Conversational Japanese by August 20th | My language mission and my log | Forum

It's cool how Benny has inspired so many people. First discovering this site is what kicked my butt into gear about speaking as well. You have an admirable goal, but over the summer I'm sure you can do it. The problem with being a mathematics honours student is that the break doesn't actually give me a study break…eh, you work with what you've got.

The good thing about Japanese is it's so damn logical, especially when you write it out all properly. Are you going to be learning kanji? Okay I just re-read your post of course you are. Hand written though, or just electronic? You have to be careful, because if you're like me, it's tempting to get lost in the kanji because they're so interesting.

I'd like to hear how you pace yourself and what order you learning things with such a tight schedule. I've been a bit lax because my deadline is about 9 months away, but I'd like to see your progress. If you make any videos I'll watch them. 頑張って下さい

Three hours a day seems like a good minimum. I think Benny mentioned that number in his latest post, yes? I would love to be able to commit to that, but as I say, even during the holidays I have a big thesis to work on.

I would say my Japanese is 'pre-fluent'. I can usually express myself in basic ways, and if a conversation is happening (with one person who is talking slowly) I can contribute and mostly understand.　私は遅く話している日本人と話せば、たいてい理解できます (I'm pretty sure I said "If I am talking with a slowly-talking Japanese person, I can usually understand").

Typing Japanese was so fun when I first discovered it, and it's still pretty fun. Do you know how to install the stuff? I'd spend some time reading about the little tips and tricks in using the input too. There's a lot of little things I would never have figured out. It can be frustrating though, when it doesn't parse the way you want. I just try to type in small chunks at a time.

I'm looking forward to hearing about your goals and progress. What resources have you got? I've learned basically all my grammar from Tae Kim's Guide to Japanese Grammar. I like the way it's set out.

Ah, the feeling of a finished exam. Well, best of luck with your current study task!

I think your July 4 goal is completely doable. As long as you focus on the right things and ignore the extraneous topics for now, you'll be fine. I don't think those things are particularly difficult to do. 

Hiragana will not take long. Just draw little pictures around them, spend 1 minute burning it into your brain and you'll be good.

Particles are fun. I realised quite quickly how damn useful they are and they let you screw around with word order a bit.

Greetings: Useful. Also not too difficul

Nationality and language: From English, this is very easy; basically the same word as English with the same suffix for every language attached.

Numbers are also cool. You get to be able to count to a billion rather fast. Although if you want to get into the whole 'counters' thing, that might give you a bit of headache.

All of the rest I think is also within your grasp. Though I've found there are quite a few things that you just have to think of differently than in English, otherwise you can take forever to try and translate some things.

Ah, kanji. I love kanji. I suggest using Anki or some other SRS system. I think it's super fun.

I can give you links to the resources I used if you want. More free stuff to clutter your computer.

With discipline and hard work, I see no reason why this stuff can't be done. Looking forward to hearing of your progress.

頑張れ。またね

That's really cool, Dime. Your concrete goals are a good idea. I hope you're still having fun doing it.

I totally understand about learning but not mastering a topic. I often do that I'm too excited to get on to the next thing. One thing that has worked for me is to, every now and again, give yourself a bit of break by just spending time learning something you want to be able to say. I try to stick rigorously to Tae Kim's order of stuff, but there are a few advanced topics I checked out and learned for the fun of it.

Best of luck with the Kanji as well. It can be frustrating or really enjoyable. I hope you enjoy it.

Dime17 said
Personally, I thought that I could have added a bit more topics to the list and I haven't really assembled a day by day plan to tackle this, but thanks! Well it depends. I usually force myself to learn conjugations for not only verbs, but adjectives and adverbs. And the sentence structure is still something I haven't completely mastered. But I am having some fun, to learn how to express myself (with decent grammar of course). 

Having fun is definitely the most important part. As long as you kinda know some similar nouns and verbs to what you need, just chuck some particles in front and most natives will understand. That's what I do anyway. I love particles.

Yeah, I often try to find fun stuff to study that I will feel proud about when I can express myself. Apparently, I chose it over essential stuff like conjugations without even knowing it :/ But you are right. You have anything you can recommand that I add to my goal. You are advanced in Japanese after all

Remember that one thing Benny says is to learn sentence patterns before you explicitly study grammar. Each to his own, for I have more fun going the other way around so I can fully understand, but don't feel bad for not studying 'essentials' explicitly. There's nothing I particularly recommend, and please don't call me advanced. That's quite far from the truth. My suggestion is just read through the contents of Tae Kim's guide which I think you are already doing, and if there is any section that sounds useful, learn it. Actually, thinking about it, one thing I think you should add that I have found very useful: Comparing things. Many times I wanted to say 'Karate is better than Tae Kwon Do', or 'Maths is more fun than English', etc. Basically, the pattern is Ａの方(ほう)がＢより[attribute], which means 'A is more [attribute] than B'. For example, 数学の方が英語学より良いです for 'Maths is better than English study'

Yeah, right now, I'm learning radicals and simple kanji. You have a good site I can take a look at for that? 

