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[Mik2121]

all i meant was that it's extremely specific, and seeing as i'm still at the intermediate stage where there are important things i don't know (i did only take N3, after all), it's not exactly the kind of word i'd necessarily expect anyone to have come across. maybe it's just that there aren't really any hills in osaka.

anyway it was in my revision notes but i won't forget it now! i made a page of similarly specific words, like 咲く.

You know that Osaka's old name (大&#22338 literally means 'big slope' or 'big hill', right' I live close to the top of said hill and I have to ride on a bike up/down that hill every day and it's a bitch, trust me

 

[345triangle]

you mean the tennoji one? i live near there too, but at the bottom, which is why i never really go to tennoji!

was that hill the original 大坂, then? the rest of the city is super-flat considering the name.

 

[Mik2121]

I know the west side of the hill starts on Matsuya-Machi-suji (between Nipponbashi and Tanimachi-9-chome) and the east side ends around Tsuruhashi. I believe it goes all the way down to around Tennoji station, though there are a few smaller slopes around there too, supposedly.

I live on that main street between Nipponbashi and Tani-9 stations, close to Tani-9 and my college is close to Uehonmachi station so I have to go uphill/downhill all the time, and if I wanna go Nipponbashi or Namba, it's the same shit too.. :/

Anyway, yeah, that's the original hill from where 大坂 comes, apparently.

 

[makingmusic476]

Ooh, I'm glad this thread was bumped. I hadn't seen it before, and since I'm taking Japanese in college, and hope to be fluent one day, this will be a real help.

Revenant, you're a cool guy.

 

[shanshan310]

Realistically speaking, despite a few slip-ups on vocab/grammar/kanji, I think each of them went well enough, and listening was easy.

There were a couple of vocab i had trouble with, but ugh, listening was just pathetic.
seriously.

EG.
When you've broken a glass at a friend's house, what should you say?
1.ごめんなさい。
2.ありがとうございます。
3.こんにちは。

Stupidest question ever. And this was N4. After the vocab I was expecting something at least slightly challenging. That question seemed like basic "I've been studying Japanese for a week" type thing. Ugh.

 

[Masked Man]

There were a couple of vocab i had trouble with, but ugh, listening was just pathetic.
seriously.

EG.
When you've broken a glass at a friend's house, what should you say?
1.ごめんなさい。
2.ありがとうございます。
3.こんにちは。

Stupidest question ever. And this was N4. After the vocab I was expecting something at least slightly challenging. That question seemed like basic "I've been studying Japanese for a week" type thing. Ugh.

Be grateful for easy points. :lol N1 was pretty easy on that type of question, too, though.

 

[louis89]

I always thought it was weird that I always seemed to like tons of artists on the red team and pretty much none on the white team in the 紅白歌合戦. Only today did someone point out to me that the red team is female and the white team is male :lol

 

[Zoe]

anyway it was in my revision notes but i won't forget it now! i made a page of similarly specific words, like 咲く.

Is that really considered obscure?

 

[panda21]

i read the OP at the weekend and I can't figure out how you can be able to write the symbols but not be able to read them? makes no sense

also since Kanji are based on chinese, does that mean that if you can read chinese you can read japanese? or does it have a different meaning?

 

[Deleted member 17706]

i read the OP at the weekend and I can't figure out how you can be able to write the symbols but not be able to read them? makes no sense

also since Kanji are based on chinese, does that mean that if you can read chinese you can read japanese? or does it have a different meaning?

More often than not the meaning is similar or the same. Japanese doesn't exclusively use Kanji, though, and there are many idioms in Japanese that aren't used in Chinese. Furthermore, sentence structures can be wildly different, so just because you can read Chinese doesn't mean you will be able to fully understand even really Kanji-heavy Japanese sentences. It can definitely help you understand, though.

Also, the pronunciation is completely different, so even if you can understand the Kanji, you won't be able to pronounce it in Japanese.

