Learning a second language

[Obev]

Pretty much all I can say has already been said, but as the White Stripes say, it bears repeating now. Classes, conversation, immersion. The Rosetta Stone stuff can be useful, but I wouldn't pay for it. Torrent it and spend that $600 on either lessons or bribing foreigners to be your friends.

[Bagel]

Project LRNJ: Learn Japanese RPG

RPG-like game for learning kana/kanji

BOMB DIGGITY YO

[The_OG_Nelta]

lol why did Kiro get banneD?

[Correction]

Because he asked for it.

[Obev]

lol why did Kiro get banneD?

He said a bad word for people of African descent.

[Jefe]

It's kinda odd, but for those of us who are fluent in Spanish can learn Japanese faster, or rather is not as complicated... the romanized version at least. When I took Japanese (Italian and French classes were full) it was really easy. I'd just fucking read it like nothing since it's almost the same shit. Needless to say, I'd get extra credit cuz I was the only foo to volunteer all the time :3

[Mizango]

He said a bad word for people of African descent.

And then told Bancat to STFU as well after the slur.

He went after Ragns a few weeks ago, my dawg had a death wish lol.

[Meian]

It's kinda odd, but for those of us who are fluent in Spanish can learn Japanese faster, or rather is not as complicated... the romanized version at least. When I took Japanese (Italian and French classes were full) it was really easy. I'd just fucking read it like nothing since it's almost the same shit. Needless to say, I'd get extra credit cuz I was the only foo to volunteer all the time :3

I am spanish so it was easier for me also. However, a professor told me that it is easier to learn another language if you know two of them already. I don't know the exact mechanics behind it but I am assuming it is because you are able to distinguish and translate in your mind one word to another word (etc.) in your mind between two languages so the third one you won't have to deal with that milestone as much (yea yea I am making this up as I go but just assuming my professor's reasoning)

[Obev]

It's kinda odd, but for those of us who are fluent in Spanish can learn Japanese faster, or rather is not as complicated... the romanized version at least. When I took Japanese (Italian and French classes were full) it was really easy. I'd just fucking read it like nothing since it's almost the same shit. Needless to say, I'd get extra credit cuz I was the only foo to volunteer all the time :3

Vowel sounds are the same, yeah. Problem is, similar-sounding words mean that whenever I try to remember my ninth-grade Spanish, I just come out with Spanish sentence structures scattered with Japanese nouns and adjectives. You would have found Italian or French or Italian easy after Spanish for different reasons, mainly grammar-related: language learning is one of those areas where the more you know, the easier it is to know more. Well, until you start learning Chinese and it's all "hi, we've got five tones and a few thousand characters, fuck you!".

Not that this is at all relevent to somebody learning a second language, as it's implicit that the OP doesn't have the luxury of knowing a language other than English, but it's interesting nonetheless.

[Silenka]

Your prof's right, it is easier. It's always easier to do something a second time (unless it's like...eating live scorpions or something. And maybe even then!), plus the fact that any grammar you may have been fuzzy on should have been beaten into your brain the first time (adjectives, adverbs, verb tenses, direct objects, pronouns, particles, passive/active voice, imperative etc). You go in expecting the same thing, and that's basically what you get, it's just plug and play from there.

My advice for learning to WRITE Japanese (since everyone else did a good job with the other stuff): I learned my sophomore year of HS by myself, and I didn't take a class until college. What I did to learn hiragana/katakana was simple - print out a sheet that had them both on it, and write them, row by row, over and over and over and over and over and over every chance I got.

To solidify my learning, I started reading things (lyric sheets from CDs, mainly) in kana/kanji (furigana is your bestest friend). Kanji is a totally different ballpark though, the best thing you can do for that is translate stuff yourself (books, manga, cereal boxes, whatever you can get your hands on in Japanese). You will start to recognize the kanji pretty fast that way. I learned a lot of my Japanese from Jpop songs, to be honest. Music is a VERY easy way to remember words.

[Obev]

(furigana is your bestest friend)

It can be a bit of a false friend if you don't approach it intelligently. You can find yourself relying on furigana instead of actually recognising the kanji. Though, furigana's usually used in a relatively responsible way for learning materials or really obscure kanji outside the jōyō set, so it's not that much of a problem.

[Ratatapa]

While there anyone know a good site to learn Spanish?

[Meian]

Your prof's right, it is easier. It's always easier to do something a second time (unless it's like...eating live scorpions or something. And maybe even then!), plus the fact that any grammar you may have been fuzzy on should have been beaten into your brain the first time (adjectives, adverbs, verb tenses, direct objects, pronouns, particles, passive/active voice, imperative etc). You go in expecting the same thing, and that's basically what you get, it's just plug and play from there.

