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[KingGondo]

I've taken the plunge: I'm committed to at least two full semesters of Japanese at the college level, with hopefully more to come. I know we have some speakers (native and not) on the board, so I thought I'd ask advice about learning the language.

How much time should I commit per day? (this is a five credit-hour course, with an hour of class per day)

Are there any tricks that will help me with vocab and structure, or general patterns to watch out for?

Other than that, any general advice/words of encouragement are much appreciated...

 

[shoplifter]

How much time should I commit per day? (this is a five credit-hour course, with an hour of class per day)

At first, I'd give more than you think you need. After that, decide how much time YOU need to remember what you need to. Learning a new language is a very personal thing, and its different for everyone. Probably around an hour a day is a safe bet, but you may need more or less.

When learning new Kanji (which probably won't be for a while for you, of course this depends on your program) I'd write each one 20-50 times, until I could do it in perfect stroke order. Hiragana and Katakana were really easy for me, since I knew them before even starting taking classes (thanks FFVII!!) but they're pretty easy to learn anyway IMO.

We never really had a lot of language lab stuff to do after my first year, so that was nice. I'd figure after your first semester, your class will be entirely in Japanese unless there is a question that the professor can't explain to you in Japanese terms you'll understand.

Also, flashcards are a godsend. If you can find some Japanese exchange students willing to help you (and you help them in return) that'll be a big help too. Of course, I'd hold off on this until at least your second semester when you have the basics down.


You've never lived until you've had to write a ten to fifteen page paper and give an oral presentation on that paper in Japanese. To be truthful, I really need to sit down with my 4th year book and read the shit out of it cause my Japanese is really sufferring right now since I really don't listen to JPop or have anyone to talk to anymore.

 

[way more]

Study more for that class than any class you've ever taken before. The pace of language classes in college is crazy.

 

[shoplifter]

Study more for that class than any class you've ever taken before. The pace of language classes in college is crazy.

I'll be honest and say I didn't have this problem with Japanese. I DID experience it when I started taking German my Junior year, as even in 100 level classes they assumed you took at least SOME of the language in high school. Since I hadn't, I dropped that shit real proper like. I'd expect this to be the same for languages like Italian, Spanish, and French as well.

Japanese/Chinese/Korean/Swahili/Arabic/Etc classes should be slower than your -typical- college level language class since the assumption is that you have no experience with the language.

 

[Bebpo]

Play lots of import games where you actually HAVE to look up and remember the kanji (IE, spells/commands in rpg). Try reading simple manga like the stuff in Jump with a online dictionary. Do all the homework and then save your money up.

Anime and Jpop/Jrock never really helped my studies though. I mean it was cooling being able to listen to a song and understand lines, or watch raw Anime but it's not like I'd pause the song or video and look up words (except for the few isolated times of doing translation work for others). I think Anime/Music just re-enforces what you know, where as Games/Manga actually provide new information.

I was terrible the first time I took a Japanese class even though I did all the homework and read the books. But then I went to Japan for a short time and took intensive language classes. Then when I went back to school the classes were pretty easy and felt slow all the way through college. Being in Japan and being forced to use Japanese is just an unbelievable great (though expensive) kick-start for your Japanese, and if you go to Japan it helps to be a loner so you aren't hanging around with english speakers.

But then again at my college we never had to do essays more than 2-3 pages in Japanese. Though we never had to write essays longer than 7-8 pages in english. ^^;

*edit* it also helps if you like women, because if you're a little drunk you'd be surprised how much your Japanese improves just by going up to girls and chatting with them.

 

[Koshiro]

Advice for first-time Japanese student?

Run.

 

[Bebpo]

Also when you go to Japan the girls love it when "gaijin" speak Japanese to them, ohh do they ever.

This man disagrees with you

But then again I've had both sides of the experiences. Conversations which went really well in Japanese, and then ones where once they realized I wasn't gonna talk in English they lost interest.

 

[Brofist]

If you can try watching some Japanese TV (not anime, unless you wanna start talking like an idiot). You can find Jdrama, and variety shows easily on the net. Also try and use what you learn whenever possible, otherwise you will find yourself forgetting often. Even if you have to talk to yourself once in a while in Japanese..just don't do it in public hehe

Also don't expect you will learn so much from your class. I took 2 years of Uni level Japanese before eventually moving to Japan...when I arrived I was shocked at how little I actually knew.

 

[KingGondo]

Yeah, I think it's pretty much down to studying 1-2 hours a day or completely falling behind. We're only doing vocab so far (no reading or writing), so rote memorization and flash cards look like the way to go.

 

[BugCatcher]

How much you should study depends on your goals and the pace of the course. How do you hope to use Japanese?

Generally speaking, you will need a lot of patience and dedication. I mean it. (Really, I'm not kidding.) I know that sounds like obvious advice, but you'll need to put in far more effort to learn Japanese than for any other language, except maybe Chinese.

There's no room for casual learners; you either go all the way with it or resign yourself to repeating self-introductions and a small repertoire of stock phrases. You won't be able to do anything useful with Japanese after only two semesters (or even four), and few people last longer than four if they aren't truly serious about the language. Thus, the kind of people who seem to do best are those who want to be good at Japanese so they can be good at Japanese. Not people who want to be good at Japanese to understand anime, play Japanese videogames, talk to their Japanese relatives, etc. Goals like those take years of study before you can even begin to effectively apply your knowledge of the language, and for most people, it is not worth the effort.

 

[Brofist]

How much you should study depends on your goals and the pace of the course. How do you hope to use Japanese?

Generally speaking, you will need a lot of patience and dedication. I mean it. (Really, I'm not kidding.) I know that sounds like obvious advice, but you'll need to put in far more effort to learn Japanese than for any other language, except maybe Chinese.

There's no room for casual learners; you either go all the way with it or resign yourself to repeating self-introductions and a small repertoire of stock phrases. You won't be able to do anything useful with Japanese after only two semesters (or even four), and few people last longer than four if they aren't truly serious about the language. Thus, the kind of people who seem to do best are those who want to be good at Japanese so they can be good at Japanese. Not people who want to be good at Japanese to understand anime, play Japanese videogames, talk to their Japanese relatives, etc. Goals like those take years of study before you can even begin to effectively apply your knowledge of the language, and for most people, it is not worth the effort.

IAWTP