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[213372bu]

if you want a print book to learn kana then Heisig's Remembering the Kana is good.

you don't really need a book to learn kana though. Tae Kim's site is free and has pronunciation guides.

proper usage is easy. Hiragana for native japanese words, katakana for foreign words.

Thanks!

Before you start you should change your mindset a bit. Hiragana and katakana are not huge roadblocks, they're something that you should knock out in a few weeks time, which can easily overlap with your first steps into Japanese vocabulary and grammar. This doesn't mean that you'll have 100% mastery of them or be able to sight read, but that only comes with time and exposure. If you go into this expecting them to take forever, they probably will. Just jump in and get it done, don't overthink it.

Give this starter's guide a read, bust out some pen and paper and spend half an hour each day practicing writing the hiragana table out by hand while saying the sounds aloud. After a week you shouldn't need to check the table for reference very often at all. After two it should be easy. Repeat with katakana.

To the first part, yeah I just have been slacking and barely completing Hiragana on and off for about two or three years. Should be easy to knock them out now.

Thanks for the study reference link too!

Just need to get that down before deciding, I guess, how I'm going to go forward from that point.
--

As far as Hiragana I was able to get the hiragana for a-o ka-ko sa-so done easily today. The bit I did on and off for the past couple years made it really easy to come back to.

 

[PreyingShark]

In high school my Japanese teacher was like, "Here's a katakana chart. Here's how you pronounce them. Here's a sheet with some loanwords on it. Your homework is to figure out what the fuck these words are in English. Got it? GLHF."

Of course, she occasionally threw in words like パン and ドイツ just to fuck with us. She loved trolling all the Freshmen in that class. Good times, good times. My only bad memory of that class was when I realized that a guy I was doing something with had been inside my house without my permission. And we had been robbed the year before. What. A. Fucking. Coincidence.

 

[Resilient]

let it all out bro. those days are gone now.

 

[Valkerionseven]

So I've restarted my game of Pokemon Y in Japanese to get that good kana practice in. Outside the usual dialect addtions they throw in on characters to let you know its a different region, I came across a really weird Katakana that I can't for the life of me figure out... and a hiragana in the same sentence now that I am thinking about it.

In the opening for gender select it says more or less: さて。。。ｷﾐは　おとこのこ　そわとも　おんなのこ　かは？

It's obvious to what it says : so you a boy or girl? and I noticed but moved on. I can't for the life of me figure out what "ｷﾐ" and "そわとも" actually are here. This is actually bothering me, maybe I read it wrong? Oh and the "ha's" are the characters dialect, they are all his sentences so thats something to ignore, my general assumption was these two things were too.

Might restart and check that sentence again lol.

 

[Kilrogg]

So I've restarted my game of Pokemon Y in Japanese to get that good kana practice in. Outside the usual dialect addtions they throw in on characters to let you know its a different region, I came across a really weird Katakana that I can't for the life of me figure out... and a hiragana in the same sentence now that I am thinking about it.

In the opening for gender select it says more or less: さて。。。ｷﾐは　おとこのこ　そわとも　おんなのこ　かは？

It's obvious to what it says : so you a boy or girl? and I noticed but moved on. I can't for the life of me figure out what "ｷﾐ" and "そわとも" actually are here. This is actually bothering me, maybe I read it wrong? Oh and the "ha's" are the characters dialect, they are all his sentences so thats something to ignore, my general assumption was these two things were too.

Might restart and check that sentence again lol.

Well, if you know the sentence means "are you a boy or a girl", and you know おとこのこand おんなのこ mean "boy" and "girl", what do you think きみ means?

Also, it's not そわとも, it's それとも. Careful, those two characters look alike, but they're completely different. わ is "wa" and れ is "re" obviously.

Finally, I'm gonna go out on a limb and assume you're misreading that last character. Even if the character has their own dialect of speech idiosyncracies or whatever, I highly doubt they're ending their sentences with は (which is "ha", or "wa" when it's a subject particle), which would sound really weird. Never seen or heard that in my life. Most likely they're saying な, "na".

