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Talking "real" Japanese

swe12

後輩
23 Aug 2005
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When we learn Japanese from language books we normally just learn how to deal with different situations, it seems that there is no book on how to talk real Japanese, with real Japanese I mean you could talk much more deeper conversation, and you could understand everything that they say on japanaese TV, Do you know where to go to learn all this? I am quite bored just learning the same thing over and over again.

Thanx
 
Hi Swe12. I'm affraid that you won't like this answer but...unless you can practice with real japanese yourself...
If you don't have japanese friends, you may also practice on chat rooms. May I suggest you to give a try at IRC Undernet servers (#Japan channel), during Japan night time? You'll have there a good chance to practice spoken japanese (even if only writing it).
 
Hey that's a great suggestion Mamoru-kun. The only question being will I be able to drag myself out of bed early enough in the morning to talk in night time Japan? I wonder when Japan goes to bed? I could always try during Japan daytime and perhaps get some unemployed people or slackers-at-work.

I have a Japanese penpal I met through Japan-guide.com and he helps me practice Japanese a little through messenger, with writing. But you can also do it with speaking if you have the microphones or whatever.
 
The stuff you learn in books in the bread and butter of the language, its what you would come across the most often and lays the foundation for free flowing conversation later on.
 
If your more of a textbook person, I recommend Nakama I & Nakama II.

Those are the textbooks they use at my college & at Princeton. Its a fast-paced book & can be difficult at times, but it taught me a lot. It teaches all different forms of the language from polite to colloquial. Check it out, it might help. Let me know how you like it.

Oh! and if you want a really great way to learn Japanese through like audio programs or w/e, go on to a bit torrent site, and look up Pimsleur (for Japanese). Pimsleur is a program designed for the US CIA, that helps them learn foreign languages fairly quickly. It's a really great program. My boyfriend self taught himself a lot of stuff through those recordings (and also uses my Nakama textbooks). Its about 4gigs worth of stuff, but its entirely worth it. And they also have this subliminal recording too.

Heres a link that talks about the program:

Pimsleur Language Program


GL!

Oh, and I find watching anime, and constantly watching like japanese shows helps. The news does too, but they speak really formal. For the colloquial, watch anime and japanese tv shows, and you can even read manga. Penpals like Limonette said are good way to learn any language.

Best way though is to trek out to Japan for a few months. But either/or its entirely up to you.
 
i would surely like to be able to speak japanese one day. immersion is one of the best ways to learn how to speak any language. try your best to immerse yourself in the japanese language whenevere you can.
 
swe12 said:
Do you know where to go to learn all this? I am quite bored just learning the same thing over and over again.
Yes. Japan.

duff_o_josh said:
immersion is one of the best ways to learn how to speak any language. try your best to immerse yourself in the japanese language whenevere you can.
Ewok85 said:
The stuff you learn in books in the bread and butter of the language, its what you would come across the most often and lays the foundation for free flowing conversation later on.
True.

Minxie said:
Oh, and I find watching anime, and constantly watching like japanese shows helps. The news does too, but they speak really formal. For the colloquial, watch anime and japanese tv shows, and you can even read manga. Penpals like Limonette said are good way to learn any language.

Best way though is to trek out to Japan for a few months. But either/or its entirely up to you.
Good point for listening comprehension, but without someone to speak to one cannot very well learn how to speak as quickly as they learn how to understand the spoken language.

See my reply to GoldCoinLover' post here.
 
If we want to learn the real Japanese, the best way I think, is living in Japan, talk to Japanese friends and try to learn everything of Japanese local culture.
 
I'd also add the question "what is real Japanese?"

Do you want to speak like a Japanese youth, like a woman, like the older generation? Do you want to speak Kanasi-ben, Kanto-ben, Hokkaido-ben?

To illustrate my point with a simple example, one only need mention a word such as "majide!" to see that it's in extremely common usage amongst certain sections of society, but wouldn't ever been used by others. So which group is real?
 
Silverpoint said:
I'd also add the question "what is real Japanese?"

Do you want to speak like a Japanese youth, like a woman, like the older generation? Do you want to speak Kanasi-ben, Kanto-ben, Hokkaido-ben?