My advice for learning to WRITE Japanese (since everyone else did a good job with the other stuff): I learned my sophomore year of HS by myself, and I didn't take a class until college. What I did to learn hiragana/katakana was simple - print out a sheet that had them both on it, and write them, row by row, over and over and over and over and over and over every chance I got.

To solidify my learning, I started reading things (lyric sheets from CDs, mainly) in kana/kanji (furigana is your bestest friend). Kanji is a totally different ballpark though, the best thing you can do for that is translate stuff yourself (books, manga, cereal boxes, whatever you can get your hands on in Japanese). You will start to recognize the kanji pretty fast that way. I learned a lot of my Japanese from Jpop songs, to be honest. Music is a VERY easy way to remember words.

Ahh alright thanks for the clarification.

You're right about learning for writing. My older friend said he learned by writing each symbol (kata/hira) each one 14 times and say it outloud every time will help a lot with remembering. But doing it at every given chance is great also.

I had hoped that there would be something like Muzzy for JPN. I know there was a short one about a mermaid story but I could never find it (coughforfreecough).

[Vuitton]

I took 3 years of japanese in college while studying 4 years of chinese, and came out knowing near-fluent chinese and relatively proficient japanese. There's something to be said for college-level, formal language classes, it'd be worth checking your local colleges/universities to see how much it would cost to audit a class.

As for texts I used Nakama 1 for my first year of Japanese, was really straightforward and helpful.

I agree with this. I have taken independent Japanese classes before and they were "decent", but now that I am in a University and in the Japanese program, the college courses are vastly superior.

For example, in my previous classes everything was taught in English. It was lectured in English on the sentence structure of Japanese, ect. However, in my college level courses there is no English use at all. You are expected to come to class each day having read up on what will be covered in class because they will speak Japanese the entire class and expect you to answer, respond, and converse in Japanese. They use the class to perfect your pronunciation, speed, and response time, as well as listening comprehension.

I have a different foreign-exchange graduate student from Japan each day of the week as the instructor for diversity in speech and style. Its really stressful actually.... If you didn't study on your own enough and you end up looking like an idiot in class because you can't respond in class and will have no idea whats going on.

Anyway, I recommend classes regardless of style. Studying on your own is only really useful for basic phrases and some cultural stuff. Its good for people visiting Japan briefly, but if you want to be able to converse, eavesdrop, or write letters/papers in Japanese you need schooling.

[kawaiiuzume]

I'd really recommend this site Learn Japanese - videos it's very nice and somewhat entertaining they've got stuff for all levels and you can kinda fish out your level.

i can say starting from square one the korean version was very helpful (the japanese side has been going the longest and has some ungodly number of podcasts) there's a forum and all sorts of resources if you're willing to pay for the membership.

And i agree with the music thing, I listen to a lot of Portuguese music and i learn more vocab from there than i have in all of my Portuguese classes lol.

Also making it fun... the second you make it a chore you'll not remember things anywhere near as much.

[Chelly]

I also second what Silenka said.

I learned hiragana and katakana during high school when I was bored on my own.
I'm pretty much a weeaboo too but watching anime did help me to some extent in my college classes for Japanese.
Knowing Spanish did make it easier for pronounciation as well

I'm currently taking Japanese 103 at my college, its really easy to get a grasp of things
just be sure to practice, practice, practice.

We've been using the Nakama books; I like how its set up so I'd recommend them.

Kanji is a pain in the ass though, but you can get it down with repeatedly using them and seeing them written on something.

[thetruepandagod]

anyone got any tips on where i can learn slovak? not much luck finding anything besides an old dictionary which is from before the communists came lol...

[Osede]

Althought this is not an advice, but just let the OP know some expectation.

If you never learn any second language, as you grows older, it will takes longer time to learn it. But if this is your third, forth and etc, then it won't be so much problem >.>


From my experience, the pronouciation will plays an important part. So, this will be better to attend some language class, or using the audio to study. And then, don't expect any other language will has the same grammar structure as english. Chinese, japanese, and some other like even indonesian language they have signification different sentence structure. You definitely will find alots of "why" question when you just studying yourself :D

[Senoska]

Another thing Rosetta stone and programs won't teach you is stroke order of kanji. It will show you kanji with the vocabulary but they are just pictures at that point. Kanji stroke order is very important and something you really gotta learn. Once you get like 150 kanji under your belt the others become rather easy, or thats been the case with me so far. You'll notice patterns and names of things, how words form, etc they will all sort of make sense.

An example; Tokyo's kanji is 東京. The first kanji is the kanji for East, the second for Capital. Some don't make so much sense in english, I never understood 先生.. but overall, even if you don't know the way the kanji is pronounced but know what it means you can occasionally make out what is being said.

I don't think any program will really teach you that.

[Shinryuu]

Watch TV. Lots. Can be entertaining, isn't actively studying (something you won't be doing fulltime unless you're hardcore) and it's pretty much how I learned English when I was a kid (at the age schools give little to no English lessons).