I am doing ok. I mean... I got a degree, got a job, found a really great girl. Came to apoint where I started thinking more about my future and how to invest in it.
That's fantastic to hear! You've really made my day :-)
How about you brother
Well, I'm a few years older than you, and life has certainly been some journey for me. I found and lost the love of my life, had numerous different jobs throughout the years, lived in various countries, never staying in one place for too long, and to say the least I'm a very different man from the one I was a decade ago. Life sure is some adventure, isn't it? Anyway, I haven't been involved in any online communities or anything for many years, but due to a certain life situation I'm unable to do the usual things that I enjoy, so I recently signed up to MAL. I've just come to like reading these old posts, wondering how the users are doing all these years later.
It's nice to hear from you. I've been doing excellent lately. Haven't watched much anime this last month or so, but I get a few episodes in here and there. I'm mostly reading light novels and playing Touhou. As far as speaking goes, I've been getting a lot of good conversation most days from my gal in Japan.
How have you been lately? Have you made good progress on Japanese?
I wouldn't bother specifically trying to memorize on/kun readings. Just do your best to memorize the general meaning of kanji characters and how to write/recognize them. When learning vocabulary and what kanji are used for what words, you'll learn the on/kun readings organically by seeing how the character is pronounced in different instances. This way you haven't spent all of your time grinding things you're not using yet.
Meant to get back to you sooner but I could never find the right moment to type back.
I know a decent amount. At the very least it's enough for me to read with moderate confidence. I still run into plenty of characters that give me trouble, whether it be something I've forgotten, or a character I've never read before. But that's all just apart of the learning experience. I'm not exactly fluent yet, but I can feel myself getting closer and closer with each new encounter.
Ah, so it sounds like you've already had plenty of experience learning languages. I studied Spanish, French, a little bit of German (in that order), but Japanese is the first language that I've felt truly motivated to stick with. It's pretty far removed from Indo-European languages, so many people have trouble with it. Beyond the fact that word order is different, it's the entire organization of thought that's different.
Personally, I felt that spoken Japanese was very natural to pick up, especially when you're like us and dedicate thousands of hours listening to the language through anime, etc. It's the writing system that really takes time. Two separate syllabic scripts and several thousand unique characters. It's only natural for that to be a long learning process.
No worries, man. I think most of us have felt at least a bit discouraged while getting into Japanese, there's just so much to take in and memorize, so much that doesn't even exist in Indo-European languages. But trust me, man. It gets more and more enjoyable as you progress and can start applying it to stuff like Manga, Visual novels, forums, etc. If this is your hobby [and of course it is] then Japanese is going to be well worth your time.
Anyways. Have you memorized your voiced consonants? [ほ, ぽ, ぼ]
I ordered a set of flashcards off of amazon and that's pretty much the sole thing I used to learn Hiragana. For Katakana I used an Android app called "Katakana Pro" and it has a Hiragana version if you want to check that out? There's also sites like [url]https://djtguide.neocities.org/kana/index.html[/url] that accomplish more-or-less the same things.
I recommend familiarizing yourself with all of the hiragana and then moving onto something else. Hiragana will be your bread and butter for reading anything in Japanese. The approach to Japanese presented in most resources are intended for people who can at least read hiragana. Thus, hiragana is the first thing that you're expected to learn. Once you start learning Kanji you'll be reading enough Hiragana to completely glue it into your mind. And personally I handwrite as much as I can [which helps for memorizing]
Katakana is a bit tougher since it's not used as often, but the same approach applies. All I did for Katakana was the app and reading. It took... awhile but reading manga helped me memorize all of it. But I still read and write hiragana much cleaner than I can katakana.
I'm doing great! Moved back to my hometown last month and stopped travels. Heaps of time on my hands for anime, studying, etc. Though, admittedly I'm hitting a bit of a bumpy road with my Kanji studies. I feel like my memory is reaching maximum capacity, but I'm still pushing.
How goes your first steps?
