日本語を勉強しよう! Let's Learn Japanese! - Everything and anything that can help with learning Japanese language

If you're struggling with remembering kana, I think that playing a simple game like 1st Gen Pokemon in Japanese is a good way to help you get the hang of things. Most people online could probably play the old simple Pokemon games without reading a single word so you won't get lost, and the game is kana only and has a lot of katakana, so looking up words as you go and trying to understand them really helps you recognize kana.
 
Yes. Katakana is very important. I think a lotta people see Hiragana as the "primary alphabet" and assume that means they can put off Katakana, but I definitely wouldn't do that. It might be less common but it's still like, in every other sentence.
I think the issue with Katakana is its very hard for someone who only speaks one language to approach? Did you know that the Portuguese introduced bread and marble to Japan? If not congratulations you will have really no solid way of reading the Japanese words for Bread and Marble respectively. I am on day 206 of learning Japanese and I am just now getting decent enough at Katakana to sound out the English sounding words....half the time.

Honestly I find Kanji to be way easier and way more sensible because at least its only got two possible pronunciations most of the time. Also people need to stop hating on Kanji. It is easily my favorite part of learning Japanese.
Progress update on my own study too: I've now begun studying N4 Kanji, putting my total up to just below 250 Kanji. I'd say 100 of which I'm confident in.
For my own update:
Presently I have learned or encountered: 277 Kanji in 766 Vocabulary words. The big thing for me though is I'm now simultaneously working through ToKini Andy's series on Genki 1 and have gained the magical ability to change some of them into their 活用形. Something of which I am very happy with.
 
Does anyone know anything about the EF Tokyo language exchange program? I am considering doing that next year.

I heard the best way to learn Kanji is to learn words with Kanji, and not the individual Kanji and their readings. Since most Japanese can't even write a lot of Kanji themselves.
 
I heard the best way to learn Kanji is to learn words with Kanji, and not the individual Kanji and their readings. Since most Japanese can't even write a lot of Kanji themselves.
I think think that's true. That's how Wani Kani teaches it anyway. Basically the break down is:
You learn the radicals that make up the Kanji
You learn the Chinese Reading (On'yomi)
the Japanese Reading (Kun'yomi)
And then vocabulary words using it.

For example: 年
I'll skip the radicals 'cause how you remember those is kind up to you.
On'yomi: Nen
Kun'yomi: Toshi
Example: 一年生 (Ichi Nen Sei) - First Year Student.

You have to learn a certain amount of individual Kanji first. For example I know 一、年、生 all independent of one another. However the magic (and probably my favorite part of the process) is once you've learned enough that they start to come together and you don't even need the dictionaries to know what you're reading.

I know what 今 means. So I know anytime I see: 今年、今週、今日、今月, that it is in reference to "Current" and then whatever the second Kanji is. I know that if I see anything proceeding 色 its probably going to be a color of some sort.


I think a lot of quitters get lost in the sauce. There's this tendency I think westerners have, especially if they're American to see "Man according to the Govt. It takes around 2000 hours of work to get fluent in Japanese. That is 40 hours a week for an entire year. I don't have that much time. AND they say its one of the hardest languages for English speakers to grasp. I can't do this." and then they either give up, or go for awhile and get frustrated and burnt out.

What I think has been the most important thing for me is and has been figuring out the rules and patterns to the language. Every language on the planet has certain rules and patterns it necessarily must follow to function. I think if you set yourself up to start to recognize the patterns, it makes stuff a lot easier.

