# Tips for learning



## oranzes

Hello, 

I'm very interested in learning Japanese, but my school doesn't offer it. I have tried a couple of books, but they don't help that much for me. I was wondering where I should start for really beginner level Japanese. If you could consider recommending materails, it'd be appreciated.

Thank you.


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## supersprite

japanese-online
(I'm not allowed to post URLs yet, so add the three w's and the com at the end)


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## jorge_val_ribera

If you're a total beginner, I recommend you start by learning hiragana (I assume you know what that is. If not, please check en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_writing_system and follow the link for "hiragana".) I used www.thejapanesepage.com to learn hiragana, it's a very useful site.


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## Sulizhen

If you could get some books like "Shin Nihongo no Kiso" it would be great. It's all written in Japanese, but once you get used to read hiragana and katakana and once you get the grammar it has in English and a dictionary, I think it would be very helpful (it has a lot of exercises bases on repetitions).

As someone recommended, there are plenty of pages with the basic grammar and the writing system, and you are lucky, because there are a lot of them in English.

Take a look at these pages, maybe they'll help you 

http://japanese.about.com/blbegin.htm
http://www.cs.ucl.ac.uk/staff/m.rowley/resources.html


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## SpiceMan

Google is your friend. You can find -besides paid services- information on japanese at virtually any level.

From the magazine article with a list of 10 useful phrases to sites and forums about the JLPT (Japanese Language Proficiency Test) in all its levels. There are sites with flashcards for easily remembering hiragana and katakana, including methods with mnemonics. There are also available for kanji.

There are sites dedicated to the grammar aspects of the language. Sites that go deep into the kanji. 

That said, learning japanese for over two years, these are some of the language resources I've found to be helpful:
http://www.learn-japanese.info/ _easy to follow grammar lessons, some vocabulary. Nice for starters._
http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/wwwjdic.html _Jim Breen's dictionary. Esential. A real dictionary is esential too._
http://www.rikai.com/perl/Home.pl _A dictionary to browse other sites with mouse-over definitions for some words. Is not perfect but helps to browse sites in plain japanese._
http://users.tmok.com/~tumble/qadgtj.html Titled "_A quick and dirty guide to Japanese_".
http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/kanaqadgtj.html _The quick and dirty guide to Japanese. (kana version)_
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/columns/0002/ _The excellent daily Yomiuri online "_Pera Pera Penguin_" articles_.
http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/japanese.html_ Once again Jim Breen's. This time his japanese related webpage. Ugly, but every link in that page is worth gold._
http://www.genki-online.com/js/index.html _Hiragana flash cards, never used myself but seem to be popular among japanese language students_.
http://www.nihongoresources.com _A rather succesful All-in-one japanese site. From very basic dictionary, to grammar through particles. Noteworthy: giongo (giongo defines words usually described as onomatopoeia and then quite a lot more!)._
Once again, google.

edit: About the Shin Nihongo no Kiso. There's a romaji version available too. I would recommend newer books though. Sadly I remember no other titles besides the shin nihongo no kiso (it was the first book I used).


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## Jana337

SpiceMan said:
			
		

> Google is your friend. You can find -besides paid services- information on japanese at virtually any level.
> 
> From the magazine article with a list of 10 useful phrases to sites and forums about the JLPT (Japanese Language Proficiency Test) in all its levels. There are sites with flashcards for easily remembering hiragana and katakana, including methods with mnemonics. There are also available for kanji.
> 
> There are sites dedicated to the grammar aspects of the language. Sites that go deep into the kanji.
> 
> That said, learning japanese for over two years, these are some of the language resources I've found to be helpful:
> http://www.learn-japanese.info/ _easy to follow grammar lessons, some vocabulary. Nice for starters._
> http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/wwwjdic.html _Jim Breen's dictionary. Esential. A real dictionary is esential too._
> http://www.rikai.com/perl/Home.pl _A dictionary to browse other sites with mouse-over definitions for some words. Is not perfect but helps to browse sites in plain japanese._
> http://users.tmok.com/~tumble/qadgtj.html Titled "_A quick and dirty guide to Japanese_".
> http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/kanaqadgtj.html _The quick and dirty guide to Japanese. (kana version)_
> http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/columns/0002/ _The excellent daily Yomiuri online "_Pera Pera Penguin_" articles_.
> http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/japanese.html_ Once again Jim Breen's. This time his japanese related webpage. Ugly, but every link in that page is worth gold._
> http://www.genki-online.com/js/index.html _Hiragana flash cards, never used myself but seem to be popular among japanese language students_.
> http://www.nihongoresources.com _A rather succesful All-in-one japanese site. From very basic dictionary, to grammar through particles. Noteworthy: giongo (giongo defines words usually described as onomatopoeia and then quite a lot more!)._
> Once again, google.
> 
> edit: About the Shin Nihongo no Kiso. There's a romaji version available too. I would recommend newer books though. Sadly I remember no other titles besides the shin nihongo no kiso (it was the first book I used).


