which is better

[QwertyJPC]

learning Japanese on your own, or taking classes to learn it?

I might take a class in beginning Japanese this upcoming spring semester.

I am sort of jealous of an aquaintance of mine who took the 2-kyuu test already...he's gonna get his score results in March.

[Greji]

learning Japanese on your own, or taking classes to learn it?

I might take a class in beginning Japanese this upcoming spring semester.

I am sort of jealous of an aquaintance of mine who took the 2-kyuu test already...he's gonna get his score results in March.

Wait until March when he gets his score back! You may not have to be jealous!

I assume you're in the States. If that is the case, I would highly recommend you take a course. You need a structured beginning to start the study of this language if you have no previous exposure. There will be plenty of time to do (and it will be necessary if you are serious) independent study later. But, not being in Japan and not having extensive and daily exposure to the language, you and most people would need classroom parameters to focus you when you begin.

[ichigo partygirl]

You cannot study a language alone at the start if you expect to become good fairly fast. Take as many classes as you can, make japanese friends/japanese sex friends and your Japanese should come along ok if you make a good enough effort.
Goodluck

[Greji]

make japanese friends/japanese sex friends and your Japanese should come along ok

The "native Maorigo speaker" puts a new light on this that I forgot about, I think I will go back to independent study, you can go to class!

[Charles]

Take a class. It is very difficult to learn a language all by yourself. A class will give you feedback and corrections on your performance, usually by a teacher who is a native speaker of Japanese. That's what classes are for, you can learn on you own but you will never know if you're learning it RIGHT unless you have a teacher to help you and correct your errors.

[QwertyJPC]

japanese sex friends? If I'm lucky...and boy is my luck gone! How can I?

[Blah Pete]

Take a class. At least in the beginning to make sure you get the basics of grammer down. Also, pronounciation is important and you can't get that studying by yourself - you need a teacher with a large stick to beat on you when you make a mistake - positive reinforcement.
I find that studying at home is only good for learning new vocabulary, new kanji, etc.

[QwertyJPC]

I hope I can get enrolled first, sO I can use my add code to have the class until next semester... I guess I'm in...for now.. I just hope my academic reinstatement goes through.

so far, it's going well... we're just doing our introductions right now...

BTW, this is a five unit class...which is class every day from 830 am to 920 am. I'm gonna be sleepy but I think it'll be worth it.

[milQuetoast]

It'll be worth it. I also had Japanese first thing in the morning back in the day, and had to fend off the yawns with suspiciously powerful Jasmine tea sold from "roach coach" vendors out on the university lawns ... but it'll be worth it. At some point you can strike off on your own with your Japanese studies, but -- at least in my opinion -- being in a classroom setting to get the basics of grammar and pronunciation down are essential.

[QwertyJPC]

[Charles]

It's easier to type than to actually write though..

Exactly. Sure it's a lot of fun, but computerized Japanese input is a distraction and a hindrance to beginners' studies. Get busy writing by hand, you need the practice.

[fatslug]

[QwertyJPC]

The class is getting harder every seession...but I like it that way.

My sensei's going faster, and faster...

I can't believe we're to know the whole katakana characters by Wednesday.

JEEZ!

Oh well..

[Big Booger]

The class is getting harder every seession...but I like it that way.

My sensei's going faster, and faster...

I can't believe we're to know the whole katakana characters by Wednesday.

JEEZ!

Oh well..

Wait until he puts the old fortune cookie between your legs and makes you sing kimigayo in the benjo!

[QwertyJPC]

By the way, my sensei's female.

[QwertyJPC]

My acquaintance passed 2kyuu. Now I'm jealous.


Acquaintance wrote in LJ:
I passed!!!!1!11one!!!
I just wanted to go ahead and brag, since I'm frankly shocked about it myself: today in the mail I got the certificate saying I passed the Level 2 Japanese Language Proficiency Test! I really thought I sucked and failed miserably when I took it, and I did actually fail the practice test I took at home, but when I got back from school today there was the certificate, plastic slipcover and everything. ^___^

Just had to share that.

Now I bet he's moving to Japan after he graduates and become a translator from what I've read.
you can read his lj at http://nekoewen.livejournal.com

[ichigo partygirl]

Have to ask in this thread since all you jocks trying to outdo eachother got the thread closed.
Can you take level one and level two at the same time?? I know one is in the morning and one the afternoon. Want to take them both because i can get 2 fine but i want to give 1 a shot since i will have just returned home from a year in Japan so prolly best time to try. However i would be soo pissed if i failed 1 and had to wait another year to get 2.

Thanks all

[sillygirl]

Bad news, honey.

Can only take one level at a time...if you could do more than one, I would have taken 4, 3 and 2 just to cover my ass!!!

Bugger. Don't get results til next month. Wonder how badly I failed....

[ichigo partygirl]

Bad news, honey.

Can only take one level at a time...if you could do more than one, I would have taken 4, 3 and 2 just to cover my ass!!!

Bugger. Don't get results til next month. Wonder how badly I failed....

awww thats not fair! I want both..................(stomps off).
Damn i hate not getting what i want.

Im sure that you did fine SG!!!

[sillygirl]

awww thats not fair! I want both..................(stomps off).
Damn i hate not getting what i want.

Now, now IPG. Don't forget the advice that Gomigirl gave you earlier

[Charles]

Can only take one level at a time...if you could do more than one, I would have taken 4, 3 and 2 just to cover my ass!!!