 

[louis89]

i read the OP at the weekend and I can't figure out how you can be able to write the symbols but not be able to read them? makes no sense

感慨無量

If you copied that down and wrote it over and over again until you could do it from memory, would you know what it meant and how to pronounce it without having to learn anything else?

 

[shanshan310]

感慨無量

If you copied that down and wrote it over and over again until you could do it from memory, would you know what it meant and how to pronounce it without having to learn anything else?

no?

Does anyone know how to write Japanese adresses?! I want to send my friend a letter but the adress structure is so wildly different I'm not sure what goes where

 

[345triangle]

Is that really considered obscure?

no, everyone knows it, but it's specific. dude above said なだらか is "very common", but even if it were the most common word in the language for that situation it'd still be kind of obscure to me because i don't talk about hills very often, and could get by without it even if i did. similarly, 咲く is common and has a pretty frequently used kanji and sounds like 桜 so is easy to remember, but hell if it's going to come up in my conversation very often.

all this is relative! i know a bunch of specific words related to things i'm interested in that most people of my level probably don't, and i'm sure it's the same for everyone. like, just because i see a bunch of complicated photography terms each time i turn on my camera doesn't mean they're not kind of obscure for people who don't care about photography.

at levels like my own, it's important to prioritise what you learn. you're evidently at the stage where everything is interesting and about as equally useful to know, but that's because there probably aren't any bigger holes that'd give more bang for their buck if they were filled.

 

[Zoe]

Does anyone know how to write Japanese adresses?! I want to send my friend a letter but the adress structure is so wildly different I'm not sure what goes where

http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2224.html

 

[345triangle]

no?

Does anyone know how to write Japanese adresses?! I want to send my friend a letter but the adress structure is so wildly different I'm not sure what goes where

in english?

post code (xxx-xxxx)
city (...-shi)/prefecture (-fu)
ward (-ku)/smaller details (street/building etc)

in japanese you can just put it all on one line, like post code/city/ward/street/building/number, or use the same structure above.

 

[shanshan310]

thanks a bunch

 

[vas_a_morir]

Started reading my first "Japanese" novel. Quotes because it's a translated version of a book I've already seen the movie for, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. When they get into that cooky magic stuff, it gets a difficult.

 

[Deleted member 17706]

no, everyone knows it, but it's specific. dude above said なだらか is "very common", but even if it were the most common word in the language for that situation it'd still be kind of obscure to me because i don't talk about hills very often, and could get by without it even if i did. similarly, 咲く is common and has a pretty frequently used kanji and sounds like 桜 so is easy to remember, but hell if it's going to come up in my conversation very often.

all this is relative! i know a bunch of specific words related to things i'm interested in that most people of my level probably don't, and i'm sure it's the same for everyone. like, just because i see a bunch of complicated photography terms each time i turn on my camera doesn't mean they're not kind of obscure for people who don't care about photography.

at levels like my own, it's important to prioritise what you learn. you're evidently at the stage where everything is interesting and about as equally useful to know, but that's because there probably aren't any bigger holes that'd give more bang for their buck if they were filled.

なだらか isn't used exclusively for hills. In fact, I'd say it's usage is often more abstract and used in relation to economic growth etc... (see なだらかな成&#38263.

I'd recommend reading Japanese newspapers, or even just online news sites. I don't think I've saw a single word on the JLPT1 (5 years ago) that I hadn't seen in a newspaper or article before.

Started reading my first "Japanese" novel. Quotes because it's a translated version of a book I've already seen the movie for, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. When they get into that cooky magic stuff, it gets a difficult.

Reading anything in Japanese is a great idea, but I would recommend staying away form translated western novels at first. As you read more, you'll quickly come to notice that novels translated form English use very different Japanese than a native Japanese novel.

A lot of the lingo used in Harry Potter especially feels very forced and unnatural.

 

[345triangle]

thanks for the なだらか tip, i hadn't heard that usage! my dictionaries only mentioned hills.

i'm only at about 1000 kanji so newspapers might be a little ambitious, though i think reading news sites with rikai browser on ipad (tap to translate a word) could be a good idea. i'd like to try reading novels etc but i'm not really sure where a good place to start would be.

 

[vas_a_morir]

Reading anything in Japanese is a great idea, but I would recommend staying away form translated western novels at first. As you read more, you'll quickly come to notice that novels translated form English use very different Japanese than a native Japanese novel.

A lot of the lingo used in Harry Potter especially feels very forced and unnatural.

I disagree. Reading this book will help show me what I want to know: How to express Western thinking concepts in Japanese. Also, it was FREE

 

[cntr]

i read the OP at the weekend and I can't figure out how you can be able to write the symbols but not be able to read them? makes no sense

also since Kanji are based on chinese, does that mean that if you can read chinese you can read japanese? or does it have a different meaning?

The RTK method gives you an English word to use as a pronunciation, which you will replace with a Japanese word later after finishing the book and begin learning how to properly write.

Yes, you could use knowledge of hanzi to figure out the meanings of kanji and vice versa, but there will be mistakes. Think of it as trying to use a knowledge of French to figure out Spanish or Italian -- you'll figure out a ton of things, but not everything.

 

[Deleted member 17706]

I disagree. Reading this book will help show me what I want to know: How to express Western thinking concepts in Japanese. Also, it was FREE

Free is always nice!

Just be warned that the Harry Potter Japanese translator isn't particularly good...

She turned Snape into a cartoon villain and Neville into a mental retard, for example.

 

[BocoDragon]

Speaking of using Japanese to learn other Asian languages... I have heard that Japanese and Korean have the same sentence structure.

Does this mean there is a direct analogue for "Watashi", "No", "Wa", "Desu", "Ka" etc? It all works the same?

 

[Furoba]

Speaking of using Japanese to learn other Asian languages... I have heard that Japanese and Korean have the same sentence structure.

Does this mean there is a direct analogue for "Watashi", "No", "Wa", "Desu", "Ka" etc? It all works the same?

Pretty much

no = ui
wa = un
desu = ita
ka = ka

grammar is very similar, but vocabulary has much more Sino-Korean words (70-80%).

 

[BocoDragon]

Pretty much

no = ui
wa = un
desu = ita
ka = ka

grammar is very similar, but vocabulary has much more Sino-Korean words (70-80%).

That's very cool, thanks! I'm taking Japanese courses at college, but most of my friends are Korean and they're encouraging me to learn their language.. At least some skills are transferable!

 

[cntr]

Yeah, it's been speculated that Korean and the Japonic languages are part of the theorized Altaic language family (together with the Turkic, Mongolic, and Tungusic families, weirdly enough), so I'd expect them to have some similarity. >_>

 

[shanshan310]

thanks for the なだらか tip, i hadn't heard that usage! my dictionaries only mentioned hills.

i'm only at about 1000 kanji so newspapers might be a little ambitious, though i think reading news sites with rikai browser on ipad (tap to translate a word) could be a good idea. i'd like to try reading novels etc but i'm not really sure where a good place to start would be.

I find reuters to be a great place to read acticles, and cause its online its easier to look up words/ kanji you are unsure of. You can learn some new Japanese and it feels like you're doing something worthwhile (reading the news!) as well.

That's very cool, thanks! I'm taking Japanese courses at college, but most of my friends are Korean and they're encouraging me to learn their language.. At least some skills are transferable!

I've just started learning Korean and the first thing I noticed was how many similar words there are! Word like 新聞、到着、かばん、しんりゃく、and パン, for example, all have similar Korean counterparts!

EDIT: A Korean thread should most definitly be started!

 

[RevenantKioku]

Are there any decent Japanese SRS apps for iOS? I love japaneseclass.jp

Anki has an iPhone app now. It's $25 but it's so nice and since I've been using Anki for so many years, $25 feels like nothing. I get sooo many more reps done during the day.

