RE: Learning Japanese
Paula Parmenter
My 13 yod wants to learn Japanese - any suggestions on how?
-Paula
Azure 13
-Paula
Azure 13
drusila00
http://www.learnjapanesefree.com/
--- In [email protected], "Paula Parmenter" <bead@...>
wrote:
--- In [email protected], "Paula Parmenter" <bead@...>
wrote:
>
> My 13 yod wants to learn Japanese - any suggestions on how?
> -Paula
> Azure 13
>
anisadancer1218
Hi all! Does anyone have any suggestions about learning to read
Japanese written language, inotherwords the Kanji? My ds has long been
wanting to read Japanese in order to understand games, manga and anime
that are not yet translated. Is this at all realistic? I asked someone
who is fluent in Japanese. She said that this was hard to do and he
should begin by learning to speak Japanese first or learning the
westernized written language ( I forget what that's called). This is
not what currently interests him, however. Any of your children have
experience with taking on learning how to read the Kanji? How did they
do it?
Thanks, Andrea
Japanese written language, inotherwords the Kanji? My ds has long been
wanting to read Japanese in order to understand games, manga and anime
that are not yet translated. Is this at all realistic? I asked someone
who is fluent in Japanese. She said that this was hard to do and he
should begin by learning to speak Japanese first or learning the
westernized written language ( I forget what that's called). This is
not what currently interests him, however. Any of your children have
experience with taking on learning how to read the Kanji? How did they
do it?
Thanks, Andrea
Solé
Hello Andrea,
learning Japanese is realisitic! It's is not as hard as people say.
People keep saying it's hard, then they thing it's hard, and then
it's hard :D
I studied Japanese with a great teacher at university. First of all,
you need to know that Japanese has three different writing systems
and they are all needed! Kanji are the signs which were taken from
Chinese language hundreds or thousands of years ago (I don't remember
how many ;-) ). So they took these signs for some words, but because
the grammar is different, they needed to add other signs which would
indicate the grammatical meanings (past, present, possession and so
many other things). Some monks invented Katakana, which is a sylable
system. It's like an ABC, but there is a sign for each sylable, so
ma, me, mi, mo, mu have all different signs, and la le li lo lu have
all different signs and so on, all the possible combinations have
different sounds – in Japanese a sylable is always one consonant and
one vowel. But then! They thought women were too dumb to learn that
and they weren't allowed, but because women wanted to read and write
love stories, they invented one of their own, called Hiragana. This
is also a system of sylables.
Nowadays Katakana is used for all the words which come from abroad,
like coca-cola, computer, mac donalds (and because the sylables have
to be consonant+vowel, and because they have not "l", they would
spell out with sylabic symbols "ma-ku-do-na-ru-do" for mac-donalds :D
or "bo-yu-fu-re-n-do" for boyfriend ("n" being the only one-consonant
sylable possible). :D ah... were was I? Hiragana is used for all
grammatical features that one might need (words like "and", "to",
"when" and showing past tenste and so on – these are added to the
Kanji, the main words.
So normally, as learners, one starts learning both Hiragana (it takes
a few weeks but it is not as difficult and there are many tricks to
learn the sylables) and some Kanji. Then one starts learning the
Katakana. One never stops learning new Kanji. But with Hiragana and
Katakana one can already spell any word you need and japanese
children learn this at firs as well, so they can just write all they
want until they know enough Kanjisymbols. One generally needs around
5000 Kanji to understand a newspaper, and I've seen students who are
really so interested in learning them, that they will do quite quickly.
A good trick is to write the Kanji on small stickies and put them on
the things they describe. Seeing them everyday caused a friend of
mine learn all of them (about things around the house).
With Kanji alone he won't be able to read anything, he'll just grasp
a little bit what it's about. He definetly needs Hiragana as well,
and the westernized thing won't help at all. Katakana can come next.
http://members.aol.com/writejapan/
http://www.freejapaneselessons.com/
http://genkienglish.net/genkijapan/hiragana1.htm
Trick for learning Hiragana: look at each hiragana symbol and imagine
what it could look like. Try to make it look like something that
starts with the same sylable in English. For instance the hiragana
symbol for "a" could be an "anchor". Draw an anchor into the hiragana
symbol so that it fits somehow. Later you'll need to think of the
word you chose - "a - anchor ; aha, yes that was the one that looks
like an anchor"
Tricks for learning Kanji: I learned them by writing them down
thousands of times. My friend learned them by writing them very
beautifully like calligriphy and putting them on the things in her
house. Another friend would try to figure how it would represent that
thing (they are derived from former symbols which used to represent
these things). Others would make cards with one side a Kanji, one
side the german word (I did this too and it helps).
Greetings
Johanna
Am 10.10.2006 um 13:08 schrieb anisadancer1218:
learning Japanese is realisitic! It's is not as hard as people say.
