Do you speak Japanese?

[Nightwalker]

Hmmm...well I know words and I reconize them sometimes but I'm still learning. I can't spoeak speak it but I would die to learn it. I sing in Japanese rather than in English. I don't know what they are saying but it's not stopping me. Tee hee. I know stuff like "Sayonara" and "Baka"...ect ect ect ect...stuff like that. I mostly learn that from reading manga or watching Japanese films like "Moon Child" (my favorite movie! Go Gackt-sama!) or from listening to music and reading the English lyrics. Stuff like that. But, ya know...I hope sometime I will be able to read it and speak it like in sentences.

 

[Raymond]

dont know where to start!

 

[lexico]

From a fellow beginner

dont know where to start!

I don't know how much you know, so I may be making a total fool out of myself.
But if you are an absolute beginner like me ; this I would like to suggest.

First learn your 50 syllabry chart for reading~writing Japanese words.

1. KATAKANA: repeat the strokes while reciting the syllables out loud like

あ Ah, あ Ah, あ Ah, あ Ah, ...
い Ih, い Ih, い Ih, い Ih, ...
う Uh, う Uh, う Uh, う Uh, ...
え Eh, え Eh, え Eh, え Eh, ...
お Oh, お Oh, お Oh, お Oh, ...

until you're pretty comfortable with spitting out the syllables.
(The h's are there only to say that these are pure vowels, not the English glides.)

Now before I go any further, the strokes may be difficult at first. There should be a million of those stroke teaching pages on the web, but I found one right here (partial; but it's got the first 3 charts) hiragana / katakana stroke order worksheets | Japan Forum

Once you're done, then there is the HIRAGANA for recent loan words. It has somewhat simpler strokes.

Don't worry about the KANJI words at the beginning. These loan words from Chinese have their own Japanified readings, and you can learn just a couple each time. Please don't let KANJI scare you away. Even the average Japanese have trouble recognizing every single KANJI, by the way

Anyway, I would hate to scare you off by giving you more that I should, but there's one very nice site I just found today, here http://www.davidhallgren.se/nihon by one JREF member.

Check out the stuff, and ask around; I don't know much, but I almost completed one semester of college Japanese, which wore off in time.
Good luck!

ps. Oh, when you're done with the kana's you will like this introduction How kanji and kana are used together, a short introduction | Japan Forum which has only 4 kanji. 私 watashi "me" 名前 namae "name" and two more which I can't read yet. But that should get you through down to 80% of the excellent introduction.!! Have fun!!

 

[masayoshi]

1. KATAKANA: repeat the strokes while reciting the syllables out loud like

あ Ah, あ Ah, あ Ah, あ Ah, ...
い Ih, い Ih, い Ih, い Ih, ...
う Uh, う Uh, う Uh, う Uh, ...
え Eh, え Eh, え Eh, え Eh, ...
お Oh, お Oh, お Oh, お Oh, ...
/QUOTE]

Just want to point out that the curvy characters are hiragana (あ, い, う, え, お, etc) and the seemingly simpler ones used for loan words are katakana (ア, イ, ウ, エ, オ, etc). So as not to confuse ...

 

[Forgotten]

I know very little Japanese, but I am throughly impressed so many of you can speak it.

 

[nemesae]

今日は皆さん＾＾私はネメサエと。。。ええっと､じゃあ B。。
Well, um, so I'm Nemesae, I suck at speaking Japanese, have been studying for about a year or something more now and I can read about 500 kanji (in meaning, not all on and kun readings though) and write from memory about 300. Still want to do the proficiency tests, but I never knew where do to one until a week before the actual test and it was too late by then >_< One week, I actually learnt about 100 kanji. But I'm lazy, so I'll probably won't be able to do that again

 

[cloud1414]

i only know some greetings and such

 

[meninadosul]

nihongo

I speak fairly well and can read 2-kyu level kanjis, but when it comes to writing... ahem... not so good.

 

[Malaika]

I only know few words/ phrases in japanese, I can't really speak it fluently, though I really want to ^_^.

 

[Tsuyoiko]

This is my first post! I am a beginner! I know hiragana and I am learning katakana and kanji. I started the kanji before I had learned all the katakana because they are more interesting! I can recognise about 90 - 100 kanji and write 40 or 50.
Nihon no eiga ga suki kara nihongo o wakaritai. Kitano Takeshi-san wa ichiban ne?

 

[forkagentsmith]

i know the japanese language at a very basic level....
but i am learning it in hopes of going there one day

 

[Rgchrono]

Just want to point out that the curvy characters are hiragana (あ, い, う, え, お, etc) and the seemingly simpler ones used for loan words are katakana (ア, イ, ウ, エ, オ, etc). So as not to confuse

you really think that katakana are simple?

I forgot a lot of them, after not taking japanese for a while. Yet, I still remember how to write and read the hiragana. O_O

 

[rajs20]

I would say katakana are simpler... the reason you forgot a lot of katakana is probably because they aren't as commonly used as hiragana so you didn't get as much exposure...