I'm on the JET Translation/Interpretation course seminar right now. (Well, Interpretation seminar. Not a thing about translation being studied here, but whatever.) I slammed the entire vocab list into Anki and put it in cram mode and have been having little trouble with that, so that's nice. The scratchy tapes they make us listen to would be the main issue with it. (And, I have pretty much never done translation before outside of for my wife when we travel to America, so I'm very inexperienced haha.)

It's funny, though. Everyone is begging to do the Japanese -> English interpreting but I feel so much more comfortable going from English to Japanese. If I don't know the English word in Japanese at least I can talk around to get the concept out. If I don't know the Japanese word when I hear it I am fucked as far as putting out the English.

I should update the OP with iPhone apps sometime. Not now, but sometime!

 

[Deleted member 17706]

Anki has an iPhone app now. It's $25 but it's so nice and since I've been using Anki for so many years, $25 feels like nothing. I get sooo many more reps done during the day.

I'm on the JET Translation/Interpretation course seminar right now. (Well, Interpretation seminar. Not a thing about translation being studied here, but whatever.) I slammed the entire vocab list into Anki and put it in cram mode and have been having little trouble with that, so that's nice. The scratchy tapes they make us listen to would be the main issue with it. (And, I have pretty much never done translation before outside of for my wife when we travel to America, so I'm very inexperienced haha.)

It's funny, though. Everyone is begging to do the Japanese -> English interpreting but I feel so much more comfortable going from English to Japanese. If I don't know the English word in Japanese at least I can talk around to get the concept out. If I don't know the Japanese word when I hear it I am fucked as far as putting out the English.

I should update the OP with iPhone apps sometime. Not now, but sometime!

I can totally relate with you here when it comes to interpretation at least. I've got more experience doing actual document translation from JPN -> ENG, and there are many tools available to help in the process, so I kind of feel more comfortable going from Japanese, but when I have to do something on the fly with no dictionary or online assistance, I feel much more comfortable going from ENG -> JPN.

 

[warthog]

Great thread! I'm new to Japanese, just started my 2nd year of evening classes and am only down with the kana and a handful of kanji + some basic conversation. But I feel like I have to step it up to get where I want to. It's so annoying to hear a Japanese conversation and understand absolutely nothing of it. I hope to improve by listening to podcasts and stuff, but I don't know about that. It's not easy to keep doing that if you hardly understand 1 word in a couple of sentences. But if I feel it helps, I'll try and hang on.

I also just ordered the "remembering the kanji vol.1". I'm excited to get that 1. Little question about that in connection to "anki": when you use the heisig deck in Anki, can you control which kanjis will appear for review? In other words, I can be studying 20 kanjis in the book, but how will I know these will turn up in the program first time I use it? Or am I misunderstanding something? Sorry if it's a stupid question.

 

[KidA Seven]

Great thread! I'm new to Japanese, just started my 2nd year of evening classes and am only down with the kana and a handful of kanji + some basic conversation. But I feel like I have to step it up to get where I want to. It's so annoying to hear a Japanese conversation and understand absolutely nothing of it. I hope to improve by listening to podcasts and stuff, but I don't know about that. It's not easy to keep doing that if you hardly understand 1 word in a couple of sentences. But if I feel it helps, I'll try and hang on.

I also just ordered the "remembering the kanji vol.1". I'm excited to get that 1. Little question about that in connection to "anki": when you use the heisig deck in Anki, can you control which kanjis will appear for review? In other words, I can be studying 20 kanjis in the book, but how will I know these will turn up in the program first time I use it? Or am I misunderstanding something? Sorry if it's a stupid question.

Japanese-online.com is a great site for learning Japanese. They have 16 beginner lessons which consist of a conversation. They then break down sentence structure and give you vocabulary.

After you're done with that, they have a section for Particles and Sentence structure. I'm currently doing that.

