Japanese

[Bishup]

Hey guys, for you who know Japanese or who are studying it, what is the best way to start to learn? I'm doing Japanese ab initio next year and I don't know what to start thinking of doing. Should I learn Kanji and the different ways of writing, should buy I a particular book, are there any good websites and tell me at what level you're studying Japanese. It could always be interesting to see people who are studying Japanese on this forum.

Thanks in advance ^-^

Edited June 5, 2009 by Bishup

[TidusBlade]

I'm not doing Japanese, wish I could, but my school doesn't offer it

Anyways, I decided to try and teach it to myself over the summer and a friend recommended me a good program called Pimsleur. Unfortunately, it won't teach you the writing part of the language, but I was surprised at how amazing the program is for speaking Japanese. It might just be audio tapes/MP3's but the method is very effective. I only did the first lesson 2 weeks ago and still remember everything I learnt clearly. Guessing that it would give you a huge head start especially since ab initio assumes no prior knowledge.

Also, anime is a pretty good way to improve your verbal Japanese, so if you find yourself bored over the summer, it wouldn't be a bad idea to watch a series or two

Sorry couldn't comment on writing, which is probably more important when it comes to IB Japanese anyways.

Edited June 5, 2009 by TidusBlade

[Bishup]

Anything is fine, that actually sounds really interesting. Much appreciated. Besides I've seen a few vids on youtube and it seems like a good start. I'll have a look at pimsleur and a bit of anime.

Thanks again

[laryxle]

I don't know much about what you learn in an ab initio, like what level and what the assessments are like, but here's some tips for starting;

I wouldn't start to learn Kanji until you know the basics, so the first thing I would recommend is to learn the Hiragana and Katakana alphabets. They aren't that hard to learn, and practice writing them and knowing the sounds. This is weird but a way that helped me remember was to think of another word of story revolving around the character. E.g. for 'ka' in hiragana, it's like a knife cutting bread, so that's how I remember the character.

Once you know all those characters, then start to learn some words, how to write them how to say them, and as you get better at it then start using some Kanji. I'm doing Jap B, and the Kanji is probably the hardest aspect about it, so I don't know how much Kanji you need to know in ab initio.

Pretty much, if you know the two basic alphabets well it should give you a good start.

ganbate!

Edited June 6, 2009 by laryxle

[idIB]

our school doesn't offer japanese, so i took it outside of school with my friend

my suggestion is to just watch a lot of dramas, anime, and listen to a lot of japanese music

if you memorise the lyrics and the translation, you can seriously be almost fluent in no time. it really drills you on the set phrases and conjugations

after that, just learn kanji and more vocabulary and you are pretty much set

[Bishup]

Cheers guys, so if i'm write you can use all 3 or 4 writing techniques like hiragana, katakana and kanji in one sentence. Like 'a car' so that would be 'do kuruma' but u use katana let's say for do and kanji for kuruma? I'm not sure if this makes any sense. And also what do you guys like to do in order to practice Japanese. What anime or drama or music do you listen to exactly? Give me some names please

And finally if you know of any good books to learn Japanese, please tell me

I can't thank you guys enough.

[laryxle]

Yep that's right, and as you learn more Kanji you incorporate it into the sentences more.

I don't know about using 'do kuruma', i'm not sure what 'do' is, but maybe 'kore wa kuruma desu.' Would be 'this is a car' and you would write the kanji for kuruma and the rest in hiragana.

The confusing thing about kanji (for me) is that most have more than one meaning and pronunciation, depending on what other kanji it is used with, like the kanji for kuruma can be used with the kanji for electricity (den) and then it is pronounced 'sha', making 'densha', which is 'electric car', and in english means train. So it can get really confusing

Maybe learn the numbers as your first bit of kanji, as they are pretty simple to learn.

I actually hate j-pop and anime, but i'm starting to read children's books in Japanese. They're really good because generally they don't have kanji, which makes it much easier to read.

[Bishup]

I don't know about using 'do kuruma', i'm not sure what 'do' is, but maybe 'kore wa kuruma desu.' Would be 'this is a car' and you would write the kanji for kuruma and the rest in hiragana.

Haha sorry 'do' means how or what and not a.

By the way have you guys heard of a technique called immersion, in other words you do most things and carry out the things you do in life but in Japanese.