They used to allow that. I heard they gave L4 and 3 one day, L2 and 1 the next, and you could take them all if you wanted. But they simplified the testing schedule, when I took the test in 1997, all levels were given at the same time.

[ichigo partygirl]

I thought that you could take two levels in the same day as long as they were at different times ( well duh!). Level 2 is in the morning and 1 in the afternoon so i thought i could do both. A Korean friend of mine did both 2 years ago....

[Charles]

I thought that you could take two levels in the same day as long as they were at different times ( well duh!). Level 2 is in the morning and 1 in the afternoon so i thought i could do both. A Korean friend of mine did both 2 years ago....

I took the test in Chicago, and I'm fairly sure the US test sites all use the same protocol (or at least they did back then). We had a group of like 10 people from our university who all carpooled to Chicago and took the test at the same time, at all levels, so I am quite sure that all 4 levels were all given at the same time.
But of course, they might still use different schedules in other countries. The final authority is the Japan Foundation, since they give the tests. It wouldn't hurt to check with them. JF usually has a contact person in local Japanese Embassies or Consulates.

[ichigo partygirl]

Damn Even though they are on at different times you can only sit one level per year. Well that just sucks.
Now do you sit level 2 which you know you will pass, or do you sit level one in the off chance you might get it??
Well i guess ive got a few months to think on that..................
Its about time they started having the test more than once a year!

[QwertyJPC]

The semester's over. I had a good time in my Japanese class, even though it was hard at times. We barely learned kanji in the last class. I am so worried about kanji next semester, even though I have fully memorized all of the kana characters. I don't think I learned any furigana either. I hope to have Matsumura sensei as a teacher again...Inaba sensei, the head of the Japanese language department, says for Japanese 1B "you have to learn 140 kanji." F*cking scary. Not so when I have learned about 142 hiragana　and katakana and some of the new set of kana.

おなまえ　は：　コルドヴァ、ジョセフ。
せんこう　は：　アトデシイヌゲンレアゥシツヂオプラチス
なんねんせい：　よねんせいです。

My acquaintance who passed the 2 kyuu test is going to Grad school in SF. He's a Japanese major and is going to graduate in June or July. Sadly, we aren't close enough to be talking very much to each other. Right now he does a lot of translation for people I don't know about. I read about it in his livejournal.

http://www.jlist.com/SEARCH/kanji_practice_flashcards_/1/

do you guys recommend these flashcards? I hope to be able to buy them at fanime when J-list is there.

[Charles]

http://www.jlist.com/SEARCH/kanji_practice_flashcards_/1/

do you guys recommend these flashcards? I hope to be able to buy them at fanime when J-list is there.

I haven't seen these cards personally, and the website doesn't show the back side, so I'm wondering how useful these cards would be.

The standard has generally been the Tuttle Kanji cards. I used them, they've been used by thousands of students, I like them.

If you want supplemental kanji study material, I highly recommend Kanji and Kana by Hadamitzky and Spahn. You can buy that volume, which is a convenient reference volume, or you can buy it in a 2 volume set of workbooks, you fill in the exercises as you learn them. I preferred the reference volume, you can always make up your own exercises by practicing on paper. You'll be doing a lot of that, no matter how you study kanji.


If you really want to nail kanji, I'd recommend above all others, the Bonjinsha Kanji Book series. The Basic Kanji Book is pretty expensive at $40, but I don't know anything else that will give you such a great foundation. The Kanji Book series goes all the way through the JLPT Level 1. I'm still using it myself (Kanji Book 1000+ Vol 2) and you will feel a real sense of achievement just to even begin that book.

Don't worry so much about kanji. Sure it looks difficult, but it's not so hard as you might think. You will have to spend a lot of time with rote memorization and flash cards, especially at the beginning. You will have to develop new study skills, in particular you will have to develop your visual memory. But then, isn't this part of the point of learning a foreign language, to acquire new skills and do things you never thought possible?

You should devote yourself to this effort, as the first kanji you learn are foundations for all the rest of the kanji. The kanji you learn now will appear later as small pieces of more complex kanji, and your efforts (particularly the stuff you might think is silly to learn, like correct stroke order) will become more important, and make your life easier, as your studies progress to higher levels.

[jingai]

[quote="QwertyJPC"]
お]

That is unreadable. What are you talking about?
せんこお？　Don't you mean せんこう？　専攻

Without kanji, Japanese can be really ambiguous and painful to read. Kanji will make your life much easier and happier. First learn it for all the words you already know.

How did you learn 142 hiragana. There are only 46 of them. Furigana= hiragana written in superscript.

[kamome]

At first, learning kanji was a daunting, painful task for me. In fact, I thought it was absurd to even be asked to remember any of them on an exam. But as I progressed in my Japanese studies, I began to realize how enjoyable it can be to memorize them and comprehend written Japanese as it's meant to be read. And as Charles said, the kanji you learn early on will be repeated in other kanji, so it gets easier over time. I would add that once you have a pretty good foundation in kanji, you will start to assimilate new words by recognizing the constituent kanji that comprise the word (in other words, you'll "see" the meaning of the word even if you haven't come across it before). That's when you know you've reached a higher plateau in your language skills.

Good luck.

[maraboutslim]

[QwertyJPC]