Hello!

[NattyBumppo]

Hello, everyone. My name is Nat, and I'm just joining the forums. I've been speaking Japanese for several years, and I'm currently working as a Japanese translator (I mainly translate video games). I've joined to see if I can be of any help with people's Japanese questions, and also to learn from everyone else here!
窶堙??堋､窶堋ｼ窶堙ｦ窶堙ｫ窶堋ｵ窶堋ｭ窶堋ｨﾅ?ﾃｨ窶堋｢窶堋ｵ窶堙懌?堋ｷﾂ！ ﾂ?ｩﾂ 窶堋ｿ窶堙･窶堙≫?堙停?堙ｨﾂ鞘?披?堙≫?堙帚?堋｢窶堋ｯ窶堙
Also, here's my website that I'm starting- check it out if you're an intermediate or advanced student of Japanese!

beforebreakfast.net

(can't link yet, but it should show up in my sig whenever I post in the future... )

 

[yumeitsumo]

I look forward to your help. Welcome! I plan on becoming a translator myself. It's great to know there's a translator out there!

 

[hideway]

Hey Nat. Welcome to JRef. I'm learning Japanese so it is always nice to have more people around who actually speak the language.

How much time did you took to become a decent reader?

 

[NattyBumppo]

Hi yumeitsumo and hideway. Thanks for your kind greetings. I've been studying Japanese for maybe... 7 years now. Reading ability took a while (several years, and keep in mind I studied Japanese in college for four years), and Japanese is still an ongoing ability: I still don't have a very expansive vocabulary in topics that I don't know much about in English.

For example, I could read an article about innovations in computer programming just fine, probably without needing to use a dictionary at all, but if you gave me an article about recent economic theories, I'd probably spend more time looking up words than I would spend looking at the article itself.

But I feel like getting to a good, comfortable reading level with the sort of material that you want to read is all about speaking the language and learning how it works... and then reading follows naturally from that. I think a lot of people try to teach themselves kanji for words they don't even know or use yet, and I don't think that works at all!

Anyway, enough babbling... 窶堙ｦ窶堙ｫ窶堋ｵ窶堋ｭ窶堋ｨﾅ?ﾃｨ窶堋｢窶堋ｵ窶堙懌?堋ｷﾂ！