Learning Japanese (only two years left)

[Jr-]

I have been looking around all over the place to find some way for me and my girlfriend to learn Japanese. Our plan is to learn it before we are done with school (in two years or so). If someone could help me find good links, books, etc. i would greatly appriciate it. Please keep in mind we are complete beginners, we know absolutely no Japanese. Are there different types of Japanese spoken in Japan? Does the majority of japan speak that type of Japanese... any information will help.

Thanks,
Jr-

 

[TwistedMac]

We had this kid a while back.. he was most willing to teach.. inuyasha or something.. (ok, sorry, that was an insider joke =P)

but to be serious, look around the web. There are vast amounts of sites offering help on learning japanese.

you could start with David Hallgren's page (he's a member of this place) it has some good beginners exercises.

David Hallgren's Japanese Page

 

[Jr-]

hmm.. well, I have looked around the web a lot but honestly I just dont exactly know what to look for. Thanks for the link I'll start there. Does anyone else have any ideas?

 

[cacawate]

Language | Japan Forum

Tumbleweed's Resources for Learning Japanese

http://www.makura.com/paul/japanese.html (Here you can go to ポールの本屋 LOL!)

Japanese language learning tools on Web

Red's Japanese Language Resources

If you want more, just put 'Japanese Resources' in google.

-Jeff

 

[Glenn]

@different types of Japanese - There are many dialects spoken in Japan, some of them being unintelligible to others, but I'm pretty sure everyone understands Standard Japanese (標準語 -- hyoujungo). That's the one that everyone starts out learning, so I think you should start there as well.

I think Teach Yourself Japanese is good for basic grammar and vocabulary, and the link is in my sig. ;-)

 

[Elizabeth]

Nihongo (Japanese) wo ichi (one) nenkan (year) shuuchuutekini (intensively)
benkyou sureba (if you study) kihontekina (basic) chishiki (knowledge)
ga mi ni tsuku (will acquire).

Good luck !