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what to do next?

Jesiah505

後輩
8 Apr 2015
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ok, so after ive rememberized all the Hiragana And Katakana where should I go from there?
some people are telling me I should begin Kanji but im not even sure how to read or write out sentences yet.

So what should I do next?
 
Get a good textbook and start from lesson #1.

Pro-tip: in English we typically say "memorized", or possibly "remembered", although that would be a bit unusual in this case. I'd go with "memorized".
 
lol, I have bad grammar even in my first language

OT: So quick question are there dictionaries for like Japanese Romaji to English cause I can translate a Japanese sentence to Romaji I just don't know what it means.

ex. いつ にほんに いきますか。
itsu nihon ni ikemasu ka
I can do that i just dont understand the romaji is there like a dictionary for this or?
 
ok, so if im fluent in english and i get the sentence I posted above how am I supposed to know what it means in english?
 
Then whats the point of even memorizing the romanji for them?

Forgive me if I sound uneducated I'm very new at this.
 
lol, I have bad grammar even in my first language

OT: So quick question are there dictionaries for like Japanese Romaji to English cause I can translate a Japanese sentence to Romaji I just don't know what it means.

ex. いつ にほんに いきますか。
itsu nihon ni ikemasu ka
I can do that i just dont understand the romaji is there like a dictionary for this or?

That romaji is not correct. いきますか (ikimasuka) and いけますか (ikemasuka) are not equivalent.

I don't like romaji but I'll leave it to people who know more than I do to advise you on whether to use it as part of your studies.
 
so.
when people speak japanese it's pronounced as its written in romaji. Right?
When people write japanese its either written in Kanji, Hiragana, Katakana. Right?
When people read Hiragana (for my situation) they translate it in their head to romaji and the the romaji means something like "Arigato" means "Thank You" in english.

so what im trying to understand it do I need to get a vocabulary of what all the romaji means (for when im reading) cause i can look at the characters but im still going to have to translate them (in my head) to romaji and then that romaji should mean something to me. - right?
 
ok, so if im fluent in english and i get the sentence I posted above how am I supposed to know what it means in english?

Did you think Japanese was just English written with funny characters? You have to learn a whole new language, not just some characters.
 
My brain just melted inside my head...

so your telling me the words in other languages don't have exact meanings to others in other languages.

so can you expand on what your saying I'm not exactly understanding
 
ok ok ok ok i think I found a better way to say what im asking, so if im looking at a few hiragana characters how am i supposed to know what they mean isnt that what the romajis for cause without the romaji they're just characters what other meaning do they have
 
Hiragana is a set of characters used to WRITE the Japanese language. It is not the language itself. They don't have meanings. You have to learn the LANGUAGE now.

You know most or all of the alphabet used for French, German, Spanish, Italian, etc. can you read books written in those languages and understand them?

You don't learn hiragana for the purpose of switching to romaji. That's bass-ackwards. You use romaji to help you learn hiragana.
 
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I dont know I can read in hiragana but when I do i have no idea what it means i get things like this
desu, san, arigato, and i have no idea what they mean.
 
I dont know I can read in hiragana but when I do i have no idea what it means i get things like this
desu, san, arigato, and i have no idea what they mean.

I'm starting to think you're just yanking our chain....

Would you expect to understand people speaking Japanese now just because you learned hiragana?

Can you understand spoken French, German, Spanish, etc? Why not? After all...you know the letters used to write them.
 
no, I'm not yanking you you chain I am seriously confused i just started learning this like a week ago

ok so if I put 2 hiragana characters together and I get Yotsu, can you explain to me how YOU would comprehend that im really just trying to wrap my head around what your saying.
 
Again, you need to learn the language.
If a beginner learner of English asks you I can read all alphabet, but what is the meaning of "been" in "I've never been to Japan"?, what do you say to them?
 
You have memorized hiragana, so you know how to read ありがとう, right? So, if you know how to read it, but don't know the meaning, you look in a Japanese-English dictionary (under the あ entries) to find ありがとう.

The entries are arranged according to Japanese order (あいうえお, etc...).

You can't just throw random hiragana together and hope they make a word, but say you come across two hiragana characters together that and they say よつ, as above you would look up よつ in your Japanese-English dictionary to get the English meaning.

Once you've memorized hiragana and katakana, you have no more need for romaji. Pack it away in a corner of your mind and forget about it.
 
You have memorized hiragana, so you know how to read ありがとう, right? So, if you know how to read it, but don't know the meaning, you look in a Japanese-English dictionary (under the あ entries) to find ありがとう.

The entries are arranged according to Japanese order (あいうえお, etc...).

You can't just throw random hiragana together and hope they make a word, but say you come across two hiragana characters together that and they say よつ, as above you would look up よつ in your Japanese-English dictionary to get the English meaning.

Once you've memorized hiragana and katakana, you have no more need for romaji. Pack it away in a corner of your mind and forget about it.
so basically now I just gather a bunch of vocabulary words basically and then I move onto kanji
 
Get a textbook that will start with the most basic grammar and vocabulary. Build your vocabulary using the text. If that's too tedious for you, you can study on your own to learn even more vocabulary. But I fear that just accumulating words right now will not start you off on the right foot.

Forget about kanji for the moment. You are still in the wading pool... stay away from the deep end, and stay off the diving board for now. There is plenty of time for those later.
 
well I've read a few books about grammar i'm already familiar with their sentence structure, Copulas, and some of the Particles and a few other things.
 
well I've read a few books about grammar i'm already familiar with their sentence structure, Copulas, and some of the Particles and a few other things.

Put the reference books in the back of your closet and pile stuff on top of them.

Get a TEXTBOOK that will take you by the hand and lead you down the path to learning the language. Have you noticed how many times we have said that so far in this thread? There is a reason.
 
Put the reference books in the back of your closet and pile stuff on top of them.

Get a TEXTBOOK that will take you by the hand and lead you down the path to learning the language. Have you noticed how many times we have said that so far in this thread? There is a reason.
ok.... ill burn the reference books.
 
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