Although, one thing which is kind of difficult about Katakana I think is that there are some characters which can look very similar. For example
ワ, ラ, ウ, フ, ヲ, ヴ
マ, ム
チ, モ
ク, ケ, タ
シ, ツ
ン, ソ

I think those last two pairs are the hardest... took me a long time before I got that down, hehe.

 

[Tsuyoiko]

I think those last two pairs (shi/tsu and n/so) are hard! I could only see the difference after I saw a tutorial in stroke order here: Katakana Writing Tutor

 

[rajs20]

Yea that's a good site... The way I found to remember ソ vs. ン is, if you take the smaller mark (the "teardrop") and extend it in a line, it will intersect the longer line at the top for ン and at the bottom for ソ. (Similar for tsu / shi).

 

[mizer]

I'm attempting to learn Japanese I've got all the hiragana - not started to learn the katakana yet, but I learned the hiragana really quickly so I am quite hopeful

I haven't started learning the kanji because I'm concentrating more on learning how to speak it. I'm lucky enough to have a native speaker to (occasionally!) help me with pronunciation, finer points of grammer etc. There is more vocabulary than in English, but I learn vocab really quickly (just the way my mind works) so that's not so much of a problem. In fact, I think English must be v. difficult for a native Japanese speaker because we have so many words that look simple and innocuous but actually carry 2 or 3 meanings depending on the context!

I'm still only at a basic level, though... The grammer doesn't seem too bad so far... at least, no more difficult than any other language. It's mainly the kanji that make it look difficult - I'm looking forward to the time when I feel that I have a good enough grasp of the way the language works to start learning kanji, too!

Good luck everyone

 

[White Comet]

I'm attempting to learn Japanese I've got all the hiragana - not started to learn the katakana yet, but I learned the hiragana really quickly so I am quite hopeful

I haven't started learning the kanji because I'm concentrating more on learning how to speak it. I'm lucky enough to have a native speaker to (occasionally!) help me with pronunciation, finer points of grammer etc. There is more vocabulary than in English, but I learn vocab really quickly (just the way my mind works) so that's not so much of a problem. In fact, I think English must be v. difficult for a native Japanese speaker because we have so many words that look simple and innocuous but actually carry 2 or 3 meanings depending on the context!

I'm still only at a basic level, though... The grammer doesn't seem too bad so far... at least, no more difficult than any other language. It's mainly the kanji that make it look difficult - I'm looking forward to the time when I feel that I have a good enough grasp of the way the language works to start learning kanji, too!

Good luck everyone

wow..u can read kanji, i really want to read it but seriously...i can't. I can only read romanji because it's easy to read ^^. I can understand some japanese but my japanese vocabulary is really limited as well is my reading.....limited. But i will not give up ^^. I will continue to learn japanese, well.....try to

 

[Kagome Higurashi]

this is totally not fair! :dead: i'm the youngest and i have not idea what a "Jyokyu- Nihongo Kentei" or a "Nihongo No-ryoku shiken" is! oh, yeah! i'm a begginner. i'm teaching myself! cool huh?!

 

[kalau]

wish i could do better with japaness language

 

[studyonline]

Does anyone know "習うより慣れろ"? It is a saying in Japanese, meaning "get used to it rather than learn it".

We, Japanese, often use this phrase when it comes to learning English. You see, if you are in a good environment + your effort, you will get used to the language. I remember those days when I realized I started to dream in English, which made me very thrilled.

Funny thing is that all my old friends speak in English to me in my dream. It's so weird, but I got used to that, too.

 

[ax]

it matches with english idiom "practice makes perfect".

ax

 

[Mars Man]

I'm in the middle there. You know, if I had really spent more time on the language thing while here all these 20 odd years, I would surely have been at the step 1 level by now, BUT. . . so much for the party of youth, the pleasures of pleasure, and the waste of our most equal resource, time.

I can pretty much hold my own in spoken Japanese--some may say I could be being modest here--but I do slack at times, and cannot read so many kanji.

 

[Mikawa Ossan]

I remember those days when I realized I started to dream in English, which made me very thrilled.

Funny thing is that all my old friends speak in English to me in my dream. It's so weird, but I got used to that, too.

I remember when I first started dreaming in Japanese. I don't remember the dream itself, but I do remember someone calling and waking me up. I groggily picked up the phone and said, "moshi moshi" several times. Next thing I knew it was like 8 in the morning. Poor guy on the other end; I must have hung up without even remembering!

All my old friends talk to me in English in my dreams, but I often talk to them in Japanese. It's funny how they seem to understand perfectly until I wake up!

 

[.::b|ue Ash::.]

I've been trying to learn for over a year now, though admittedly I haven't had much time for it. I know a few words and scentances here and there.

I have lots of books and audio books but I don't have any online courses, which would be neat as I spend most of my time online. Can anyone recommend one? I have one friend who is fluent, and another who has been learning as long as me, but he's spent more time on it.

 

[Damicci]

I am still waiting for my Japanese dream, Last one I had I was visiting my friend in fukuoka and were bumping butts @_@ on the train when this little japanese girl came over and pinched my butt @_@ but what was weird was I said something in english but my friend who doesn't speak alot of english said nothing. and most of the dream was in english. I was asked by my friend have I had a dream in Japanese yet. Still waiting....... :auch: