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The Big Ass Superior Thread of Learning Japanese
- Thread starter RevenantKioku
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Yeah, for example
彼女が来ると思います。　I think she will come.
I went back to reread your original question since the "casual" description came up. To address desu/masu form first, it pretty much only has one usage - it's a form of polite address. This might be because the environment demands it, because whoever you're talking to is higher in some applicable hierarchy, is significantly older etc. It does put a distance between people, which is why when used unwarranted it can be pretty weird.
Casual conversation uses the dictionary form, and is generally between group members. However, a superior or an older person might talk to you in the dictionary form without it being casual, and you'd be expected to keep desu/masu on your end.
Dictionary form is also what is used in literature and general writing, so in contrast to desu/masu, it has a very broad application way beyond just casual speech.
As for converting a て form to polite or the other way around, this won't happen. The form has various uses, but ending a sentence with it isn't one of them (aside from leaving the sentence open for the other party to finish it in their head). As such there will always come another verb after it, immediately or otherwise, and generally it's only the ending of the sentence that gets shifted to masu/desu (exception for が as in "but" and maybe a few others, but even then the independent clauses won't ever end in て
. A てform will be the first part of some connection, and it will be what's coming that will change conjugation if needed.
彼女が来ると思います。　I think she will come.
I went back to reread your original question since the "casual" description came up. To address desu/masu form first, it pretty much only has one usage - it's a form of polite address. This might be because the environment demands it, because whoever you're talking to is higher in some applicable hierarchy, is significantly older etc. It does put a distance between people, which is why when used unwarranted it can be pretty weird.
Casual conversation uses the dictionary form, and is generally between group members. However, a superior or an older person might talk to you in the dictionary form without it being casual, and you'd be expected to keep desu/masu on your end.
Dictionary form is also what is used in literature and general writing, so in contrast to desu/masu, it has a very broad application way beyond just casual speech.
As for converting a て form to polite or the other way around, this won't happen. The form has various uses, but ending a sentence with it isn't one of them (aside from leaving the sentence open for the other party to finish it in their head). As such there will always come another verb after it, immediately or otherwise, and generally it's only the ending of the sentence that gets shifted to masu/desu (exception for が as in "but" and maybe a few others, but even then the independent clauses won't ever end in て
. A てform will be the first part of some connection, and it will be what's coming that will change conjugation if needed.CornBurrito
Member
Is there a difference between が　and けど? Either in nuance, or formality? Or is one more spoken vs written?
Id say:
が
けれども
けれど
けど
From formal to casual.
For written, I would only use が, unless I'm texting someone or something.
(Just going on my feeling/experience though)
CornBurrito
Member
Damn, けど rolls off the tongue soooo much better.
Not really disagreeing with you but it's worth pointing out that sentences ending in a て form verb with the implied ください followup is pretty common.Yeah, for example
彼女が来ると思います。　I think she will come.
I went back to reread your original question since the "casual" description came up. To address desu/masu form first, it pretty much only has one usage - it's a form of polite address. This might be because the environment demands it, because whoever you're talking to is higher in some applicable hierarchy, is significantly older etc. It does put a distance between people, which is why when used unwarranted it can be pretty weird.
Casual conversation uses the dictionary form, and is generally between group members. However, a superior or an older person might talk to you in the dictionary form without it being casual, and you'd be expected to keep desu/masu on your end.
Dictionary form is also what is used in literature and general writing, so in contrast to desu/masu, it has a very broad application way beyond just casual speech.
As for converting a て form to polite or the other way around, this won't happen. The form has various uses, but ending a sentence with it isn't one of them (aside from leaving the sentence open for the other party to finish it in their head). As such there will always come another verb after it, immediately or otherwise, and generally it's only the ending of the sentence that gets shifted to masu/desu (exception for が as in "but" and maybe a few others, but even then the independent clauses won't ever end in て
Yeah, generally a lot of open sentences in Japanese, but well, didn't want to get too deep in the peculiarities when focusing on the basics.
Yes, that's the structure for the clause "N that/who V" or "V-ing N"
手紙を書く少女 the girl who's writing a letter
燃える火 burning fire
Yes, that's the structure for the clause "N that/who V" or "V-ing N"
手紙を書く少女 the girl who's writing a letter
燃える火 burning fire
I think my reading and listening is okay at this point, I think I'm comfortably around N3, but it's completely instinctive. Whenever you guys talk about rules and all that -te form or whatever, I'm completely dumbfounded.
I'm so jealous of you guys who can learn a language properly. These things go right through me.
I'm so jealous of you guys who can learn a language properly. These things go right through me.
Yeah but at least you can understand it right? I mean I'm afraid to speak at this point without working out the conjugation patterns on paper or in my head ahead of time. At least I had like half a conversation with my primary JTE this morning and they seem to appreciate my effort, if not my actual (lack of) skill.
Christ I should've done that half year intensive course before I came here
Christ I should've done that half year intensive course before I came here
I'm curious why you think you are around N3 if you haven't really say down and studied? How are you judging yourself?
I'm not convinced you're worse off. Having not been to Japan since learning the language or being particularly exposed to spoken Japanese I am pretty confident in saying that my ability to verbally generate a sentence spontaneously is almost minimal despite the fact that I have the reading comprehension/grammar to read the newspaper. I'm doing N2 grammar and I've learned more than enough kanji for the test and yet I'm doubtful that I could carry on a conversation about anything at a reasonable speed. Hopefully this will change in the next few months but I can't help but feel that it's a very unnatural and hackneyed way to learn a language.
I wouldn't worry about. It's a matter of priorities. I'm, for example, more focused on reading and listening, because it will be a while until I can go to Japan (and there's no place that I know of in my town that I can have a conversation in Japanese), so will iron out the parts that can be useful to me right now and worry about the rest latter. IMO it would be a waste of my time to focus on it.
This is generally how I feel about it as well, but it's hard for me to ignore the fact that "can read a newspaper but can't talk about anything in the newspaper" makes for a pretty bad Japanese speaker.
I can't speak either, it's definitely not easy to practice without someone to judge. But there's something about looking at a sentence and being able to decipher it on a technical level that I think is relieving, sort of like a safety net, and I can't do that at all.
The JLPT site has examples, I just did the questions. Also looked here though I'm not sure how accurate it is.
Ah, it looks like I misread what you said. Cool.
In other news, today (Oct 1) is the last day for the JLPT application!
Good luck to all!
Wow, almost missed that date. Missed the test last year due to a funeral, hopefully I'll get it this time.
I got my application in!
It's my third time taking N1. The first time I somehow got 0 in the Reading section (after getting decent scores in the other sections). I thought they made a mistake, but when I called, they disagreed. The second time I was too busy (or too lazy) to study, and my score reflected that. I'm busy this time as well, but hopefully I've slowly improved, and will find time to study and finally get over this thing constantly brooding over me.
Good luck to all others taking it.
It's my third time taking N1. The first time I somehow got 0 in the Reading section (after getting decent scores in the other sections). I thought they made a mistake, but when I called, they disagreed. The second time I was too busy (or too lazy) to study, and my score reflected that. I'm busy this time as well, but hopefully I've slowly improved, and will find time to study and finally get over this thing constantly brooding over me.
Good luck to all others taking it.
Last-minute question to Japanese-GAF: tomorrow's the deadline for switching JLPT levels. I'm currently signed up for N2, and having done some practice exam stuff I feel pretty confident I can take it with some study. But trying N1, I'm able to do... decently there. The main hang-up is vocab/kanji readings.
Is two months too short to get from N2 to N1 if it's mostly vocab, do you think?
Is two months too short to get from N2 to N1 if it's mostly vocab, do you think?
Seconding this exact question. I can comprehend just about anything as long as it contains words I know so any vocab-directed recommendations would be great.
Emperor Bohe
Member
where do I start if I wanna learn speaking Japanese, and have zero knowledge of it at all?
Start learning the Kana (Hiragana and Katakana), memorizing the characters and their sounds, how do they work, and this kind of stuff. After that, I suggest learning at least how Kanji works and moving to Vocab/Grammar.
Echoing the poster above, start with learning kana. I think this takes most people a week or two and it's basically a prerequisite for basic reading materials so it's good way to get your head in the right place, so to speak. I used something similar to this and I would recommend you doing the same. Really, all I did was take two of them (as in two pages, so ten characters) to work with me and practiced them whenever I had a spare moment and I was done by the end of the week.
From there, I would just look at basic reading comprehension stuff to get an idea of the simple particles and grammar. Don't get too caught up with the precise definitions of particles as things will become more and more concrete as you go along. A good companion guide (and, indeed, a great source of beginner vocabulary) is Tae Kim's guide to learning Japanese. His explanations of grammar concepts are just about the best I've ever read when it comes to understanding them in a practical way. For more technical treatments (if that's your thing) there's also this series of books. The beginner book in particular is a pretty formidable reference and covers probably 90% of the most common grammar constructions.
I like the 新完全マスター series, including the vocabulary one (actually I think the voc and the grammar are the best out of the 5 books).
http://www.amazon.com/dp/4883195740/?tag=neogaf0e-20
(the hardcover might be an error on that listing though)
Can take a couple of pics if you want an idea what content organization is like.
Aizo
Banned
Ah! That is one that I remember being recommended. I think I'll get it!
Emperor Bohe
Member
ElectricKaibutsu
Member
It's not super important to be able to write every Kanji from memory, but you should at least be comfortable enough that you could look at one and be able to copy it with the proper stroke order.
It depends on your purposes for learning the language and how high you set the standards for "knowing a language" to yourself.
If you just want to be able to enjoy Japanese media and don't intend on going to Japan or otherwise putting yourself in a situation where you might be expected to be able to write Chinese characters, you can get away with just learning how to read them. Just be aware that to a fair amount of people, that means you can't consider yourself proficient in the language. Personally, as someone who grew up bilingual, I set really high standards for myself; I hesitate to call myself "fluent" in a language if I can't use it just as proficiently as I can use my native languages, and that includes writing.
Fluent and proficient always seem subjective to me.
People break down Japanese to kanji, but I think it's better to do so with words. When learning a word, I want to learn it's kanji for reading and writing, and it's pronunciation for speaking and listening.
Zoe
Member
This is pretty important if you want to look up the kanji.
I kept up a strategy of writing out kanji to learn it but once I started dealing with, like, 1000 kanji or more it became totally unrealistic. If I want to write out every kanji I know just once it takes hours. I'm not nearly as solid on writing kanji as I used to be as a consequence, but it hasn't really affected my ability to identify them.
HisshouBuraiKen
Member
We will all be ワープロ馬鹿 eventually, have no fear.
Writing is the area where I don't think I can ever reach fluency just because I can't rationally ever get enough practice to get there. Unless you live there there's there's nothing practical to do with it.
I'm planning on doing it a bit every weekend starting soon but I doubt that'll do much.
I'm planning on doing it a bit every weekend starting soon but I doubt that'll do much.
Writing is more about constructig sentences, paragraphs etc than about memorizing kanji order. If you can write a message on a BBS expressing your opinion, that's gold.
eot
Banned
I was told stroke order made some kind of sense, but there seem to be lots of nonsensical exceptions. Why do:
右, 布
have a different (strange) stroke order compared to:
左, 友
which have the one you'd guess.
Or 金 vs 全, hell even ま vs も.
Maybe it doesn't matter if you get it wrong though.
右, 布
have a different (strange) stroke order compared to:
左, 友
which have the one you'd guess.
Or 金 vs 全, hell even ま vs も.
Maybe it doesn't matter if you get it wrong though.
Does anyone have tips for actually practicing the grammar you learn? Besides doing textbook activities. Was thinking maybe of writing a short simple diary or just putting grammar forms into a smaller flashcard deck and making myself use them...
I am reading a bit, but I was thinking more about the usage of stuff
I am reading a bit, but I was thinking more about the usage of stuff
I think 右 and 左 are different due to the direction of the third stroke.
Guessing ま and も would be due to the kanji they're derived from, but no idea. (Also, the horizontal lines are different, could have an effect?)
I had no idea about 金 and 全, nor did I know the proper way to write 全 until I just looked it up. You'd think it'd follow the same order as 王, but here we are.
I just finally bought a couple books to get started. Once I actually spent the money on it, it was like, well better use um then.
It hits you at some point that "starting" isn't some grand hours-long thing you need to commit to mentally. Learning to read (kana and kanji) is so tedious and sessions can be as short and effortless as you want. Pick up Anki for 10 minutes every day, you may not make crazy progress but it's still a thousand times better than sitting and waiting until you're "ready to go at it".
You just need to get to that point where you can take a glimpse at one of your interests (say, one a page of a manga or a video of a game) and it's smooth sailing from there.
First time I noticed a general Japanese learning thread, yay!
I took a year of it in college for fun, then didn't study at all for another 5 or so years. Eventually decided to pickup Heisig's book because the concept was really cool to me, and discovered SRS. Anki for me is very addicting. Trying to keep my retention in check, making progress through a deck, keeping my reps low, it encourages me to study every day.
A couple years later I have about 8500 cards in my collection and I can't see my self stopping. I'm so addicted.
I took a year of it in college for fun, then didn't study at all for another 5 or so years. Eventually decided to pickup Heisig's book because the concept was really cool to me, and discovered SRS. Anki for me is very addicting. Trying to keep my retention in check, making progress through a deck, keeping my reps low, it encourages me to study every day.
A couple years later I have about 8500 cards in my collection and I can't see my self stopping. I'm so addicted.
If I didn't live in Japan, I would/could not ever learn Japanese. Good on the people who can.
ただ毎日使わないといけないからなんとなくしゃべれるようになっただけ。
justjustin
Member
If anyone's feeling especially generous, do you have tips on what someone in my situation should do?
Short story: My Japanese has atrophied immensely since studying abroad in Japan five years ago. I made it through Genki I and II and the related material at the time, and knew enough to express myself simply and accurately in conversation and could get around no problem.
What I want: Vocabulary! Pretty much the only thing I recognize are grammar patterns and conjugations. I can randomly flip through A Dictionary of Basic Grammar and feel more confident than if I tried to read a kid's fairy tale book. We drilled grammar patterns into oblivion in class, so it worked like a charm, but now I need to fill it all in with vocabulary. I care a great deal more about listening comprehension and speaking than reading and writing. If I had to choose, I would rather be illiterate than have to carry pen and paper with me everywhere.
My brilliant plan so far is this:
- Go through Genki I and II again. It has practical vocabulary in there-- enough that I did fine in Japan before. See if I can scrounge up the listening exercises somewhere.
- Find some flashcard program and drill vocab decks. Use Anki to drill common, practical, everyday vocabulary. There are decks that focus on this, right?
- Find children's books on tape and follow along. Read children's newspapers.
- Repeat all of this 8 trillion times so I don't even have to think to comprehend what I heard/read.
- I have a few volumes of various manga and a large cache of anime. I wouldn't use this as a basis for study at my current level, but it would be a great way to practice once I can comprehend about 80% of it and pick things up in context.
Any tips on refining that? I just want to build the rich, myriad vocabulary of a three-year-old in an efficient way. I appreciate any guidance.
Short story: My Japanese has atrophied immensely since studying abroad in Japan five years ago. I made it through Genki I and II and the related material at the time, and knew enough to express myself simply and accurately in conversation and could get around no problem.
What I want: Vocabulary! Pretty much the only thing I recognize are grammar patterns and conjugations. I can randomly flip through A Dictionary of Basic Grammar and feel more confident than if I tried to read a kid's fairy tale book. We drilled grammar patterns into oblivion in class, so it worked like a charm, but now I need to fill it all in with vocabulary. I care a great deal more about listening comprehension and speaking than reading and writing. If I had to choose, I would rather be illiterate than have to carry pen and paper with me everywhere.
My brilliant plan so far is this:
- Go through Genki I and II again. It has practical vocabulary in there-- enough that I did fine in Japan before. See if I can scrounge up the listening exercises somewhere.
- Find some flashcard program and drill vocab decks. Use Anki to drill common, practical, everyday vocabulary. There are decks that focus on this, right?
- Find children's books on tape and follow along. Read children's newspapers.
- Repeat all of this 8 trillion times so I don't even have to think to comprehend what I heard/read.
- I have a few volumes of various manga and a large cache of anime. I wouldn't use this as a basis for study at my current level, but it would be a great way to practice once I can comprehend about 80% of it and pick things up in context.
Any tips on refining that? I just want to build the rich, myriad vocabulary of a three-year-old in an efficient way. I appreciate any guidance.
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