 

[RevenantKioku]

I also just ordered the "remembering the kanji vol.1". I'm excited to get that 1. Little question about that in connection to "anki": when you use the heisig deck in Anki, can you control which kanjis will appear for review? In other words, I can be studying 20 kanjis in the book, but how will I know these will turn up in the program first time I use it? Or am I misunderstanding something? Sorry if it's a stupid question.

Two options.
One:
Go into the card browser, select all of them and suspend them.
Then, when you study the kanji in the book, go back into the editor and un-suspend the ones you've studied.

Two:
Set it to have you study new cards in the order added and at the end of studying all other reps. When you've completed your reps for the day only do new ones up to what you have studied.

I did method two, personally.

 

[warthog]

Ok, thank you both.

 

[shanshan310]

Great thread! I'm new to Japanese, just started my 2nd year of evening classes and am only down with the kana and a handful of kanji + some basic conversation. But I feel like I have to step it up to get where I want to. It's so annoying to hear a Japanese conversation and understand absolutely nothing of it. I hope to improve by listening to podcasts and stuff, but I don't know about that. It's not easy to keep doing that if you hardly understand 1 word in a couple of sentences. But if I feel it helps, I'll try and hang on.

Don't worry about not understanding a lot, no one understands absolutely anything. Instead, you should feel proud you can pick things up ^^ The podcasts should help with your listening. It probably sounds crazy fast and is making you feel panicy but if you listen to the flow of the voices and stuff, even if you don't understand, you'll get used to what Japanese sounds like. From there you can begin to pick out where the words go, little bits that are added into the conversation and could help your speaking to be more native like. Definitely time put in is the most important thing though. If these classes aren't moving you forward fast enough you should spend some time studying at home. Is your teacher Japanese?

Don't give up! Language learning is kind of an uphill start but once you've set things in motion its a much smoother and an incredibly enjoyable ride

Spoiler

/car metaphor.

 

[drizzle]

My main question about learning Japanese is simple. Should I?

I'm a native Brazilian Portuguese Speaker, My english is quite alright for somebody who never actually took English Classes (only in high school, and poor ones at that). I can read/write/understand spoken and speak (albeit with a wrong ass accent on most words, since I've had no practice) English.

I really want to learn a third language, but i really have no interest in anything derived from Latin. German is a good alternative, but there's nothing I like about German. I really enjoy Anime, Manga and Videogames. That's the biggest reason why I'd like to learn Japanese.

Should I do it, GAF? I have the option of joining a Japanese teaching class next year along with a friend and I'm wondering if I should do it. Maybe I should just use the tools available in this thread instead?

 

[louis89]

My main question about learning Japanese is simple. Should I?

I'm a native Brazilian Portuguese Speaker, My english is quite alright for somebody who never actually took English Classes (only in high school, and poor ones at that). I can read/write/understand spoken and speak (albeit with a wrong ass accent on most words, since I've had no practice) English.

I really want to learn a third language, but i really have no interest in anything derived from Latin. German is a good alternative, but there's nothing I like about German. I really enjoy Anime, Manga and Videogames. That's the biggest reason why I'd like to learn Japanese.

Should I do it, GAF? I have the option of joining a Japanese teaching class next year along with a friend and I'm wondering if I should do it. Maybe I should just use the tools available in this thread instead?

Why wouldn't you? You didn't give any downsides.

 

[drizzle]

Why wouldn't you? You didn't give any downsides.

Because it's a considerable time commitment for something I technically won't get much out of. Maybe my time should be better spent learning something else, or paying for some other class.

I know that this doesn't have a definitive answer, but if it's not as hard as I imagine it to be, I don't see a problem in trying it out.

I also don't know what to learn first. Kanji and Kana are two different things (I know that much), but which should I learn first? Even tho Kanji is the hardest, the Heisig method seems pretty easy at first glance. But should I learn Kana first, or it doesn't really matter?

 

[Zoe]

Is there still a strong Japanese presence in Brazil?

