I am trying to learn japanese and I find it hard to do has any one got an idea on how I can learn better? thanks heaps
japanese isn't nearly as hard as people make it out to be. no language is. you just have to take your time and don't get frustrated. you may want to check out meetup.com, and find out when japanese speakers meet in your hometown. another thing you can do [other than paying for a class that isn't going to teach you anything anyway] is go to a bookstore or if ur cheap like me, the library, and take out those books with audio cds or even those interactive cds. that'll help. what is your goal? to be able to speak it only? read and write? I can point you in the right direction. I taught myself japanese and russian. there's ways to learn languages that work alot better than time in the classroom. it all depends on how much time you want to devote to study and practice.
Japanese isn't that hard. Some words are usually broken up into syllables which resemble some English words. For example I think America is something like Am-er-ri-ka in pronounciation, or something like that. Chinese however, like Mandarin is 10x harder. Its a completely different language and the word 'Ma' can have 5 different meanings when pronounced with different tones and pitches of voice. I think Two of the different terms for Ma is Horse and some kind of Insult.
Well if you wanna learn it you should start based on the formal/polite level of speaking, just get Pimsleurs....it's REALLY easy to learn, at least for me, and it only takes 30 minutes a day. 3 units, 30 lessons each unit. That's like 4 months of Japanese Language knowledge. You learn how to speak formally, and understand the structure of a Japanese sentence. Then you just have to go and find a native Japanese speaker to talk with and improve and learn informalities and how to speak normally. Pimsleur's will not teach you to be fluent in Japanese, but it will help you get a good understanding and make out sentences for alot of things....in other words, if you don't know any Japanese, you will learn a WHOLE lot!....plus I recommend you get used to the Japanese consonants, what sounds make up their words....get to know Hiragana, and Katakana alphabets to begin with (not too hard, took me about 2 weeks to memorize on a busy schedule, for some people it only takes a few hours) I guess you can use Romaji too if it will help you better, but it is better to leave Romaji alone later on. I spoke to Japanese students at my school and they were surprised and as I hung out with them, I kinda made out sentences based on what i learned and they said it made sense but in a formal way (not the COOL way )...i also picked up alot of other things talking to them in Japanese too. (a couple of them thought I was Japanese at first ) Pimsleurs costs a crapload, but I just downloaded it for free a while ago off those torrent sites. I liked this site also.....there's more too but I forgot them all, just search around google. www.thejapanesepage.com (this is a free webpage for learning Japanese)
Mandarin isn't really 10x harder than Japanese. The fact that Japanese borrows a few words from English is deceiving. It's still a totally different type of language--much more different grammatically than Mandarin, actually. On the plus side, pronunciation is pretty easy and grammar (politeness issues not included) is simple and functional. On the harder side is memorizing all the Chinese characters, their multiple pronunciations and how to pronounce them in various words and contexts. Also, the word choice and conjugations change a lot depending on who you are, whom you're talking to and in what situation. Mastering switching smoothly between the various modes of speech as the situation dictates is pretty tough at first. The best would be to just take a class, though the Pimsleur idea is good for starters.
bakushou! ijiwaru! Onyomi and Scottv are correct. It's daft to say that Japanese is easier than Chinese or vice versa, given that everybody learns language in different ways and has different capacities. Generally you can say the Chinese languages are harder to pronounce, but that's ignoring the scary number of tonal homonyms in Japanese... anyone for spiders and clouds? Bridges and chopsticks? Stress and a person's height? Also the reading in Japanese can be scary. The kanji for 'go' ('iku') has about 21 different ways of pronouncing it. Scottv's post is good but I would get a book that teaches you the basic politeness levels of the verbs so that you can use the standard form 'suru' as and when the polite form 'shimasu' isn't necessary... I learned a little polite stuff before I came (desu/-masu) forms and everybody of about my age spoke using standard (da/u) whereas many people in shops etc use the ultra polite (degozaimasu/****eitashimasu etc). I couldn't understand anything. That's the other major headache with Japanese: some people simply refuse to speak anything other than the most polite forms which as you just saw have 5+ extra syllables to them, and in some cases (iru - imasu - irasshaimasu) are different words altogether. If the OP clarifies maybe we can help more...
No way! Having studied both Mandarin and Japanese, Mandarin is definitely the easier of the two. Yes, you have crazy sounds that you don't have in English, and yes there are tones. However, the sheer madness of Japanese sentence grammar can kill a man. Short form vs long form, particles, counters, verb conjugation, ADJECTIVE conjugation... it goes on and on. Also, even with barrowed words aside, Mandarin is much much closer to English than Japanese. You still have the basic Subject-Verb-Object sentence order, whereas Japanese has TOPIC (which is like the subject, but not quite) -object-verb sentence order, with a gaggle of particles thrown in to fill the gaps. Also, much of the sentence in Japanese is left unsaid (the topic is usually implied). And to top it all off, there are no functional 3rd person pronouns (pronouns often have the connotation of being a sweetheart - thus, "Kare" and "kanojou", the literal words for "him" and "her", typically mean "boyfreind" and "girlfriend"). Yes, Japanese words look easier than Chinese. But once you have the audicity to try and put those words into a sentence, Japanese will PUNISH you.
I'm now fluent in Japanese. I studied the basics in College and got my certificate. After this, I did a lot of self-study from the internet and books. Didnt take long at all, VERY easy language to learn.
I speak enough Nihongo to order in restaurants and take a taxi from the airport. I've found Pimsleur to be useful, but recently I purchased Rapid Japanese Vol. 1 through Audible.com and I liked that a lot. Good luck with your efforts to learn Japanese. It's a fun language, once you get the hang of it.
I'm a Japanese National. I've been in the US for 40 years but I still speak, read and write. I take it Shadow just wants to learn Japanese as a hobby to supplement his MA study. If that's the case, many of the interactive computer programs are perfectly fine. If you wish to go to Japan and not have little girls laugh at you, you would need a little more immersion training. (unless you enjoy being the comic relief) On the other hand if you are planning to conduct business in Japan, I'd advise hiring a good translator/interpretor instead. I've seen too many business deals gone bad because someone was too stubborn to recognize his limitations.