 Excellent. 

SpiceMan and others, if you are willing to prepare something like this (i.e. a well-structured list of non-commercial links with brief descriptions), we could have a Japanese resources sticky.  You can use this thread to collect them.

Jana


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## kamome

May I add one suggestion? I too am studying by myself, and I can say that I found a highly useful book (I had to ask friends to buy it for 
me in London, as there was no way to find it in Italy) whose help was ABSOLUTELY precious: it's the KODANSHA KANJI LEARNER'S DICTIONARY.


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## oranzes

Wow, thanks to everyone! Now I have a better understanding on where I should start. I really love the Japanese culture and the people. So I want to learn to speak Japanese.


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## Oogami

I see that you are Korean.

I found this Japanese lesson that is written by a Korean, in English.
It is quite comprehensive and easy to understand.

jgram. org / pages / viewOne . php ? tagE = start

(Remove all the spaces, I can't post URL's yet.)
All the best.


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## maybe4ever

would anyone know how long it would take to learn japanese,  coming from a language like english.  i know it will be hard, learning to read and write as well as speak.  i was wondering how long how long it would take to get a basic understanding of the language.  enough to hold a conversation with.


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## Max.89

I've started to study it a bit,but I'm a rookie yet about that intriguing language.
Anyway I think that it will take at least 3 years.
Remember that you have to learn the Kanji as well.


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## maybe4ever

yes, that will be very tricky.  id love to learn an asian language though.  and japanese seems intriquing to me.


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## Cereth

hELLO !
well, well, though japanese seems to be a very difficult language you have an extra benefit, there are many words in japanese that come from the english language, so i think that is an advantage in comparison if you´d try with chinese or korean, the most important thing is that you feel comfortable with the culture, thought, music, etc and the rest will be easier.

greetings from a spanish speaker intending to make a way through japanese


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## maybe4ever

gracias

i dont know much spanish, im am learning french currently.
im really hoping to be able to start learning japanese sometime in the future.

is it easier to learn it all at once, like learning kanji, and speaking.  or one at a time, like reading writing kanji, then speaking.


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## erick

Take it step by step, leave kanji for later.  Learn hiragana and katakana at first, and try to improve your listening and speaking.  Kanji is another commitment that will take time ... don't expect to pick up kanji quickly, otherwise you'll be left disappointed and frustrated.
A good way to start out easy is to learn hiragana/katakana/grammar and start reading comic books/manga.  Japanese manga is excellent and there are manga on every subject, including manga for adults with interesting subjects.  They often have furigana (hiragana next to the kanji) to aid in reading, so look for those.  You're in America, but what city?  If you're in California or NY you can easily find Japanese print manga and books.


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## maybe4ever

i live on the east coast in north carolina.  i might could find japanese manga in charlotte, its about an hour away, and its the biggest city in the state


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## maybe4ever

hey, thank you so much.  after some searching, i found this really helpful site on hiragana.  it breaks it down, into sections.  like the section for today was just vowels. thanks so much for the help


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## KittieRuinCoil

Hi.  I'm trying to learn Japanese.  I've loved it, and the culture, since I was around 9.  But since I got into the third grade I haven't had time to improve my Japanese.  Now I'm 16 and in a GED class, and I have alot of spare time.  Do you have any suggestions?  Are there any book/software/etc reccomendations you have?  If so, I'd be very grateful.

Thanks in advance,
-~RxR~-


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## maestro_oskuro

Hi! I'm from Spain and I'm 16 too. I love Japan so I've started learning japanese by myself. I think it's not too hard to study it, because the pronunciation is similar to Spanish's. I'm afraid that my studying .pdf I'm using is in Spanish, but if I find something in english I'll tell you about.  Sorry about my english level ^^


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## s0ci0l0gy

hi!!.. i'm from the philippines. i was trying to do some self taught japanese lessons. i keep on searching something usable online. Yet it was quite hard to comprehend kanji. i really don't understand kanji. That's why i stop. But then since i saw this thread, I got new hope that I can speak japanese fluently....


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## Aur0n87

Hi!

I'm trying to learn Japanese for quite some time now. I tried several things, and talked with many Japanese learners and also with native speakers of Japanese. 

I've learned that the first step has to be learning Hiragana and Katakana, as some others recommended. Knowing them is the base you need, because this makes you able to read the most basic stuff. 

