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Possibly Overkill?

kinetik423

kinetik423

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おはよう!

After reading all of the recommendations for beginners Japanese text/audio/etc., I went ahead and bought the Genki I Textbook, Workbook, and Audio CD's. I also bought(a.k.a. Downloaded) the Rosetta Stone Japanese series and I listen to a huge list of podcasts on iTunes 9 hours a day at work so I can be used to hearing correct pronunciation.

My question is this... would these all be Ok for now, or should I supplement all of these with novice Japanese language classes at the local university.

Should I first master the concepts and vocabulary in the books/software first, or would taking the additional college class be a great addition.

Thank you all for any advice you can give! 🙂:
 
Depends on what the course is offering I would say. If it starts at the level your at now, then it wouldn't hurt to take it.
 
I have bought several books, workbooks, dictionaries, etc and I still wish there was a class that I could take where I could practice with other people and get a better handle on it. But like Soloistic said, it just depends on the class and what it will cover. I found that learning Hirigana helped quite a bit and I will start studying Katakana soon as well. The reason it helps is that you can pick up some of the Japanese text you will see and have an understanding of pronunciation and the syllabus. I also study at the same time sentence structure, grammar, and a good list of vocabulary that I put together from going through my different books. After I get a good understanding of these I will start trying to recognize some of the more common Kanji. I am not sure that this helps but it is something to consider. Also if anyone would like a copy of my study list I can post it here or somewhere. It is about ten pages (US letter) long and I have little definitions next to the words and have most of the words grouped in categories.
 
Keep all your materials as clean as possible so as to maximize their resale value on eBay when you burn out.

Seriously, though, pace yourself and study only so long as it is enjoyable. When it starts to feel like a chore, quit for the day.
 
I don't think ill start to feel like its a chore. I just wanted to know if a classroom setting is a little more "intermediate" and not for beginners like me. The class that the University here is teaching is called Linguistics: Japanese I..not sure if that helps.

but yea...as far as getting burned out on learning Japanese, I LOVE the incredible challenge so I don't see that happening any time soon!

Petaris said:
...Also if anyone would like a copy of my study list I can post it here or somewhere. It is about ten pages (US letter) long and I have little definitions next to the words and have most of the words grouped in categories.
Click to expand...

I'd like that.
:emoji_thumbsup:
 
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I think the genki CDs are a waste of money if you have access to free listening materials such as podcasts, but they will help you with the material in the book. If you make use of the discs and don't regret the purchase then it's all good.

Like Mike said, as long as you enjoy it, study on.
 
kinetik423 said:

I'd like that.
:emoji_thumbsup:
Click to expand...
Ok, not sure I want to post it in this thread as it is so long but I will post it somewhere and put the link here. 🙂:

Ok, here is the URL:

katerina.frederic.k12.wi.us/code/Study_list_public.txt

This may not look right if you just click on it, it requires your text encoding to be set to Unicode (UTF-16 Little Endian). If you right click on the link and select "Save As..." you can save it to your desktop and it will probably look correct.
In Firefox you may have to go "View -> Character Encoding" and select the UTF-16 option.
Hope this helps! 🙂:

Ok, I can't add website links yet. So just copy and paste it into your browser's address bar.
 
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Please just edit your posts instead of tripling up by replying to yourself.
 
Ok, here is a better online version that you can use and there doesn't seem to be any encoding issues either.

petaris.googlepages.com/japanesestudylist

I hope people can make use of it, and feel free to contact me if there is an error. 🙂:
 
My question is this... would these all be Ok for now, or should I supplement all of these with novice Japanese language classes at the local university.
Click to expand...

If the japanese courses at the university are like programming courses all over america (in university), then chances are you'll learn more japanese from fortune cookies, and they're in chinese. Lemme put it to you simple, going to collage or uni for anything in america is for the paper, because you're not going to learn anything there.
 
Gurauki said:
If the japanese courses at the university are like programming courses all over america (in university), then chances are you'll learn more japanese from fortune cookies, and they're in chinese. Lemme put it to you simple, going to collage or uni for anything in america is for the paper, because you're not going to learn anything there.
Click to expand...

I disagree a lot with this, lol.

University Japanese, I've found, is a lot better than only using a resource to learn the language. You get a lot of practice time depending on what kind of teacher you have and a lot of learning time where you'll be criticized and corrected. Unlike high school or below classes in Japanese, you learn a LOT within a quarter or semester. 😌

I'd probably use the class as my main source and any other resources to help along. 🙂
 
my friend started college on in August and he has only learned greetings,and since it is a 3 year course,he isn't scheduled to learn any of the hirigana or katakana or the kanji until the last part of his second year or the beginning of the third year.

I'd rather study at my own pace then have to keep the,usually,slow pace of the classroom. It ruined spanish for me.
 
I started learning Japanese in college and had learned hiragana, katakana and some kanji within the first month. A college program that doesn't introduce the writing system until the second or third year sounds ridiculous (to the point that I find it hard to believe).

Self-study is important, but there's still a lot to benefit from a good structured course if one is available.
 
I talked to him on the phone this afternoon and that's what he told me because I told him I was studying kanji along with grammar,vocab and speaking.
 
Your friend is throwing his tuition money away. What college is that?
 
MTSU,he's on a scholarship.

I plan on attending Texas State because they have an outstanding Kinesiology program,and there isn't a Kinesiology program at any TN college.
 
I looked up the MTSU Japanese program. Unfortunately, the site seems to love throwing up 404 errors so I couldn't find any specific course info.
 
:giggle:

You probably wouldn't be surprised on how many do that,finding out what specific college that the kinesiology program was out(texas state has quite a few locations)took 2 weeks.
 
One can't help but wonder about the quality of computer/web-related instruction at universities with shoddy websites.
 
jmwintenn said:
my friend started college on in August and he has only learned greetings,and since it is a 3 year course,he isn't scheduled to learn any of the hirigana or katakana or the kanji until the last part of his second year or the beginning of the third year.
I'd rather study at my own pace then have to keep the,usually,slow pace of the classroom. It ruined spanish for me.
Click to expand...
That sounds like a bad teacher.. ratemyprofessors.com <--- This is a handy website for anyone wanting to know about a class before they enroll. Previous students can rate the class and teacher and leave comments about them. It's best to find out if a class is any good before you spend the money on enrolling. Just thought I'd give a heads up after reading this thread.
 
In my opinion its quite simple, if you can afford it go, when you notice that you left the others behind just quit, or move a course up or something, or just stay there for practise but at the same time self-study.
 
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