The place I learned Kanji from is kanjidamage.com. Basically, I used the order he presented them to learn, and I bought Kodansha's Kanji dictionary for the learner (http://www.amazon.com/The-Kodansha-Kanji-Learners-Dictionary/dp/4770023359) to actually look up the definition and some example words to think of my own mnemonics. As a maths student, the logical order in which the Kanji were presented helped me a lot.

It's actually pretty sad how the computer age is making the ability to write kanji more useless. All you have to do is type in the romaji and you can make any kanji with a press of a button. And I don't have many Japanese friends to write too. . . But I think I will like to treat writing kanji as some kind of art and even have it in hence my ability to take notes on a piece of paper in Japanese. I will still learn it for the fun of it Still, it is sad to see how writing and drawing strokes are becoming more useless.

I know exactly what you mean. More than one Japanese people I know very freely admit there are many fairly common Kanji they can't remember how to write because they always type it. Even my girlfriend who grew up in a Japanese family forgot how to write 違 the other day. I can tell you, it definitely is much more fun being able to write. Though recognising and reading native Japanese handwritten Kanji is another matter all together. That's why, unlike the claims of Kanjidamage, I do believe it's important to learn stroke order.

Those site you found look interesting and probably worthwhile, but are they complete? Also, one just uses Romaji. Don't think I like that. Personally, I prefer Tae Kim's comprehensive grammar notes. He covers a lot of stuff in detail and it all (mostly) makes sense to me. Understanding all the nuance of いう has me a little stumped though.

Keep going Dime. I think you're doing well. 頑張ってね

Dime17 said
Yeah, that’s a pretty good idea. Once I get a penpal and is able to talk to him or her in Japanese, then that is where the real fun starts

Yeah, I am slowly learning some things about Japanese sentence structure. Yeah, I am learning all I could from Tae Kim’s guide, but I do sometimes encounter some problems. Either I have a difficult time grasping the concept or it keeps constantly slipping out of my mind. And I do always fear that I am studying grammar intensively as a beginner, which is not really a good strategy for most learners. For example, I am struggling with the conditionals and the positive “I must” Japanese forms. It doesn’t seem to go into my head for some reason.

As I said, each to his own. Or as the Japanese apparently say, 十人十色. If a method doesn't work for you, find one you enjoy that does. For me, forgetting some grammar just spurs me on to remember it better next time so I feel less stupid.

Ah that looks like a useful site, I’ll try it out! Right now, I am trying to learn radicals, so do you also have a site for learning the important ones. All I can find is just a radical list with all 250 (I think) radicals. I want to learn the important ones first, so you know a site?

I assume by 'important' radicals you just mean the most common ones? I would just recommend looking at this wikipedia entry and sorting by frequency. I know it's Chinese but it's pretty similar. I'm sure there's one for Japanese around somewhere but I couldn't be bothered right now.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Kangxi_radicals

Yeah, that sucks. I consider writing (or drawing) kanji some kind of art form. I do have an interest in the writing system at its elegant looking characters. And it would give my joy and pride if I can actually learn how writes like that. Yeah, I may learn the stroke order, if I could find the stroke diagram for it. There probably will be some kanji where I am forced to learn how to draw on my own, though radicals will probably help me.

You're right about that. Learning how the radicals are written pretty guarantees you can write the character in the correct order. The Kodansha dictionary I bought has stroke order which I've found helpful. If you look up the character in WWWJDIC there is a link to a stroke order animated diagram you can check out.

Yeah, you are right. I looked at it again and it seems terrible. Sorry, I meant to post this:

http://www.bitesizejapanese.com/

It’s a site that uses romji (not a fan of though), hiragana, katakana, and kanji. It teaches you some set expressions, which I think is really helpful and useful. There is also a small grammar section.

Honestly, I don’t even know if I should try too hard on learning everything on Tae Kim’s guide yet. It’s grammar and I heard it’s bad for you if you take too much of it as a beginner. I am currently trying to look for a site that can teach me things like set expressions and teach me simple grammar in small doses. I feel some parts of the guide are for people who at least have a decent grip of the language.

Thanks! Though I had some minor setbacks, but I am progressing

Glad to hear it. Just keep looking, keep learning, and you'll do well. I just happen to like the style of Tae Kim's.