PenPal or Forum Threads for Practice?

I need to practice my Japanese, but I'm too slow to get any use from a chat room.

日本語の練習を要って、でもチャットルームから使用を得る余りにも遅い 。

Has the JREF penpal program helped anyone? It sounds a good option in theory, but I'm not really interested in "relationships" which it seemed to be geared towards... if you know what I mean.

Another idea would be to post a lot to a thread with random phrases and ask for corrections... which I imagine could be a little annoying.

I've only been studying for the past month, so I'm limited to hiragana, katakana, and about 100 kanji.
先月で勉強だけした、有限ひらがなもかたかなもぐらい100漢字も。

(...and I really need help with structure and grammar, as evidenced by my awful patchwork translation attempts.)

Which would you recommend? ^_^
どっち勧めされるか。

ありがとう。

Kep

わたし も。 あなた どう です。

I'm the same, my sentence construction sucks.
What seems to be working best at the moment, is this awesome book i found at the library last week... nice and easy to understand. Have you tried your local library?

はりまくん は すごい ですよ！ School Rumble は かっこい いい です。

How about your monologue or diary posts in this thread?

E-Arkham said:

I've only been studying for the past month, so I'm limited to hiragana, katakana, and about 100 kanji.
先月で勉強だけした、有限ひらがなもかたかなもぐらい100漢字も。

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一ヶ月だけ勉強しているので、ひらがなとカタカナと１００ぐらい漢字に限られています。

By the way, "ikagetsu shika benkyou shiteinai" is also fine, it just emphasizes the shortness of the time and sounds more subjective in my opinion.

E-Arkham said:

I need to practice my Japanese, but I'm too slow to get any use from a chat room.

日本語の練習を要って、でもチャットルームから使用を得る余りにも遅い 。

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「日本語の練習がもっと要りますけど、チャットルームからほとんど得るところが出来ないと思います。まだとても遅いですからね。」
色々言い方があるんですが、なるべく自然な感じに訂正してみました。
私の訂正も不自然だったら、誰か直してくださいね。

ありがとう。

「先月だけ」と「一ヶ月だけ」は、二つ共が正答をですね？
Regarding "only (the) past month" and "only one month," both are technically correct, aren't they? Come to think of it, is と necessary if you're already using quotes (「、」)?

Unfortunately, the local library is pretty pathetic and would likely not even have Spanish literature if not for the growing number of Spanish-speakers in the community.
折り悪く局地的な公開図書館は可哀相です誰度が、西語の本をじゃないでしょう。(yeah, I don't have the first clue how to work that conditional "if not for the growing number.." part in there... heh... help?)

There's a university library a relatively short trip away which I've been meaning to explore.
大学の図書館は少しです、僕がいきたい。

Since I've a fair amount of material yet to digest, I haven't made it a priority to do.
僕のもっと読み物をあって、優先事項が製じゃない。

Amoung the resources I use, the ones I most commonly turn to are:

Kanji Learner's Dictionary (which is an extremely helpful book),
White Rabbit Flashcards, Level 1,
Kanji Gold,
Barron's Japanese Grammar (unfortunately all in romaji, but it's still been helpful),
Jim Breen's JDIC dictionary,
Random House Japanese-English Dictionary,
David Hallgren's Japanese Page (which is something I use daily to increase my reading speed),
The Rikya plugin for Firefox (which is extremely helpful!)

I also refer to Learning and Teaching Japanese for verb conjugation practice and general phrases, and Learn Basic Japanese Grammar

I have one of those "Japanese in Ten Minutes a Day" books, but aside from easy reference for numbers, it's proven pretty useless for actually understanding the language structure.

One problem I have is the way I tend to think and communicate in English. It's ridden with phrases and comparatively complex sentence structures, so my natural thought processes require a lot of work for me to translate into Japanese. In the long run, it might allow me greater understanding, but for now it just means I spend a really long time trying to translate things and making many mistakes.

「日本語の練習がもっと要りますけど、チャットルームからほとんど得るところが出来ないと思います。まだ とても遅いですからね。」

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The change to が (after 日本語の練習) makes "Japanese language" the subject, rather than the direct object, no? Wouldn't it be direct object since the "I" is assumed, as in "X, (I) need"? What are some of the other specific errors I made, so I can learn from them?

Kep

PS – Yes, I've enjoyed School Rumble quite a bit. I've been using the raw manga as reading practice.

はい、スクールランブルを面白がった。マンガが手鳴らしをです。

E-Arkham said:

ありがとう。

「先月だけ」と「一ヶ月だけ」は、二つ共が正答をですね？
Regarding "only (the) past month" and "only one month," both are technically correct, aren't they? Come to think of it, is と necessary if you're already using quotes (「、」)?

Click to expand...

AFAIK, sengetsu is "last month," if you are trying to say this past month that is usually "from the beginning of this month" in Japanese. But by far the most natural is "1 month" or maybe "No more than 30 days" ?

For no less than 30 days, you've really made remarkable progress...

Elizabeth said:

For no less than 30 days, you've really made remarkable progress...

