2011-05-20, 10:26 AM
毎日、日本語を勉強する。
私の日本語はあまり上手ではないと思うが、でも皆は「そんなことないよ！ 貴方の日本語は本当に上手だよ！」と言っていた。
Still learning, don't think I'm so great in it yet. I'll get there, eventually though. Been studying too long to not reach it.
Easier than it sounds really, since they mostly just borrow pieces from one another. Learning how to use them is something you just pick up naturally through immersion in the language.
I can tell you that Japanese actually has relatively simple grammar compared to most other languages. The only real big wall for people trying to learn Japanese is getting all the Chinese characters learned. That seems to be a huge wall of intimidation for most people. Pronunciation of syllables is relatively easy. There are less than 100 syllables used in the entire language, and pretty much all of them end in vowels. The sounds of them almost never change, so if you see あ it's always pronounced the same way regardless of what's around it. Exceptions would be particles (due to the fact that they at one point used to be pronounced one way but over time were pronounced differently for the sake of sentence fluidity) and syllables that (optionally) become whispered at the end for the sake of easier pronunciation. But all languages have small word-slurring for the sake of easier pronunciation, so that's not something too odd. It comes off naturally when you get enough contact with how it works.
Really, Japanese isn't really hard to learn so much as it is too intimidating for people to learn. That's why it'd probably be best to learn kanji right off the bat when learning Japanese, that way the rest of the road is smooth sailing.
I guess I could go on more about language learning tips I've picked up on my own, but I'm a bit too lazy to type it out right now.
Kana → Kanji → Learn basic grammar (Particles are HUGE in this language, they completely make the meaning of many sentences. Using the wrong one could twist a sentence pretty badly) → Learn vocabulary and intermediate and advance grammar through natural immersion and a dictionary. Learning words outside of context might help, but it's really better to see the word actually used.
After a while you should switch to monolingual dictionaries. Don't use your own native language to get definitions of words anymore, use the language you're learning to get the definition of the word.
私の日本語はあまり上手ではないと思うが、でも皆は「そんなことないよ！ 貴方の日本語は本当に上手だよ！」と言っていた。
Still learning, don't think I'm so great in it yet. I'll get there, eventually though. Been studying too long to not reach it.
Satellite Wrote:Languages aren't for me. Only way I seem to really learn them is using the language.
Finns have to study Swedish at school (probably going to change when I graduate from "college"), but barely anyone cares about it. Sure there's 100% Finns who speak Swedish as their native language, but they can also speak fluent Finnish.
So I'm just going to say that I speak Finnish and English. I'm interested in Japanese, but I don't know how the hell I'll pull that out. learning words is one thing, but learning hungreds of hieroglyphs and how to use them is another thing.
Easier than it sounds really, since they mostly just borrow pieces from one another. Learning how to use them is something you just pick up naturally through immersion in the language.
I can tell you that Japanese actually has relatively simple grammar compared to most other languages. The only real big wall for people trying to learn Japanese is getting all the Chinese characters learned. That seems to be a huge wall of intimidation for most people. Pronunciation of syllables is relatively easy. There are less than 100 syllables used in the entire language, and pretty much all of them end in vowels. The sounds of them almost never change, so if you see あ it's always pronounced the same way regardless of what's around it. Exceptions would be particles (due to the fact that they at one point used to be pronounced one way but over time were pronounced differently for the sake of sentence fluidity) and syllables that (optionally) become whispered at the end for the sake of easier pronunciation. But all languages have small word-slurring for the sake of easier pronunciation, so that's not something too odd. It comes off naturally when you get enough contact with how it works.
Really, Japanese isn't really hard to learn so much as it is too intimidating for people to learn. That's why it'd probably be best to learn kanji right off the bat when learning Japanese, that way the rest of the road is smooth sailing.
I guess I could go on more about language learning tips I've picked up on my own, but I'm a bit too lazy to type it out right now.
Kana → Kanji → Learn basic grammar (Particles are HUGE in this language, they completely make the meaning of many sentences. Using the wrong one could twist a sentence pretty badly) → Learn vocabulary and intermediate and advance grammar through natural immersion and a dictionary. Learning words outside of context might help, but it's really better to see the word actually used.
After a while you should switch to monolingual dictionaries. Don't use your own native language to get definitions of words anymore, use the language you're learning to get the definition of the word.