I also don't know what to learn first. Kanji and Kana are two different things (I know that much), but which should I learn first? Even tho Kanji is the hardest, the Heisig method seems pretty easy at first glance. But should I learn Kana first, or it doesn't really matter?

If you're doing a formal class, you need to learn the kana first. Heisig doesn't really work well with a class structure from what I've seen.

 

[drizzle]

Is there still a strong Japanese presence in Brazil?

Deppends on where you are. Brazil is a huge country. There's a big ass concentration of japanese people (some don't even know how to speak portuguese properly) in São Paulo, but I don't think there's much more pockets like that anywhere else.

If you're doing a formal class, you need to learn the kana first. Heisig doesn't really work well with a class structure from what I've seen.

It even says so in the book. But the book makes it to easy...

And learning through repetition alone is not really my style.

 

[warthog]

Don't worry about not understanding a lot, no one understands absolutely anything. Instead, you should feel proud you can pick things up ^^ The podcasts should help with your listening. It probably sounds crazy fast and is making you feel panicy but if you listen to the flow of the voices and stuff, even if you don't understand, you'll get used to what Japanese sounds like. From there you can begin to pick out where the words go, little bits that are added into the conversation and could help your speaking to be more native like. Definitely time put in is the most important thing though. If these classes aren't moving you forward fast enough you should spend some time studying at home. Is your teacher Japanese?

Don't give up! Language learning is kind of an uphill start but once you've set things in motion its a much smoother and an incredibly enjoyable ride

Spoiler

/car metaphor.

Ok, thank you for the mental support

My current teacher isn't Japanese, but the years after this it will be a japanese sensei. I do feel the lessons have been really helpful. They brought me a basic knowledge of which I feel it will be easier to build on instead of me trying to accomplish this by myself. But it's also clear that if I really want to get something out of this language, I must put more time and effort into it on my own.

Again, thank you.

 

[ganbareneopokekun]

(sorry if this is a dumb question)

let's say i wanna type hiraganas.. i guess i need a japanese layouted keyboard? and since i'm on a mac.. and i would buy a japanese mac keyboard.
would it work on my mac? if so... where can i buy one ?

 

[345triangle]

you can type japanese incredibly easily on any mac, regardless of region. all a japanese keyboard will give you is an "英数" and a "かな” button.

click the UK/US flag in the top right corner, open "language and text", select kotoeri hiragana/katakana and you're away. you can switch between them by clicking the flag in the top right, or there's a keyboard shortcut that i forget (was apple-space before spotlight took that over).

 

[ganbareneopokekun]

great!

i'll try that as soon as i'm at home.
thanks for that! i remember those buttons when i was in a japanese hotel and they had this weird internet pay per minute computer ;D

 

[ganbareneopokekun]

ぺにす

 

[Metroid Killer]

Great start :lol

 

[shanshan310]

ぺにす

nice to see you're putting your new found Japanese keyboard skills to good use. :lol

 

[345triangle]

i feel so proud. :lol

 

[cntr]

right so I was ill and I missed a bit of my reviews

115 cards due ):

 

[RevenantKioku]

115 cards is a slow day for me. You can do it! It should feel painless, anyway!

So far today (9pm, Saturday)
56 Kanji reps (But I've been doing this deck for 2 years now, so it's starting to slow down by the nature of SRS)
115 Sentence reps
Feels good.

 

[shanshan310]

Hey, anyone know anything about Sakura house?
I see their ads everywhere... Thinking about staying with them but I don't know how good they are etc. Photos of the rooms range from pretty okay to pretty damn disgusting but its always hard to tell with these things. Was hoping to bring my partner along but although they have 2-person prices the rooms don't look like they would fit two beds, and none of them are doubles. Still, it seems like a great place to stay if you're looking to go to Japan for a couple of months but still have freedom and privacy you wouldn't get with a host family/ hostel.

EDIT: Sorry I know this is more Japan travel than Japan language.