Leaning Japanese

[Jon_San]

I plan on learning Japanese at a local University in the near future. I was wondering if anyone here could reccomend a good home or online learning course I could get into/buy to get a headstart?

Thanks in advance!

John

[budd]

search the forums for more recommendations
but i think www.japanese-online.com is still free somewhat
they also have some language forums around here, but they are overrun with language snobs imo
peace and good luck

[Luthien Rogue]

I'm using Megumi-sensei's 40 lessons: http://clix.to/gumi

It's... 2 lessons free (so you can try them before you pay for the rest) and after that, it' about $50 CAD for the rest of the course. You do the "homework" at your own pace, then he will e-mail you back to explain what you did wrong, then you fix your answers. I found that his way of teaching helped me learn faster.

I also bookmarked this site: http://www.sf.airnet.ne.jp/~ts/japanese/cover.html

I haven't gone through it all yet, but it seems pretty good.

I use Hiragana and Katakana flash cards from: http://www.terra.es/personal/fujiko/frame.htm?test&kana&en

And started learning Hiragana here:
http://www.japanese-name-translation.com/site/hiragana_symbols.html#05
and
http://www.btranslations.com/Resources/japanese/hiraa.aspv

Hope you find a course that works for you. :-)

[HelloKyoto]

I have been listening to Pimsleur's Japanese CDs... It has been very, very helpful. The CDs are quite expensive, however.

[Silverpoint]

I'm using Megumi-sensei's 40 lessons:

It's... 2 lessons free (so you can try them before you pay for the rest) and after that, it' about $50 CAD for the rest of the course. You do the "homework" at your own pace, then he will e-mail you back to explain what you did wrong

Crikey! A male Megumi. You don't see many of those! ;-)

[NovaTeacher]

I found this site a while ago.

http://iteslj.org/v/j/

If you click on linking pages, you can find a variety of quizzes and topics.

I use the `kanji from newspaper section`.
Difficult but I'm making slow progress.

頑張って

[Luthien Rogue]

Crikey! A male Megumi. You don't see many of those! ;)

Righty-o, feel free to let him know that. :souka: Erm.. :souka:

[Dekamaster]

You may want to visit www.mlcjapanese.co.jp. they have a great download section too, where you can get materials for JLPT 1-4.

[Silverpoint]

There are a series of videos made in the 80s by The Japan Foundation called "Let's Learn Japanese". They are pretty dated and a little cheesy, but they're well made and cover a good range of Japanese (albeit mostly polite and formal). I watched a bunch of them when I was first learning Japanese and learned a lot from them (more in fact than I did from my language school at the time!)

If you're like me and don't find sitting down and working with textbooks very stimulating they might be your thing.

I know for a fact that you can download Basic I and Basic II (52 x 30 minute videos in total) from the Internet. If not, I have them on the hard drive of the old PC in my closet. I might be able to find a way to dump them somewhere on a download site, although they're pretty big (I think about 80 megs each). This will give you enough Japanese to be fairly proficient in basic day-to-day conversation.

[Jon_San]

Thank you all for the replies, I have started using some of the suggestions. so far it is very interesting and frustrating.

[Mike Cash]

Thank you all for the replies, I have started using some of the suggestions. so far it is very interesting and frustrating.

And it will remain so for a very long time.

[Silverpoint]

The real frustration will come later when you speak reasonable Japanese, visit Japan, walk into a shop, utter a totally accurate sentence and have the shop assistant blankly stare at you like you just spoke martian. ;-)

[budd]

they labor under preconceived notions a lot
which is related to their heavy reliance on omoiyari imo

[Mike Cash]

The Japanese rely heavily on thoughtful potatoes?

(I think you meant "omoikomi", not "omoiyari").

[Mikawa Ossan]

I can't speak for online materials, etc., but my advice would be to find the local Japanese community doing study-abroad, learning English, etc., if there is one, and get involved. Making friends and using the language you learn is IMHO the best way to reinforce it and learn interesting things that you can't learn in class. When I was in college, I went so far as to get a Japanese room mate. That really helped my Japanese, and as he wasn't really interested in learning English, it worked great for the both of us!