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どもありがとう、でも僕はたくさん物事を仰ぎ見なければなりません。
Thanks very much, but I must look up many things (and I'm pretty sure the use of "あおぎみる / 仰ぎ見る" just now wasn't quite right).

I'd be lost without the JDIC... but then, I view this as practice and learning by doing.

Kep

Check out "Teach Yourself Japanese" for basic grammar. Once you get that down, some good books are "A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar" and "A Dictionary of Intermediate Japanese Grammar." They're a bit expensive and somewhat difficult to get a hold of, but they're well worth it.

が is used with 要る because that's the way it is. You can think of 要る as meaning "is needed" more than "need" if that helps. It may be worth mentioning that Kuno sees this が as "the が of object marking," but what he talks about is pretty advanced material about the structure of the language. You may want to wait on that. Other verbs that take が like this are 分かる, ある, and いる (although the last two are existential verbs, so it isn't as counter-intuitive).

One more thing that I noticed: in the five years that I've been studying, listening to, and reading Japanese, I've never seen を before です, even when all that is said is the direct object. So, don't put を before です.

Good luck with your learning. As Elizabeth said, your progress is pretty remarkable.

E-Arkham said:

ありがとう。

「先月だけ」と「一ヶ月だけ」は、二つ共が正答をですね？
Regarding "only (the) past month" and "only one month," both are technically correct, aren't they? Come to think of it, is と necessary if you're already using quotes (「、」)?

Click to expand...

規則の上では、「先月だけ」も「一ヶ月だけ」もどちらも正しいでしょうか？
この場合、「 」は、言葉を引用という意味で使われないから、
「「と」じゃなくて「も」」は、「 both 」などの場合に使います。


上級辞書をよく調べると、日常会話であまり使われない言葉が多いですね。
もちろん不自然な言葉を使っても、間違いであるとは限らないけど、
参考までに「普通の言い方が使われる教科書」もみてくださいね。

一番基本の間違いを訂正してみます。

E-Arkham said:

I need to practice my Japanese, but I'm too slow to get any use from a chat room.
日本語の練習を要って、でもチャットルームから使用を得る余りにも遅い 。

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ex）私は日本語を練習する必要がありますが、私は役に立つものをチャットルームから得ることができないくらい（日本語を書くのが）遅すぎるのです。

E-Arkham said:

I've only been studying for the past month, so I'm limited to hiragana, katakana, and about 100 kanji.
先月で勉強だけした、有限ひらがなもかたかなもぐらい100漢字も。

Click to expand...

ex）私は過去にひと月勉強しただけでしたので、（私が知っていることといえば）ひらがな、カタカナ、および約100個の漢字に限られています。

E-Arkham said:

Which would you recommend? ^_^
どっち勧めされるか。

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ex）あなた（orみなさん）はどっちを勧めますか？

私の翻訳の誤りも指摘してくださいね＞皆様

E-Arkham said:

「先月だけ」と「一ヶ月だけ」は、二つ共が正答をですね？

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If it is September, 2005 now...
もし、現在２００５年９月だとしたら……

先月だけ）
Only August, 2005 is indicated.
２００５年の８月だけを示します。

一ヶ月だけ）
Past one month (about 30 days) is indicated.
それ以前の一ヶ月（約３０日）を示します。

どもありがとうささめさん。そのが本当に役に立つ。

私は既習（きしゅう）を再吟味（さいぎんみ）する必要（ひつよう）があります。

Um, well, actually I want to say "what I've learned from the replies/thread" rather than "previous learning" but I'm not sure how to structure that.

I have to put some actual work in today, but I'll work on some more grammar later on.

ありがとう！

Kep

PS - Some of the kanji are new to me, so the parenthetical cheats are just for when I review.

E-Arkham said:

どもありがとうささめさん。そのが本当に役に立つ。

私は既習（きしゅう）を再吟味（さいぎんみ）する必要（ひつよう）があります。

Um, well, actually I want to say "what I've learned from the replies/thread" rather than "previous learning" but I'm not sure how to structure that.

I have to put some actual work in today, but I'll work on some more grammar later on.

ありがとう！

Kep

PS - Some of the kanji are new to me, so the parenthetical cheats are just for when I review.

Click to expand...

復習する is most natural for to review studies or go over past lessons.

この返事を（繰り返し）復習する必要があります。

Unfortunately, the local library is pretty pathetic and would likely not even have Spanish literature if not for the growing number of Spanish-speakers in the community.
折り悪く局地的な公開図書館は可哀相です誰度が、西語の本をじゃないでしょう。(yeah, I don't have the first clue how to work that conditional "if not for the growing number.." part in there... heh... help?)

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残念ながら、（私の）の地方の公立図書館 (public library, or 公共図書館 ; 公開 is 'make available' like when documents are opened to the public or something）
は、とても小さいんですよね。 もしもヒスパニックの増加をしない場合は（増加をしなかったら）
それは 多分スペイン文学のコレクションがあることさえしないだろう。

Close enough for our purposes here anyway....