I applaud your effort to play a game in Japanese, and Pokémon is certainly a good beginner game since pretty much everything is in hiragana and katakana, so, kudos to you. But you should brush up on your reading skills, and maybe learn a few more things about the way Japanese sentences and grammar work. The stuff I'm pointing out is actually very basic.

Good luck!

 

[Valkerionseven]

Well, if you know the sentence means "are you a boy or a girl", and you know おとこのこand おんなのこ mean "boy" and "girl", what do you think きみ means?

Also, it's not そわとも, it's それとも. Careful, those two characters look alike, but they're completely different. わ is "wa" and れ is "re" obviously.

But you should brush up on your reading skills, and maybe learn a few more things about the way Japanese sentences and grammar work. The stuff I'm pointing out is actually very basic.

Good luck!

Yeah like I said, I got the obvious point of the sentence but kinda stuck out as a "did I read that wrong or right?" moment for me lol. One of those reading quickly and made an assumption rather than actually reading it since I caught the main word of the sentence and got the meaning. Something I definitely need to work on when reading! Also seeing words you know the kanji for in hiragana @.@ Attempting to not switch to the kanji version since I know a good bit of those use in this game and the whole point was to have something as a rote kana practice for a few minutes a day that isn't just... staring at a chart or writing them.

Oh well, bad habits be gone!

Oh and the "kimi" was definitely in katakana which threw me off. There can be some funniness with font's but that was a キミ not きみ if it pops up again I'll try to notice it. Run through is going smoothly so far lol. We'll see

 

[upandaway]

Where are you guys taking mock tests? I plan to do N4.

Trying to find JLPT mock tests has been surprisingly annoying actually

 

[PreyingShark]

キミ is pretty common. You're gonna see all the main pronouns in katakana all the time and occasionally even shit like オイラ because why not. Have fun.

I always use Kanji mode and that stuff is still there BTW. EDIT: BTW there are a few jinmeiyo kanji in Kanji mode. Pretty interesting.

 

[Resilient]

Trying to find JLPT mock tests has been surprisingly annoying actually

There is one in a website if you Google JLPT N whatever practice exam. Can't remember it right now. Otherwise just buy a drill book, it's all the same shiz anyway. Set you back 5000yen maybe?

Yeah like I said, I got the obvious point of the sentence but kinda stuck out as a "did I read that wrong or right?" moment for me lol. One of those reading quickly and made an assumption rather than actually reading it since I caught the main word of the sentence and got the meaning. Something I definitely need to work on when reading! Also seeing words you know the kanji for in hiragana @.@ Attempting to not switch to the kanji version since I know a good bit of those use in this game and the whole point was to have something as a rote kana practice for a few minutes a day that isn't just... staring at a chart or writing them.

Oh well, bad habits be gone!

Oh and the "kimi" was definitely in katakana which threw me off. There can be some funniness with font's but that was a キミ not きみ if it pops up again I'll try to notice it. Run through is going smoothly so far lol. We'll see

Real talk, if you wanna level up your kana reading - go to NHK news online, pick one article a day.

Translate all words you don't know.
Listen to the vid and write everything they say into a book.
Once you've finished that, read the article out loud.

Bam. Practicing:

1. Reading
2. Vocab
3. Listening
4. Speaking
5. Grammar
6. Pronounciation/speech

All in one spot. Plus real exposure to proper speech (news and interviews/casual). Do it every day and after 2 months you will notice a huge difference in your skill set.

Yoh will come back to Pokemon and dominate it. I did this. I started Digimon world re code at the start of the year. Then stopped cause I got annoyed that I had to stop and dictionary so much. Came back to it after a few months of the above. Absolute piece of piss because the game is for 10 year olds lol. Only challenge is understanding all the character specific mannerisms/slang.

 

[Jintor]

got my n3 test voucher. nervous.

 

[Kilrogg]

I started Digimon

That was your first mistake.
#TrashPokémonKnockoff

 

[Kurita]

got my n3 test voucher. nervous.

I have faith in you

 

[Resilient]

That was your first mistake.
#TrashPokémonKnockoff

well yeah if you like games that stink. jesus Kilrogg, I thought you were cool.

 

[blurr]

I installed Windows 10 but had to delete another partition I didn't back up in the process. I lost my Tagaini Jisho export files - that's over 2000 words and over 500 kanji that I marked as learned :|

Back to square one.