Lately I'm just coasting through content and playing around. Probably going to start the Steins;Gate VN fandiscs tonight.
[My daily routine consists of daily "Kanji reps," mostly Anki, also try to keep up with WaniKani on my phone.]
Aside from that, I like to spend 2-3+ hours with Japanese. Today was mostly spent working on writing, but usually I'm not that productive and just end up chatting online or consuming anime, etc.
I doubt you'll get anything out of it at this stage but I really recommend Noriko Sensei's vids. Sometimes I'll just put on videos I've already watched and listen to her talk in the background while I do other things.
It's all just based upon context. It'll make more sense once you start learning the kanji and seeing how they're used. It's a complicated writing system, but also pretty logical.
Onyomi is "the Chinese reading" of kanji. Meanwhile, kunyomi is the Japanese reading. There can actually be many different readings/meanings for the individual Kanji. It gets very contextual at times. This article explains it all decently well. https://www.tofugu.com/japanese/onyomi-kunyomi-kanji/
One early example that comes to mind. The kanji ”四” [Four] can be read as ”し” [shi], as well as ”よん” [yon]. Both mean the same thing. There are some kanji that can go up to six or so readings, but that's usually not as bad as it sounds.
Meanwhile, some kanji only have one reading. For example, this kanji 秒, which means second [as in hour, minute and second], uses onyomi and only onyomi. Whereas most kanji created by Japanese have only kunyomi. Example, the kanji 畑 which means field [field of crops] only has it's kunyomi.
There are only two real ways to approach kanji. The simplest would be learning whole words without studying the individual kanji. The other would be to study each kanji in isolation and learn its meaning and composition. Studying isolated kanji can grant you the ability to write by hand, and will likely make learning vocabulary easier. [As someone who plans to move to Japan and teach English, I feel some pretty high pressure to learn their writing system inside and out.] It’s up to you to decide whether you'll benefit enough from learning kanji in isolation to devote the time and effort it takes.
Also, never too early to start talking to Japanese natives; you can use sites like Interpals to find conversational partners, plenty of which have fantastic English.
It's also a lot of fun to post on Japanese Imageboards, such as ふたばちゃん [Futabachan.] Nothing beats getting roasted by ひきこもり[Hikomori] for your broken Japanese.
Sounds like a solid plan to me. So long as you're actively putting in an effort to understand the language and your material, you'll make nice progress. Just be sure to nail your Kana before diving into the deep end. It'll make things far less frustrating.
I never spent much time with Heisig. Not my preferred way to learn kanji but he's worth checking out if you do well with visual mnemonics.
For kanji, I heavily recommend Anki flashcards. You can use it on your PC and Phone. It's absolutely my favorite way to drill kanji and it helps a lot with general vocab, let's you utilize your grammar, as well as listening skills.
Feel free to it me up at any time if you need a hand with Japanese, finding learning resources, or just clearing up confusion. I know I ran into plenty of that.
Or, even if you don't need the assistance... I'm always up for some bants.
All Comments (469) Comments
That's fantastic to hear! You've really made my day :-)
Well, I'm a few years older than you, and life has certainly been some journey for me. I found and lost the love of my life, had numerous different jobs throughout the years, lived in various countries, never staying in one place for too long, and to say the least I'm a very different man from the one I was a decade ago. Life sure is some adventure, isn't it? Anyway, I haven't been involved in any online communities or anything for many years, but due to a certain life situation I'm unable to do the usual things that I enjoy, so I recently signed up to MAL. I've just come to like reading these old posts, wondering how the users are doing all these years later.
Thanks so much for responding.
I saw your thread here where you expressed anxiety about the future. How did things turn out for you all these years later?
I hope you're doing well.
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How have you been lately? Have you made good progress on Japanese?
I know a decent amount. At the very least it's enough for me to read with moderate confidence. I still run into plenty of characters that give me trouble, whether it be something I've forgotten, or a character I've never read before. But that's all just apart of the learning experience. I'm not exactly fluent yet, but I can feel myself getting closer and closer with each new encounter.