For instance its very handy to know that all the verbs in Japanese end in う, and that in the majority of verbs they all follow the same conjugation rules. I did not until a few weeks ago understand how conjugation worked. However I could read something like 聞きません and recognize the kanji. I knew it had something to do with hearing. I knew that きません was doing something to 聞く. So when the day came that I learned about Conjugated Forms, it very seamlessly translated over from what I already know and something I already recognized into an easy to digest fact that adds to the patterns.
 
a lot of people recommend just skipping isolated kanji study all together unless you want to learn to write them and to just jump straight into learning vocab with one of the starter anki decks like jp1k, ajt kanji transition, or kaishi. that's what i did and after a while you infer the meaning of most of the kanji anyway because of all the related words you see them in. the only times i bother intentionally looking up the meaning of a kanji is when i just can't get a particular word to stick in my head and i haven't yet encountered one of the kanji in it enough to be able to discern its meaning, and that's pretty rare
 
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Is there an easy way to remember which numbers are "Fun" and which numbers are "Bun" when referring to minutes?
 
Is there an easy way to remember which numbers are "Fun" and which numbers are "Bun" when referring to minutes?
You gotta remember the numbers.
2, 5, 7, 9 are "fun", 1, 3, 4, 6, 8, 10 are "pun/bun". For double digits, you use the last digit as the indicator.
I guess you could try to remember them as odd and/or even numbers.

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To add to the kana bullshit, not all loanwords have the same meaning as the originals. Take ビッチ or スタイル for example. Former means a slut, while latter refers to the body. A lot of fan translators translate スタイルがいい as "good style" when it actually refers to the person's good figure.
 
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To add to the kana bullshit, not all loanwords have the same meaning as the originals. Take ビッチ or スタイル for example. Former means a slut, while latter refers to the body. A lot of fan translators translate スタイルがいい as "good style" when it actually refers to the person's good figure.
This is why I don't get the Kanji hate lol, it is so much simpler than Katakana.
 
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Take ビッチ or スタイル for example. Former means a slut, while latter refers to the body. A lot of fan translators translate スタイルがいい as "good style" when it actually refers to the person's good figure
I wonder where does ズボン come from.
 
I spent about half of my life learning Japanese, and wow, I still learnt a lot from you guys. Whether its grammar understanding or site/app references for studying. I'm actually a Japanese teacher, and everything you post here, I'll try it and recommend it to my students to help them learn easier.

To be honest, I'm the type that don't really like studying in a sense that you read a book, memorize things, and do practices by the book, although the text books could always be used as references. I also not the type that looks for tips for this and trick for that. I learnt everything by brute force.

When asked by friends or students how do I learn to be on the level I am now, I always told them to read, speak, listen, watch, and write a lot. Basically, my motto is 習うより慣れる.

Learning Japanese has became much more easier compared to when I started learning Japanese many years ago. Now you can even easily talk with natives through apps like Hello Talk.

Tools, references, and media are easily accessible right now, so I think everyone here will be doing fine as long as you want to grab the tools and use them.

Remember to take your time, unless you have specific target. It's not an easy language, at least not for me. So it's understandable that it might take some time to understand some words or expressions. If a blockhead like me can do it, you can.
 
Is there an easy way to remember which numbers are "Fun" and which numbers are "Bun" when referring to minutes?
If the quantity bit before the classifier ends in ん or a double constanent with っ, you use "pun" rather than "fun". It seems a bit awkward but the more classifiers you know, the more it makes sense. Just remember that 6 and 8 get shorted from "roku" to "ro" and "hachi" to "ha" (there may be a deeper reason why, but I think it's just to make them less difficult to say).

The quantity part of いっぷん is いっ, the small っ means we use "pun".
The quantity part of さんぷん is さん, the ん means we use "pun" here too.
The quantity part of ななふん is なな, there's no small っ or an ん at the end, so we just use "fun".

That's the way I remember it. It's been alright. Honestly, when it comes to counting, I more have issues with when you need to use the secondary counting system and when there's specific exceptions to the rules, like how "20 years old" isn't にじゅうさい, but はたち, since it's tied into the Japanese age of majority.
 
Now you can even easily talk with natives through apps like Hello Talk.
Consider the favor repaid if any thing I've recommended has helped you. I've been looking for an app to practice speaking that isn't as pozz'd as discord is.
The quantity part of いっぷん is いっ, the small っ means we use "pun".
The quantity part of さんぷん is さん, the ん means we use "pun" here too.
The quantity part of ななふん is なな, there's no small っ or an ん at the end, so we just use "fun".
This actually makes a ton of sense. I'm a fan of patterns and it follows the same patterns as things like 一歩, that makes it much easier to remember.
 