I've been trying to study a kanji a day on my commute to work but nothing beyond that. Studies are not going nearly as great and consistent as it should, I really have to work on my schedule. Way too many things on my plate and too little time. I want to do more reading practice but the most I'm doing is the news/fan art commentary on twitter.

I don't remember where I found it but r/newsokur on reddit is a good place for reading practice so probably gonna be visiting that more.

 

[Kilrogg]

well yeah if you like games that stink. jesus Kilrogg, I thought you were cool.

I actually haven't touched a Pokémon game since Gold and Silver. The monsters got too ugly for me after that.
Which, coincidentally, is also why I can't stand Digimon! Stay gross, Digicrap.

 

[I'm an expert]

Can you guys stop reenforcing stereotypes, thanks

 

[Kilrogg]

Can you guys stop reenforcing stereotypes, thanks

i think people are waiting for you in the j-drama thread, "expert"

 

[I'm an expert]

Study material at the sacrifice of my own enjoyment. Endless hours of rewinding the same scenes over and over..2 days to watch one episode..

I would actually consider myself an expert on 2-3 years of dramas there..yeah (｡-_-&#65377

 

[Resilient]

huh? didn't you get exposed as a pimply fan subber a few months ago?

 

[I'm an expert]

shut up digiclown

 

[Kilrogg]

Study material at the sacrifice of my own enjoyment. Endless hours of rewinding the same scenes over and over..2 days to watch one episode..

I would actually consider myself an expert on 2-3 years of dramas there..yeah (｡-_-&#65377

I had a brief spell of that back when the Death Note anime was all the rage. I think I did episode 1 and then gave up.

Last year I fansubbed Jojo's Bizarre Adventure episode 4 in Japanese for the hell of it... and out of frustration for the lack of Japanese subtitles in, well, pretty much everything. I'm not paying 50 bucks for a crappy Japanese import DVD just to get those subtitles.

There should be a mandatory rule for all DVDs and Blu-Rays that they all have at least 3 subtitle languages: original language, English, and the language of the country where it's sold. But alas, Japanese always gets the shaft, even for high profile stuff like Ghibli movies.

If anyone knows where I can get Japanese shows, movies or anime with Japanese subtitles, please fill me in. I don't think that magical store exists, though.

 

[Resilient]

jesus, you got me with that one. you've lost your bite bro. hey, while you're here, can you catch what this guy is saying at the:

0:58 - 1:00 mark? i'm getting 「達成するそういったことが　－－－－－－　ます。」 - does he have a lisp? is this an accent?
and at 1:03, メールを送ってくる「あれ」日常 - not sure if that's あれ?
1:07-1:09 メールをクリックしないこと「こいったこと」非常に難しという「ふいえますので」 - but i don't think こいったこと is right、or the last bit.

i had a bit of trouble tonight.

article for reference: http://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/html/20160616/k10010557971000.html

halp

 

[Kilrogg]

jesus, you got me with that one. you've lost your bite bro. hey, while you're here, can you catch what this guy is saying at the:

0:58 - 1:00 mark? i'm getting 「達成するそういったことが　－－－－－－　ます。」 - does he have a lisp? is this an accent?
and at 1:03, メールを送ってくる「あれ」日常 - not sure if that's あれ?
1:07-1:09 メールをクリックしないこと「こいったこと」非常に難しという「ふいえますので」 - but i don't think こいったこと is right、or the last bit.

i had a bit of trouble tonight.

article for reference: http://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/html/20160616/k10010557971000.html

halp

1. 伺います / うかがいます, which means "to ask", like 聞く, but it's a humble verb (謙譲&#35486
2. I think he's saying これ. No particular accent as far as I can hear. He just doesn't enunciate properly.
3. he's saying こういった (which is pretty much the same as こういう or このような or こん&#12394 and というふうに言えます.

 

[marimorimo]

2. I think he's saying これ. No particular accent as far as I can hear. He just doesn't enunciate properly.

I thought I heard him say 「いわゆる」, although if it were he said it at mach 5 speed. But it fits the sentence better than 「これ」。

 

[Kilrogg]

I thought I heard him say 「いわゆる」, although if it were he said it at mach 5 speed. But it fits the sentence better than 「これ」。

You're probably right. I'll have to give it another listen, but I was at work and replied in a haste. Didn't even pay attention to what he was saying lol.