To illustrate my point with a simple example, one only need mention a word such as "majide!" to see that it's in extremely common usage amongst certain sections of society, but wouldn't ever been used by others. So which group is real?

My favorite example of the sort of Japanese I assume the OP was talking about:

One morning I went to work and was greeted by a coworker ツ「ニ筑ニ辰ニ誰ツ、窶堋ィ窶堙坂?堙ヲ窶堋、ツ!窶堙銀?堋ヲ窶堙ア窶堙猟」.

It took me a few seconds to grok the 窶堙銀?堋ヲ窶堙ア窶堙 part and be able to answer him.
 
Well, the first step is to get comfortable calling everybody you see "Omae." If there are many people, then go with "Omaera." Now, this is the important part, so listen carefully. You must contort your face and, with all of your might, pervert that "ma" into a real good "meeehhhhh." Voila, omeeeeehrayo, honton nihongo shabendayo!
 
get japanese friends, and talk as much japanese as posible..
go to japan, do exchange. this is the best REAL way
 
blade_bltz said:
Well, the first step is to get comfortable calling everybody you see "Omae." If there are many people, then go with "Omaera." Now, this is the important part, so listen carefully. You must contort your face and, with all of your might, pervert that "ma" into a real good "meeehhhhh." Voila, omeeeeehrayo, honton nihongo shabendayo!

Good Lord, what comic books have you been reading?
 
Good Lord, what comic books have you been reading?

Haha...the truth is I've never read a manga in my life, nor have I watched a non-Miyazaki anime in probably about 5 years. I learned how to corrupt the Japanese language primarily through that most innocent of entertainment forms...J-dorama. But yeah, I have a thing for slang speech, even in English. Oh, and a nasty habit of completely neglecting to indicate sarcasm over the internet.
 
blade_bltz said:
Haha...the truth is I've never read a manga in my life, nor have I watched a non-Miyazaki anime in probably about 5 years. I learned how to corrupt the Japanese language primarily through that most innocent of entertainment forms...J-dorama. But yeah, I have a thing for slang speech, even in English. Oh, and a nasty habit of completely neglecting to indicate sarcasm over the internet.

Quite obviously you didn't pick it up by actually living and working in Japan and calling everybody "omae".
 
mikecash said:
It took me a few seconds to grok the 窶堙銀?堋ヲ窶堙ア窶堙 part and be able to answer him.

It's taking me more than a few seconds, and I'm pretty sure I'm not right. Does it have something to do with "how'd you sleep last night?" Where was this guy from?
 
Glenn said:
It's taking me more than a few seconds, and I'm pretty sure I'm not right. Does it have something to do with "how'd you sleep last night?" Where was this guy from?

He is from Gunma.

窶堙銀?堋ヲ = 窶堙遺?堋「
窶堙 = 窶堋セ窶堙ォ窶堋、
 
Ah! I had read a bit about 窶ケ{ツ湘ゥ窶「テ the other day and remembered seeing 窶堙? but couldn't remember what it meant. Due to my ignorance of Japanese geography, I'm not sure where Gunma is, but I think it's north of Tokyo close to the Tohoku region, if not a part of it. That would certainly make sense. However, the utterance doesn't seem to. Does it mean something like "good morning, Mike. Well, maybe not."?
 
As you no doubt noticed, the part following the greeting lacked a subject, and seemingly lacked context as well. That's part of what took me a while to grok it.

As it happened, that day my company was a little short on freight and I had no load to haul that day. The missing subject/topic was ナスdナス窶? meaning 窶ーテ冷?「ツィ in this case.
 
blade_bltz said:
Well, the first step is to get comfortable calling everybody you see "Omae." If there are many people, then go with "Omaera." Now, this is the important part, so listen carefully. You must contort your face and, with all of your might, pervert that "ma" into a real good "meeehhhhh." Voila, omeeeeehrayo, honton nihongo shabendayo!

Love it, but I suggest you must be relatively fit, wear tight vests and have lots of tattoos before using this all the time :p
 
Trust me, the things said on television aren't that deep. The real key to having any sort of meaningful conversation with someone in Japanese is as someone said, emersion... Taped conversations sound awkward and strange to the Japanese ear, and when is the last time you used dou itashimashite in casual conversation? Once you get around people and start to really learn how the language is used, you'll be talking about food with everyone in no time. ;)
 
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