[Chelleee]

By the way have you guys heard of a technique called immersion, in other words you do most things and carry out the things you do in life but in Japanese.

yes i have!

well my school doesn't offer it but i know my friend is doing immersion in german o-O;

sounds interesting but i reckon it would be a PAIN considering all subjects (except english) are in that language

and yay finally another jap ab initio student!

[Dark Matter]

I took Japanese this year. Luckily our school planned a Japan trip while i was in the course and I went. So while there is was really useful to learn it.

As for the course, kanji is a big thing to work on. Then I think the rest is all just the same as any other language. Once you know the characters of hiragana and katakana it is all about learning and memorizing vocab words.

For the oral learning stuff our teacher let us make our own skits in Japanese where we actually wrote and performed the whole thing. It was a very interesting way to do it and it really helped in the end with correctly pronouncing and memorizing sentence structure and vocab words.

I was going to reply to something else but now I can't remember what it was. Too tired. I will check in later to see what it was.

Sorry if this whole thing is just a big thing of nothingness. My brain doesn't fuction its best at 5:37 in the morning.

[Bishup]

Chelleee you changed to japanese ab initio from chinese ab initio? How come did you not like chinese or think that japanese is cooler? ^-^

[faith]

My Japanese actually doesn't recommend us learning Japanese from dramas and anime because colloquial Japanese is different from formal Japanese (such as plain form vs. desu-masu form. But personally I find dramas handy when it comes to improving my pronunciation. I'll recommend hana yori dango; it was a really popular drama a few years ago.

Like what laryxle said, you probably should start off by learning the 46 hiragana and the 46 katakana. Kanji comes after those and I don't think you need to know many kanjis in ab initio anyway.

[Bishup]

The first thing I ever learnt to say in japanese was 'Bokuno Chin Chin Namate' haha. I know it's rude but that's what my Japanese friends tought me. If you don't know what it means just ask your teacher I'm sure he'll be delighted to tell you.

[faith]

The first thing I ever learnt to say in japanese was 'Bokuno Chin Chin Namate' haha. I know it's rude but that's what my Japanese friends tought me. If you don't know what it means just ask your teacher I'm sure he'll be delighted to tell you.

I vaguely know what that means =P. So no I'm not planning to ask my Japanese teacher; she will be horrified.

[Bishup]

I'm ploughing through the hiragana. Well I'm not exactly working but I'm learning the symbols and drawing them, whilst following a youtube video. If I decided to be determined I reckon I could properly learn them in two days and then go for the katakana. Besides how many Kanji do you guys know?

[laryxle]

I don't know that many Kanji, maybe around 100 individual characters, but more if you take into account combinations and things like that. They say you need to know 2000 to read a shinbun (newspaper). When I was in Japan last year there was so much kanji everywhere

I don't think you need to worry about Kanji much in ab initio. We've been doing some ab initio past papers and there is really very little Kanji on them at all, and it's pretty much just the easiest ones.

It sounds like you're learning well, you'll probably be well ahead when you start IB.

[Dark Matter]

I know that kanji for me I knew about ... 100? or so for actually writing it. However then my teacher brought out flash cards that we had to recognize what they meant to help us read the questions on the exams. I didn't know how to write them, but understanding them for questions help. I didn't need to write any of them anyways, and if I did I just copied them from the questions where the knaji was. So really, not too bad.

[faith]

I think I am expected to know around 400 kanjis but don't worry, I'm doing it as a laanguage B. Also, sometimes you don't necessarily have to know how to use or write the more difficult kanjis, you just have to understand their meanings in different contexts.

[giantsushi]

I'm ploughing through the hiragana. Well I'm not exactly working but I'm learning the symbols and drawing them, whilst following a youtube video. If I decided to be determined I reckon I could properly learn them in two days and then go for the katakana. Besides how many Kanji do you guys know?

haha that chinchin thing is sexually inappropriate. im sure the editors would like to censor if i manage to translate but if you really want to know.. ill translate through non-rude words

i've been doing japanese for about 3-4 years, i know about 1200 kanji with hard studying. but you dont really need to know that much for SL and ab initio.

[melodyyy.]

i think ab initio is gonna be quite easy; I've been studing japanese 4 years 2 hours weekly only. I suggest you to avoid studing from anime; the language spoken there is quite specific and the accent is strong, usually cute. I think when you start learning kanji, paste them on post-its all around your room to look at them as much as possible. to prepare for oral, i suggest watching dramas to listen to accent and stuff is much better than anime.

btw soon-to-start japanese language major student speaking ;p