[EDIT] The more I listen, the more I'm confused, even at .5 speed. But I don't think it's 「いわゆる」 either. It doesn't make much sense to me in the context of his sentence. Could he be saying のは as in the subtitle? Eeeeeeeh, I feel so ashamed for my crappy listening comprehesion skills.

 

[TickleMeElbow]

The 1:03 part is just 「これは」

 

[marimorimo]

The 1:03 part is just 「これは」

At second listen, yeah that's probably it.

 

[Deleted member 17706]

1. 伺います / うかがいます, which means "to ask", like 聞く, but it's a humble verb (謙譲&#35486

It's actually 窺えます（うかがえます）, which they rewrote in the subtitles as みえる, so I think that explains the meaning already, but "can be seen," "show signs of," etc. are some possible translations in English.

2. I think he's saying これ. No particular accent as far as I can hear. He just doesn't enunciate properly.

Yeah, definitely これは

 

[Kilrogg]

It's actually 窺えます（うかがえます）, which they rewrote in the subtitles as みえる, so I think that explains the meaning already, but "can be seen," "show signs of," etc. are some possible translations in English.

Aw, man, that's not fair, so close!
But yeah, it does make more sense. Thanks, just learned something new.

 

[urfe]

Aw, man, that's not fair, so close!
But yeah, it does make more sense. Thanks, just learned something new.

Wow, never knew that word: me too. Also thought 伺う.

I bought the 漢字検定ソフト for 3DS and am loving relearning all this vocab and words. My stroke order and kanji from memory is worse than I thought.

I took a 40 minute 8級 test, and got 117/140, with 120 being a pass.

Lots of work before 4級 in November.

It's really fun relearning all this stuff.

edit: when taking 9級 last night, one thing I got wrong was the pronunciation for 家来. Two simple kanji, and me fucking up! Genius!

 

[Nakho]

Probably a very tired question, but is there somewhere I can get a text with only hiragana or katakana (furigana is okay too). I don't care at this stage if it's difficult to understand the meaning, I just want to practice recognizing the characters for 15-30 minutes a day until it becomes second nature.

 

[TheSporkWithin]

Probably a very tired question, but is there somewhere I can get a text with only hiragana or katakana (furigana is okay too). I don't care at this stage if it's difficult to understand the meaning, I just want to practice recognizing the characters for 15-30 minutes a day until it becomes second nature.

Free and legal full-book digital samples of Japanese picture books:

http://imgur.com/gallery/KNsHZ/new

Randomly selected sentences thrown at you (set to level 1 for only kana):

http://duendecat.com/

 

[Beckx]

Probably a very tired question, but is there somewhere I can get a text with only hiragana or katakana (furigana is okay too). I don't care at this stage if it's difficult to understand the meaning, I just want to practice recognizing the characters for 15-30 minutes a day until it becomes second nature.

do you want books or is online okay?

NHK News Easy has furigana for all the articles. http://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/easy/

for me, the best way to gain mastery was to write words in answer to questions. but you need some basic vocabulary & grammar to start doing that.

 

[Nakho]

do you want books or is online okay?

NHK News Easy has furigana for all the articles. http://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/easy/

for me, the best way to gain mastery was to write words in answer to questions. but you need some basic vocabulary & grammar to start doing that.

Ooh, this site looks great! Thanks!

 

[Beckx]

Ooh, this site looks great! Thanks!

pair it with http://www.nhk.or.jp/school/ for beginner/intermediate listening practice (all the videos are captioned, too, but I do try to transcribe the script first without looking at the subtitles, then use those to correct mistakes)

 

[Resilient]

1. 伺います / うかがいます, which means "to ask", like 聞く, but it's a humble verb (謙譲&#35486
2. I think he's saying これ. No particular accent as far as I can hear. He just doesn't enunciate properly.
3. he's saying こういった (which is pretty much the same as こういう or このような or こん&#12394 and というふうに言えます.