I tried out different materials, and i am using several websites.
A very good start to find some people who learn Japanese as well, or even native speakers of Japanese is for example apricotweb.com, where you will find many good learning materials, links and two chats!

But for a solid learning you will definatly need a good book, most likely with a audio CD or video, teaching you how to actually pronounce words.

A book that i definatly can recommend you is "GENKI - An Integrated Course in Elementary Japanese". The whole course consists of two textbooks, each having a respective workbook and an audio cd. 
The material has really a high quality and the way how the book teaches you Japanese is, in my opinion, very good. The book has many pictures (but not too many), often illustrating dialogues or objects, which makes it easier to read and to learn. From the beginning all vocabulary and dialogues are written in Hiragana and Katakana. But don't worry, in the first lessons they are subtitled with romaji, so you don't have to know them from start off. You can find some sample pages and other useful stuff on their website, genki-online.com. 

(This was not meant to be any advertisement, it's really just a great book)


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## erick

kamome said:
			
		

> May I add one suggestion? ABSOLUTELY precious: it's the KODANSHA KANJI LEARNER'S DICTIONARY.



I'd like to add another book that I think is excellent.  I grew up in a Japanese speaking household, but everyone, Japanese or not, has to study kanji to learn and retain it.  I bought many kanji books and over the years the one I used most was by the German authors: Hadamitzky and Spahn.  I believe it was their "Kanji and Kana" book that I used for so long.  (Unfortunately can't find it after my last move, and I now use Eijiro on my Mac for reference)

I'm happy to see you Spanish speakers learning Japanese ... I hope to spend the summer in Madrid learning Spanish, so it goes both ways.


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## KittieRuinCoil

Sorry if this link has been posted, but I don't think so... I'm not allowed to post links, I don't think, as I'm new.  But it's web-japan [dot] org [slash] kidsweb.  It's childish, but it's cute & helpful.


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## Aur0n87

Yea, kidsweb Japan is really a great site, too! Even though it is made for kids, this makes it only simpler for you to get into Japanese a bit.


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## WildsonJr

Hi, I want learn Japanese but I don't know how to start. Can u tell me some tips? What learn at first? Which are the personal pronouns?


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## dahut

Hello!

I've just bought a book for Japanese for beginners (that would be me for a long time from now on  )
My doubt is: if I manage to learn Japanese, Will it be easier to learn Chinese later? As it happens with Romance languages or Is it an utter different world?

Thanks!


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## instantREILLY

Japanese and Chinese are almost nothing at all alike gramatically.  The only thing Japanese would really assist you with in Chinese is getting the hang of learning Hanzi (not necessarily the characters themselves, though, because most Japanese Kanji are somewhat different from Chinese Hanzi by a few strokes).


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## dahut

instantREILLY said:
			
		

> Japanese and Chinese are almost nothing at all alike gramatically. The only thing Japanese would really assist you with in Chinese is getting the hang of learning Hanzi (not necessarily the characters themselves, though, because most Japanese Kanji are somewhat different from Chinese Hanzi by a few strokes).


OK... Thank you.
That puts everything in perspective and I guess I should apply for some extra years in my life-time in order to learn both.
Thank you again.


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## Mariquita74

Hello everybody, I'am new in this thread and I found this topic very interesting !
I had studied Japanese during my course in Brisbane but it wasn't long enough to be able to write in katakana ! (I had about 6 month of japanese studies) I would like now to study more seriously because I like the language and japanese's culture !
Can somebody tell wich book ou course learning advice me to continue my language study ? 
It will be very nice of you to give me that information !

Arigatogosaimasu !
Sayonara !

Mariquita74

Moderator Note:
Please apply standard writing conventions.


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## Genecks

1. Learn the alphabet
2. Learn how to say basic words, such as water
3. Learn how to introduce yourself
4. Try buying a college textbook based on the Japanese language; those are more accurate.
5. Start asking questions on a forum, such as this forum.


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## palomnik

While it's definitely an old text, you might want to consider using Samuel Martin's "Essential Japanese" as a starter for the grammar; it's still pretty generally available. It was written in the early fifties, and it was designed for missionaries and American GI's who were stationed in Japan and wanted to pick up some of the language. It provides nothing about the writing system - the whole book is in _romaji -_ but despite its offhand format it manages to cover virtually all of the major grammar areas of the language, and provides tons of useful examples for communication. Don't let the size of the lessons daunt you (it squeezes everything into 10 lessons), and don't feel you have to learn everything in Lesson 1 (a lot of common conversational expressions) before going on to the others. 