People keep saying it's hard, then they thing it's hard, and then
it's hard :D
I studied Japanese with a great teacher at university. First of all,
you need to know that Japanese has three different writing systems
and they are all needed! Kanji are the signs which were taken from
Chinese language hundreds or thousands of years ago (I don't remember
how many ;-) ). So they took these signs for some words, but because
the grammar is different, they needed to add other signs which would
indicate the grammatical meanings (past, present, possession and so
many other things). Some monks invented Katakana, which is a sylable
system. It's like an ABC, but there is a sign for each sylable, so
ma, me, mi, mo, mu have all different signs, and la le li lo lu have
all different signs and so on, all the possible combinations have
different sounds – in Japanese a sylable is always one consonant and
one vowel. But then! They thought women were too dumb to learn that
and they weren't allowed, but because women wanted to read and write
love stories, they invented one of their own, called Hiragana. This
is also a system of sylables.
Nowadays Katakana is used for all the words which come from abroad,
like coca-cola, computer, mac donalds (and because the sylables have
to be consonant+vowel, and because they have not "l", they would
spell out with sylabic symbols "ma-ku-do-na-ru-do" for mac-donalds :D
or "bo-yu-fu-re-n-do" for boyfriend ("n" being the only one-consonant
sylable possible). :D ah... were was I? Hiragana is used for all
grammatical features that one might need (words like "and", "to",
"when" and showing past tenste and so on – these are added to the
Kanji, the main words.
So normally, as learners, one starts learning both Hiragana (it takes
a few weeks but it is not as difficult and there are many tricks to
learn the sylables) and some Kanji. Then one starts learning the
Katakana. One never stops learning new Kanji. But with Hiragana and
Katakana one can already spell any word you need and japanese
children learn this at firs as well, so they can just write all they
want until they know enough Kanjisymbols. One generally needs around
5000 Kanji to understand a newspaper, and I've seen students who are
really so interested in learning them, that they will do quite quickly.
A good trick is to write the Kanji on small stickies and put them on
the things they describe. Seeing them everyday caused a friend of
mine learn all of them (about things around the house).
With Kanji alone he won't be able to read anything, he'll just grasp
a little bit what it's about. He definetly needs Hiragana as well,
and the westernized thing won't help at all. Katakana can come next.
http://members.aol.com/writejapan/
http://www.freejapaneselessons.com/
http://genkienglish.net/genkijapan/hiragana1.htm
Trick for learning Hiragana: look at each hiragana symbol and imagine
what it could look like. Try to make it look like something that
starts with the same sylable in English. For instance the hiragana
symbol for "a" could be an "anchor". Draw an anchor into the hiragana
symbol so that it fits somehow. Later you'll need to think of the
word you chose - "a - anchor ; aha, yes that was the one that looks
like an anchor"
Tricks for learning Kanji: I learned them by writing them down
thousands of times. My friend learned them by writing them very
beautifully like calligriphy and putting them on the things in her
house. Another friend would try to figure how it would represent that
thing (they are derived from former symbols which used to represent
these things). Others would make cards with one side a Kanji, one
side the german word (I did this too and it helps).
Greetings
Johanna
Am 10.10.2006 um 13:08 schrieb anisadancer1218:
> Hi all! Does anyone have any suggestions about learning to read
> Japanese written language, inotherwords the Kanji? My ds has long been
> wanting to read Japanese in order to understand games, manga and anime
> that are not yet translated. Is this at all realistic? I asked someone
> who is fluent in Japanese. She said that this was hard to do and he
> should begin by learning to speak Japanese first or learning the
> westernized written language ( I forget what that's called). This is
> not what currently interests him, however. Any of your children have
> experience with taking on learning how to read the Kanji? How did they
> do it?
> Thanks, Andrea
>
>
>
Michelle Leifur Reid
On 10/10/06, anisadancer1218 <pinkydog@...> wrote:
phonetic written language IOW each part of the symbol represents a
sound just like the Roman alphabet that we use. Learning it in
conjunction is not as difficult as one would think.
I've been hunting for this book myself and when I find it again I'll
post about it. The book is a flip book that has the kanji and then
the sound that is represented by that kanji. Emily has an internet
friend who can read kanji, but doesn't speak Japanese, so Emily and S
are constantly back and forth on "what does this say" and "what does
this mean" LOL! Emily has gotten a lot of help in her language
studies by watching Japanese anime (particularly Fruits Basket which
has an English manga) Most of the Fruba that she has found on line
has been in Japanese with English subtitles.
Call your local university or college and see if they have a Japanese
language program. Emily has been invited by the Japanese instructor
here to take the Japanese immersion class in the summer. They have a
Japanese cultural center on the campus and Emily is considering taking
a 10 week long class in tea ceremony.
Michelle
> Hi all! Does anyone have any suggestions about learning to readEmily is learning Japanese! Kanji (at least Japanese kanji) is a
> Japanese written language, inotherwords the Kanji?
phonetic written language IOW each part of the symbol represents a
sound just like the Roman alphabet that we use. Learning it in
conjunction is not as difficult as one would think.