I thought I heard him say 「いわゆる」, although if it were he said it at mach 5 speed. But it fits the sentence better than 「これ」。

The 1:03 part is just 「これは」

It's actually 窺えます（うかがえます）, which they rewrote in the subtitles as みえる, so I think that explains the meaning already, but "can be seen," "show signs of," etc. are some possible translations in English.



Yeah, definitely これは

thanks all.

fk, it's so easy to slip up on stuff like that. i've asked the question before (misunderstanding stuff in interviews) and the answer was simple last time too. i should have connected the dots with the subtitles though. appreciate it peeps!

 

[I'm an expert]

Rekt

 

[Kilrogg]

Rekt

The beauty of this post is that it doesn't target anyone in particular... Cause honestly, we all made complete fools of ourselves except Zefah.

We're frauds .

 

[I'm an expert]

I dont even know japanese lol. Trying to figure out what this long con will get me

 

[Resilient]

The beauty of this post is that it doesn't target anyone in particular... Cause honestly, we all made complete fools of ourselves except Zefah.

We're frauds .

your only fault was answering. Unless you are certain, never answer. It's why he didn't post anything

 

[Kilrogg]

your only fault was answering. Unless you are certain, never answer. It's why he didn't post anything

That's the issue here: for some of his questions at least, I was certain. Sometimes it's hard to self-assess your own level and knowledge.

In this instance I think expert was just not on GAF at that moment or couldn't be bothered to answer cause he doesn't like to just give out answers .

 

[Oare]

I dont even know japanese lol. Trying to figure out what this long con will get me

Sweaty friends who like humping pillows?

Spoiler

In all fairness, the absolute best one can hope from actually knowing the language is a Japanese ex-wife. So there's that too.

 

[I'm an expert]

your only fault was answering. Unless you are certain, never answer. It's why he didn't post anything

just to be clear, your questions were so trivial i cant believe you even asked them. i dont answer questions because i dont need to, serves no purpose for me. other posters get to confirm whether theyre at a skill level to answer questions. i dont need that confirmation. the few times i answered questions in the old thread i just came off as an asshole because they were so basic. if we're being honest. not that i know japanese.

 

[Resilient]

i was just fucking with you. but let's not act like they were trivial. i came to the thread to see if others with a better ear were gonna be able to catch what he was saying. unless you lived there/were around conversation that was fast like that daily, you weren't going to pick it up. and if you did connect the dots to what it logically could have been, the only way to confirm it is to ask somebody experienced. and sure enough, the dude who lived there and is around it everyday caught it and pointed out that it was simple. that's the kind of question you can help answer too. since when did you care about coming off like a douche anyway? did you just play me 100%?

if i could google "what the fuck is this dude saying" and find the answer i would have.

 

[I'm an expert]

played yoself

 

[Resilient]

this thread tho

 

[Tribes of Trusty]

They can be written in either. I think that writing "sound onomatopoeia" in hiragana tends to give a smoother, more organic impression. A google image search for コロコロ turns up a ton of pictures of paint rollers, while ころころ gives back a bunch of animals rolling over (along with a few paint rollers), for example. For other kinds of onomatopoeia I feel like the distinction is more difficult to succinctly define, but generally katakana has more "impact" while hiragana is more "smooth", which reflects the quality of the two syllabaries' characters.

Ok thanks ! That makes sense. Sort of. The way they're written I can see hiragana being smooth and katakana being more impactful .

It's funny because the title of one manga that I read (Flying Witch) is written ふらいんぐうぃっち

I'm still on track struggling a little with remembering all the katakana, whereas I had little trouble with hiragana. Can't wait to master them the proper way so I can begin grammar and kanji.

 

[Kilrogg]

i promise i can still answer most basic japanese questions though pls like me

 

[Nakho]

Free and legal full-book digital samples of Japanese picture books:

http://imgur.com/gallery/KNsHZ/new

Randomly selected sentences thrown at you (set to level 1 for only kana):

http://duendecat.com/

For some reason GAF wasn't showing me your post before. Thanks, TheSporkWithin, these look great!

 

[Deleted member 17706]

My intent certainly wasn't to make anyone look bad! It's not like I haven't confidently answered something only to end up being wrong before.