There is plenty of material on the writing system in other sources that you can use as an adjunct to this.


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## youtin

I think the best way to learn the language is to make some Japanese friends and try speaking with them. From experience, grammar tends to stick better when it's _actually_ used. You also learn a lot of new words that you usually don't learn with Japanese textbooks! It's tough at first, but it's the fastest, surefire way to speaking fluently in any language. 

Study grammar & vocabulary, then APPLY to real life.

...and as mentioned before, reading manga is a fun way to see Japanese in action.


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## biankita

I am really interested in learning Japanese too!!!

Well, I consulted friends who speak Japanese fluently (most of them were raised in Japan or has Japanese parents) on a good language school. All they told me was that even if I went to the best Japanese language school, I will not learn anything and I am better off just watching fansubs (of animes) to learn. Of course, that wasn't very helpful for me.


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## akina

For memorization, flash cards are your friend!
You can download a program on the internet, and make the flash card you want.
EG, having several sets for vocabulary is priceless, and repateing them often will drill them into your head.
http://mnemosyne-proj.sourceforge.net/


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## bruno321

> All they told me was that even if I went to the best Japanese language school, I will not learn anything and I am better off just watching fansubs (of animes) to learn.



I think this is a common misconception. Before I started learning Japanese, all I understood from watching fansubs was some expressions here and there, those which correspond nicely to some commonly used phrase. Like the classical "chotto matte" or "sou ka" or little words here and there. You shouldn't even think you'll actually learn the language from watching fansubs: it's absurd.

I'm not saying it is useless. Not at all. It's useful as a complement to your Japanese studies. Now that I've been studying Japanese for a year and a half, I can take much more advantage of watching fansubs. Since I actually  understand quite a few of the sentences' "logic", I can deduce the meaning of some word, or the usage of some particle, or correspond what I've been learning "on paper" with its real usage. And I've learn to recognize quite a few kanji from reading karaokes.

So yes, watching fansubs is helpful, but only significantly when you already have a certain grasp of the language.


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## youtin

biankita said:


> I am really interested in learning Japanese too!!!
> 
> Well, I consulted friends who speak Japanese fluently (most of them were raised in Japan or has Japanese parents) on a good language school. All they told me was that even if I went to the best Japanese language school, I will not learn anything and I am better off just watching fansubs (of animes) to learn. Of course, that wasn't very helpful for me.



Ahaha..I think their answer comes from a "native speaker" perspective. When you grow up speaking a language, you are not even aware of the grammar and rules behind it. You can speak it fluently and naturally without ever opening a language book. 

As a small child, I mostly learned to speak English just by watching cartoons on TV. People thought we spoke English at home, but that was not the case. So if I didn't know any better, I could tell anyone to just dump their books and watch cartoons to learn a language.  But I think this is only possible for little children who seem to have the ability to suck all kinds of information in their brain.

But for older people who want to learn foreign languages, I believe it is necessary to use books and go to schools. And even more necessary is applying what you have learned by speaking to your friends and getting into contact with the Japanese culture. The only way for you "not to learn anything" is if you don't apply what you have learned! Don't lose hope!


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## Reona

Hi,

I'm having really trouble remembering Japanese vocabulary, my brain seems to refuse when it comes to remember an arbitrary sucesion of sounds ('clase'(Spanish)='class'(English) is ok but 'class'='kyoushitsu' !?!
<--my brain freaking out-).
I've never been a listening-type learner, I'm more visual-like. 
So...I was wondering if it could be that: pre-existing difficulty of learning kanji plus my incompetence for remembering vocabulary equals faster learning?

I don't know anybody that has learned kanji and vocabulary at the same time. Is it an impossible task? Have you tried it? What do you think the pros and cons are?

Thanks.


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## unprimesuspect

Hi Reona 



> I've never been a listening-type learner, I'm more visual-like.
> So...I was wondering if it could be that: pre-existing difficulty of learning kanji plus my incompetence for remembering vocabulary equals faster learning?


Learning kanji is largely a visual task so if you are a visually orientated person, that's a good thing. As for your difficulties with memorizing words auditorily, endless repetition and actually using the words in your daily life should help. 



> I don't know anybody that has learned kanji and vocabulary at the same time. Is it an impossible task? Have you tried it? What do you think the pros and cons are?


I don't think it's impossible but if you find each task frustrating enough on its own, I wouldn't combine the two. When learning a new language, I think it's always best to get familiar with the sounds and basic words first.


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## Louismi

I use mainly about dot com. It works very well for me.
I used it to learn kana and all the basics. 
It's also good for kanji. 
Now I'm also trying others like nihongoresources but I think I'd find it rather hard if I had started with that one.


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