Ah, so it sounds like you've already had plenty of experience learning languages. I studied Spanish, French, a little bit of German (in that order), but Japanese is the first language that I've felt truly motivated to stick with. It's pretty far removed from Indo-European languages, so many people have trouble with it. Beyond the fact that word order is different, it's the entire organization of thought that's different.
Personally, I felt that spoken Japanese was very natural to pick up, especially when you're like us and dedicate thousands of hours listening to the language through anime, etc. It's the writing system that really takes time. Two separate syllabic scripts and several thousand unique characters. It's only natural for that to be a long learning process.
Anyways. Have you memorized your voiced consonants? [ほ, ぽ, ぼ]
I ordered a set of flashcards off of amazon and that's pretty much the sole thing I used to learn Hiragana. For Katakana I used an Android app called "Katakana Pro" and it has a Hiragana version if you want to check that out? There's also sites like [url]https://djtguide.neocities.org/kana/index.html[/url] that accomplish more-or-less the same things.
I recommend familiarizing yourself with all of the hiragana and then moving onto something else. Hiragana will be your bread and butter for reading anything in Japanese. The approach to Japanese presented in most resources are intended for people who can at least read hiragana. Thus, hiragana is the first thing that you're expected to learn. Once you start learning Kanji you'll be reading enough Hiragana to completely glue it into your mind. And personally I handwrite as much as I can [which helps for memorizing]
Katakana is a bit tougher since it's not used as often, but the same approach applies. All I did for Katakana was the app and reading. It took... awhile but reading manga helped me memorize all of it. But I still read and write hiragana much cleaner than I can katakana.
I'm doing great! Moved back to my hometown last month and stopped travels. Heaps of time on my hands for anime, studying, etc. Though, admittedly I'm hitting a bit of a bumpy road with my Kanji studies. I feel like my memory is reaching maximum capacity, but I'm still pushing.
Lately I'm just coasting through content and playing around. Probably going to start the Steins;Gate VN fandiscs tonight.
[My daily routine consists of daily "Kanji reps," mostly Anki, also try to keep up with WaniKani on my phone.]
Aside from that, I like to spend 2-3+ hours with Japanese. Today was mostly spent working on writing, but usually I'm not that productive and just end up chatting online or consuming anime, etc.
One early example that comes to mind. The kanji ”四” [Four] can be read as ”し” [shi], as well as ”よん” [yon]. Both mean the same thing. There are some kanji that can go up to six or so readings, but that's usually not as bad as it sounds.
Meanwhile, some kanji only have one reading. For example, this kanji 秒, which means second [as in hour, minute and second], uses onyomi and only onyomi. Whereas most kanji created by Japanese have only kunyomi. Example, the kanji 畑 which means field [field of crops] only has it's kunyomi.
There are only two real ways to approach kanji. The simplest would be learning whole words without studying the individual kanji. The other would be to study each kanji in isolation and learn its meaning and composition. Studying isolated kanji can grant you the ability to write by hand, and will likely make learning vocabulary easier. [As someone who plans to move to Japan and teach English, I feel some pretty high pressure to learn their writing system inside and out.] It’s up to you to decide whether you'll benefit enough from learning kanji in isolation to devote the time and effort it takes.
Also, never too early to start talking to Japanese natives; you can use sites like Interpals to find conversational partners, plenty of which have fantastic English.
It's also a lot of fun to post on Japanese Imageboards, such as ふたばちゃん [Futabachan.] Nothing beats getting roasted by ひきこもり[Hikomori] for your broken Japanese.
I never spent much time with Heisig. Not my preferred way to learn kanji but he's worth checking out if you do well with visual mnemonics.
For kanji, I heavily recommend Anki flashcards. You can use it on your PC and Phone. It's absolutely my favorite way to drill kanji and it helps a lot with general vocab, let's you utilize your grammar, as well as listening skills.
Or, even if you don't need the assistance... I'm always up for some bants.