Learning Japanese , probably a dumb question.

[nice gaijin]

Your initial answer is 90 words long, and your TL;DR version of that is 52 words long. Thanks for giving us the option to save nearly 40 words.

TL;DR: Thanks for writing your reply in a way that can save us from having to read a handful of words.

You counted? And then took the time to write that? Sorry to have wasted your precious time by rephrasing myself. ご迷惑かけてすみませんね。

 

[joadbres]

You counted? And then took the time to write that? Sorry to have wasted your precious time by rephrasing myself. ご迷惑かけてすみませんね。

Waste my time? No, you SAVED me time. Plus, I used the word count feature of my wapuro to count the words, so it took very little time to do that.

TL;DR: No worries.

 

[indojindesu]

I can speak Japanese because I worked at it and because I consciously and intentionally put myself in an environment where i had to actively function in Japanese in order to make a living. My wife had very close to nothing to do with it.

This is how it should be.
I have never been to Japan. I dont have a Japanese boyfriend. Yet I magically managed to learn Japanese by studying hard, joining classes, using those "boring" textbooks.

If the dating method worked so well, then there would have been no textbooks no language classes. Just companies hiring out native partners for teaching languages.

If and when you get to Japan, you will discover that the thing that most western expats do best regarding Japanese is excusing themselves from learning it. Appallingly, you even find many who are ignorant and proud of it.

Wow. Cant understand how someone can live in a country and not learn its language and actually be proud of it.
Hope I dont get to meet these people if and when I get to Japan.


Also,

I think he was just having a goof

His jokes were so funny that I died from laughter. Hilarious. Maybe he can consider that as an alternate career path.

 

[KyushuWoozy]

My comments weren't meant to be that serious but I truly apologise if anyone found them offensive or inappropriate because that wasn't my intention at all.

I wish everyone good luck in their language learning journey.

 

[hashy]

Japanese is very easy in the beginning. The basic grammar structures are easy to grasp, but when you reach an intermediate level it all goes to hell from there. I learnt hiragana and katakana in around 3 hours all up. I also would recommend learning the phonetic alphabet and then start grammar. Begin kanji after you have basic grammar covered. For example when you can say "I went to the park. It was enjoyable." in Japanese. This is how i was being taught in my first year of university. Grammar is more important than kanji. I have learn't alot of grammar and know only 360 kanji. By the end of my university semester i will know 400 kanji and i will go on to advance units. Also it is more exhilarating when you can comprehend the language even if its just a little bit. I still remember how fun it was saying これはえんぴつです。

tl;dr Japanese grammar and vocab should be priority over kanji. Ease into the kanji after basic comprehension of the language. You will feel like quiting every other week when it gets hard, don't, just persevere.

 

[Mike Cash]

@hashy

Do your university Japanese courses use a textbook or did they just hand out a grammar reference book?

 

[mdchachi]

tl;dr

When did this TL;DR stuff hit the web lexicon? I never noticed it until today and had to Google it.

 

[Mike Cash]

When did this TL;DR stuff hit the web lexicon? I never noticed it until today and had to Google it.

Blame Reddit.... best described as "Usenet in a browser window so we can sell advertising. Popular among those too young to remember Usenet"

 

[hashy]

@hashy

Do your university Japanese courses use a textbook or did they just hand out a grammar reference book?

Nope we dont use textbooks. I believe all the material has been created by the Japanese Studies department. We don't study from textbooks. We get lecture notes for the semester to print out, so as to make it more convenient when studying or attending lectures.
It is structured as:
-Grammar point
-structure and construction of that grammar
-explanation
-examples
-more explanation if it is difficult grammar

 

[Mike Cash]

Thank you, that's very interesting. Could you share with us a scan or photo of a typical page, please? I'd really like to see one.

 

[hashy]

Thank you, that's very interesting. Could you share with us a scan or photo of a typical page, please? I'd really like to see one.

Sure, no problem. I'm just converting the pdf and going to upload it soon. I'll upload all the pages from week 7, which is the current week I just studied. That way you can get a better feel of how it is structured.

 

[hashy]

Thank you, that's very interesting. Could you share with us a scan or photo of a typical page, please? I'd really like to see one.

I uploaded the pages.

 

[Mike Cash]

I uploaded the pages.

Thanks very much. I think that looks very much like what one would find in a textbook and could be considered one, whether it is printed, bound, and distributed as one or not. I wouldn't be surprised if someone says they recognize it as coming from a publicly available textbook.