also, the idea that it takes "2 years of daily training, and travel" is fucking insane. My friend got his N2 after six months.
Not going to make it.
Unfortunately integration rarely means learning the native language when they decide to ignore everything and establish towns where only immigrants love and work. Plus any legal documents are catered to them for the sake of being PC
>spending several years learning
>one of the hardest languages in the world
>actually useful and 10x easier language like Spanish
Jesus Christ. Do you actually enjoy being wrong all the time?
>the "learning Japanese" weeb phase
99% of you cunts will give up long before reaching the literacy level of a 10 years old Japanese kid.
Just save yourself the time and disappointment and give up now. Do something more productive, such as learning how to draw lolis.
Bottom right image in the first page has the wrong placement of the pectoralis major muscle attaching itself to the deltoid. It goes under the deltoid, like in every other image. Just a fyi for whoever might not know.
d-dekinai
Are the resources in /djt/ a good enough place to start?
>rather learn chinese
someone post 'that' screencap, you know the one
>Learn all the Hirigana
>Learn all the Katakana
>Learn about 200 Kanji
>Realise I never even speak to people in any language so I'll never use Japanese anyway
Only using text isn't a good way to learn a language
It's called a gossip
>Only using text isn't a good way to learn a language
It's a perfectly fine way to learn a language, if you only ever intend on using the text.
>Japanese thread
>WAAAA JAP IS USELESS LEARN DOG EATER LANGUAGE
every
fucking
time
Just thinking about it makes me mad, right next to the computer one with a mad megaman
The main problem being that learning how it's all supposed to sound without ever vocalising it once makes it harder to stick in my brain.
Reading Japanese text and translating it into english in my head every time is not the way to go about it.
I need to be able to read it and hear it in Japanese in my head and understand what it means from that.
>0.1% of the alhpabet of a language that i don't understand
>when can i start reading shakespeare
Give it a couple of years before asking again.
>then grind vocab with an Anki deck
If you hate yourself, and want to do things the hard way you grind your dick off sure but language acquisition is more important. Which in most people's cases is just watching live action Japanese media with JAPANESE subtitles, not English/whatever language you speak. It's the shit you do as a baby, studying facial expressions of real people, looking at how they react to words, what they do, try to mimic their mouth motions and sounds, etc. The stuff that gets the language in your brain. Shadowing is gold.
I'd say that you're just an "auditory learner" or whatever, but I've also heard that's pseudo-scientific bullshit, so whatever. Anyway, it literally doesn't matter how it's "supposed to sound" if you never intend on using the auditory aspect of the language.
>Reading Japanese text and translating it into english in my head every time is not the way to go about it.
If you're translating it into English, that just means you haven't actually internalized what the Japanese means. It obviously takes time, but if you can't understand another language, in that language, you don't really "know the language", if that makes any sense.
I have a brutal migraine, and just finished kneeling at the porcelain throne, so this whole post might be complete fucking nonsense.
too depressing
How on earth do you actually manage to post with a migraine?
I always end up shutting off every light source I can find and then go die in my bed with a wet rag on the forehead.
No I get you bro.
The problem is I would intend it since I would also have to be able to understand Spoken Japanese if I ever wanted to watch Japanese TV etc.
Then again learning written and spoken japanese is like learning two different languages and you just knit them together over time.
I did that for the last 30 hours. I'm bored, and the pain is slowly easing away.
Also, a fuck-tonne of the strongest legally available pain medication
>all that effort learning to draw anatomy well
>anime same face
Makes sense. The Japanese are really based.
Are you one of those prodigies with 150+ IQ or do you simply have eidetic memory?
I really need to get back on my study grind, i’ve been so busy with finals that i’ve only been able to do passive stuff like book reading and talking with friends for the past week.
>one month to learn that many characters
That’s not even slow, that’s just lazy. 10-20 minutes? Once a day?
I just think the language is neat, plus I can call out N5 google translate “translators” which is fun