I did mention this briefly in the OP, but I want to offer you guys a kind of a challenge. I've mentioned before that I'm a big lover of light novels, so I have plenty of access to Japanese texts. My suggestion is that, I'm going to post a random Japanese text from a random novel and anybody (who's interested) can try their hand at translating it. Then we can discuss the hows and whys of the text. For the sake of the fairness, I'll make sure that all kanji comes with furigana and the excerpt itself will be posted as a screenshot.
I can even do it today if at least 2 people express interest in this exercise.
 
I did mention this briefly in the OP, but I want to offer you guys a kind of a challenge. I've mentioned before that I'm a big lover of light novels, so I have plenty of access to Japanese texts. My suggestion is that, I'm going to post a random Japanese text from a random novel and anybody (who's interested) can try their hand at translating it. Then we can discuss the hows and whys of the text. For the sake of the fairness, I'll make sure that all kanji comes with furigana and the excerpt itself will be posted as a screenshot.
I can even do it today if at least 2 people express interest in this exercise.
Sign me up coach.
 
I did mention this briefly in the OP, but I want to offer you guys a kind of a challenge. I've mentioned before that I'm a big lover of light novels, so I have plenty of access to Japanese texts. My suggestion is that, I'm going to post a random Japanese text from a random novel and anybody (who's interested) can try their hand at translating it. Then we can discuss the hows and whys of the text. For the sake of the fairness, I'll make sure that all kanji comes with furigana and the excerpt itself will be posted as a screenshot.
I can even do it today if at least 2 people express interest in this exercise.
Sounds fun, I'm interested, it will probably be tomorrow before I can get back here though. It might be best to spoiler the translations, so the exercise can stay somewhat evergreen.
 
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Alright, let's do this. @Abbadon's Gate @quisquiliae

text1.PNG

Fully furiganized as promised.

Please submit your translations in a spoiler (or you can DM me for maximum anonymity and I'll publish all translations together in a single post for discussion).
I'll submit my translation the last because I've technically read this novel (I haven't read this specific chapter though so I have no context)
 
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Alright, let's do this. @Abbadon's Gate @quisquiliae

Please submit your translations in a spoiler (or you can DM me for maximum anonymity and I'll publish all translations together in a single post for discussion).
I'll submit my translation the last because I've technically read this novel (I haven't read this specific chapter though so I have no context)
I think I kind of lost the plot the more I looked at it, so this is the best I have. I have decent Kanji knowledge but I really lack in grammar and reading comprehension. I'd like to upload an html version so people can scan it directly with Yomichan, but my Mokuro installation seems to have committed seppuku, if I can get it running again I'll upload it. Unless others think that it may detract from the exercise. EDIT: I forgot it generates extra files and needs the folder structure intact to work, probably too cumbersome to be worth it. I'll just copy paste from the HTML file so people can scan it here if they want to.
ウリセスは、妻から寝室で妹の事情を聞いいた。兄から勧められた縁談が嫌で、家を飛び出してきたというのだ。それが、家出に適当な理由かと言われると、彼は眉をひそめる。家出の前に、もっとよく兄と話し合うべきだろうと考えたからだ。怒っているかと聞かれたら、怒っているとしか答えようがなかった。嫁入り前の妹の身を案じるのは、兄ならば当たり前なのだから。

In the bedroom, Urisesu's (Ulysses?) wife told him about his sister's situation. Unsatisfied with his marriage recommendations, she ran away from home.
He furrowed his brow, and thought she would have had a better reason for running away. Before she ran away, they had been constantly discussing and thinking about what she should do. He was angry that she wouldn't listen or respond to him. It's only natural for a brother to be concerned for his unmarried sister.

I'm assuming the 兄 is referring to Urisesu. I'll save some of my other problems for the discussion later if I can't figure them out from looking at the other submissions.
 
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