I've been hunting for this book myself and when I find it again I'll
post about it. The book is a flip book that has the kanji and then
the sound that is represented by that kanji. Emily has an internet
friend who can read kanji, but doesn't speak Japanese, so Emily and S
are constantly back and forth on "what does this say" and "what does
this mean" LOL! Emily has gotten a lot of help in her language
studies by watching Japanese anime (particularly Fruits Basket which
has an English manga) Most of the Fruba that she has found on line
has been in Japanese with English subtitles.
Call your local university or college and see if they have a Japanese
language program. Emily has been invited by the Japanese instructor
here to take the Japanese immersion class in the summer. They have a
Japanese cultural center on the campus and Emily is considering taking
a 10 week long class in tea ceremony.
Michelle
Cara
My daughter liked these sites:
http://japanese.about.com/blkatakana.htm
http://japanese.about.com/blhira.htm
There is also a kanji area there too.
The way I learned Japanese when I was younger was to make a chart with
all the characters and memorize it - since I'm a visual learner.
I don't think it would be difficult to learn Kanji at a young age -
not as difficult as conjugating verbs in Spanish - LOL.
Cara :)
http://japanese.about.com/blkatakana.htm
http://japanese.about.com/blhira.htm
There is also a kanji area there too.
The way I learned Japanese when I was younger was to make a chart with
all the characters and memorize it - since I'm a visual learner.
I don't think it would be difficult to learn Kanji at a young age -
not as difficult as conjugating verbs in Spanish - LOL.
Cara :)
[email protected]
-----Original Message-----
From: solelokuai@...
learning Japanese is realisitic! It's is not as hard as people say.
People keep saying it's hard, then they thing it's hard, and then
it's hard :D
-=-=-=-=-
Unschooling is realistic! It's not as hard as people say! People keep
saying it's hard, then they think it's hard, and then it's hard!
<BWG>
~Kelly
________________________________________________________________________
Check out the new AOL. Most comprehensive set of free safety and
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From: solelokuai@...
learning Japanese is realisitic! It's is not as hard as people say.
People keep saying it's hard, then they thing it's hard, and then
it's hard :D
-=-=-=-=-
Unschooling is realistic! It's not as hard as people say! People keep
saying it's hard, then they think it's hard, and then it's hard!
<BWG>
~Kelly
________________________________________________________________________
Check out the new AOL. Most comprehensive set of free safety and
security tools, free access to millions of high-quality videos from
across the web, free AOL Mail and more.
[email protected]
Hi,
I can't tell you about my children, they are into mastering the latin and cyrilic scripts at the moment, but I'm learning Chinese. Actually, I started long time ago, and never could quite handle having to learn the character, its pronunciation, and its meaning(s) at once.
So, quite recently, I decided to learn the meanings only, in order to start reading and understanding at a decent level, since I learn (languages) through reading, mostly. I still have to try it, but to me it seems to make sense. Anyway, I think that me (and your son) will pick up the pronunciation as a "side-efect" anyway, sooner or later.
So my advise is - get a dictionary, get acquainted with the radicals (components of the characters, used to classify them) and start looking up the characters!
An, posting here for the first time...
...and going back to lurcking! ;)
--
Der GMX SmartSurfer hilft bis zu 70% Ihrer Onlinekosten zu sparen!
Ideal für Modem und ISDN: http://www.gmx.net/de/go/smartsurfer
I can't tell you about my children, they are into mastering the latin and cyrilic scripts at the moment, but I'm learning Chinese. Actually, I started long time ago, and never could quite handle having to learn the character, its pronunciation, and its meaning(s) at once.
So, quite recently, I decided to learn the meanings only, in order to start reading and understanding at a decent level, since I learn (languages) through reading, mostly. I still have to try it, but to me it seems to make sense. Anyway, I think that me (and your son) will pick up the pronunciation as a "side-efect" anyway, sooner or later.
So my advise is - get a dictionary, get acquainted with the radicals (components of the characters, used to classify them) and start looking up the characters!
An, posting here for the first time...
...and going back to lurcking! ;)
--
Der GMX SmartSurfer hilft bis zu 70% Ihrer Onlinekosten zu sparen!
Ideal für Modem und ISDN: http://www.gmx.net/de/go/smartsurfer
Michelle Leifur Reid
Something else that Emily pointed out to me that I didn't realize is
that all through the Fruits Basket Manga there is kanji for different
sounds, words, and actions. In the back (front to the US) of the
manga there is a list of these words, their Japanese name or sound and
then the English translation. I've started recognizing some of them
(I'm reading the series myself right now).
Michelle
that all through the Fruits Basket Manga there is kanji for different
sounds, words, and actions. In the back (front to the US) of the
manga there is a list of these words, their Japanese name or sound and
then the English translation. I've started recognizing some of them
(I'm reading the series myself right now).
Michelle