This is a collaborative thread idea by PA user Bantam19 and I, started to enrich our understanding of the Japanese language and culture, but mostly language. Bantam19 is taking actual Japanese classes and I'm teaching myself through the internet via this site (which I highly recommend despite not having learned anything substantial yet):  http://www.guidetojapanese.org/learn/" rel="nofollow - http://www.guidetojapanese.org/learn/ .

Here's an introduction message from Bantam19:

I lawled because the end of the url is "lolz"

Arigato gozaimasu (circle)

/romanji fail

Yeah, but we probably sound the same way when we talk. Also, there are no spaces between words and barely any commas in written Japanese, so that might have something to do with it.

I think more what Slarti is describing isn't the typical "it sounds like this foreign language is so fast!" but that when converting Japanese to English the sentences wind up longer and thus English dub actors need to speak quickly to keep the dialogue in time.  This is probably because in Japanese a lot of information is omitted when speaking (and writing for that matter).  Things like pronouns are hardly ever used, especially when talking about oneself.  So the English dub might come out like "Yesterday I saw you go into the store, but I never saw you come out" the Japanese was probably something like "Yesterday, you into store saw, but never saw out come".  So ya, that's my best guess.

Sounds kind of like learning SQL. 

I hope that made sense. I'm working on mapping the hiragana symbols with the sounds in my mind by translating each word individually. I'm fairly certain that my grammar is completely off because I haven't studied any grammar yet.

I think you need to start a bit simpler Alan lol, grammar is one of the toughest things to learn, since its so different from English.

First part should be こんばんは！Because ”は” (ha) here pronounced like　”わ” (wa) is the topic indicator, so really the phrase is equivalent to stating that tonight is the topic if that makes any sense.  I'm sure you've heard lots of people start sentences with watashi-wa (わたしは）which is what you would use to start a sentence that is about oneself.

So, kon'nichniha?

You must not have the Japanese language fonts installed on your computer.

ほんとうに、ありがとう！(Really, thank you!)

I'm learning to speak only over-enthusiastically so far OMG HIIII.

The Youtube channel for the handle "JapanSocietyNYC" has a lot of good, short videos that teach the pronounciation of common words and phrases such as greetings, colors, numbers, and even some videos on visual arts and cooking. The only problem with these videos is that everything is taught in romanji, so I'm waiting until I've memorized at least all of the hiragana and katakana symbols so I can translate the romanji into usable writing form.

Tofugu just has some generally interesting videos about Japanese stuff, but his most valuable contribution so far is his instructional video on how to pronounce the Japanese "R" sound (though, personally, I think it sounds like he goes a bit heavy with a "D" sound). He's also written a book which I totally will not purchase but I'm sure it's decent enough. His website also has a bunch of crap on it. He's also a total dweeb, but whatever.

I'm not really sure what the dash is for, but the romanji translation had a dash in it. Are dashes not important?

はい。

I still don't really know many words  and I only know about 20ish hiragana characters so far. I'm hoping to memorize all of the hiragana and katakana characters by the end of April, and then I'll start studying grammar. 

はい、とても楽しいです。今日はさいごの日本語のじゅぎょうがありました。４月２４日にしけんがあります。がんばりましょう！

I had no idea so many people would be interested in this thread 

Mad skillz brah.

http://lang-8.com/" rel="nofollow - http://lang-8.com/

I purposely de-kanjified it so hopefully you can read it.

凛として時雨とメスガ　 Hopefully I chose the correct syllables for the second band.

Their name is kind of helping me learn some kanji, I guess. I should look for some good kanji resources eventually. I'm 5 days away from memorizing all of the hiragana characters though.

I haven't learned the first one in their name yet (or the word for that matter), but the 2nd one is the kanji for time/hour and is used in tonnes of combinations so its really useful, and the 3rd one is rain so that's pretty handy too.  Its an easy one because it looks like rain falling from the sky :)

And I have no idea what that second band is supposed to be "Mesuga"? Oh derp. Meshuggah.  I guess you haven't learned how to modify characters with the "y" column, but it would be メシュガ (Meshuga) probably, maybe with a long vowel at the end.  And practice answering in full sentences if you can: 凛として時雨とメシュガをきいています。Even if you're just copying the verb ending without understand the grammar behind it, its still a good habit.

The extent of my knowledge on grammar so far is subject-object-verb, and that's it. I've tried playing around in google translate with ”わたし”、”わたしわ”、と”お” but I honestly haven't learned anything that way. Also, getting used to the space bar function is a burden.

はい、正しい。

I'm trying to get into some kanji memorization now, but so far I can only remember 日,本 and 凸, and I'm totally unsure how to use the last one. I rarely use the word "convex" anyway, but I'll try to randomly toss it into some sentences.

 

I thought it was a man bending over

It is, but it's done in ASCII art form because it's written in ASCII characters.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASCII" rel="nofollow - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASCII

アランさん、まだひらがなをよむことができすか。

エリックせんぱい、それわむずかしとたのしい。

What kind of athlete?

I'll check out that Rikaichan add-on.

がくしごうこんぴょうたじょうほうぎじゅつ。

It's nice to know I'm not the only playa on PA.

Alan, you are still using わ when you should be using は for the topic indicator! Otherwise, solid sentence, even got the long vowel :)

And ya, I dunno why I didn't mention Rikaichan/kun, its the most useful thing ever.

I think I'll move into sentence structure and vocabulary after I finish learning katakana. 

Umm, I gather that your job is in China, dunno about the other kanji.  And ya, proper grammar is definitely the hard part.  If I had to guess I'd say, 中国で仕事をしています。Which would work out to "I'm working in China" roughly.

Literally it would break down like "China de" (de particle denotes where an action is taking place), and then "sh*teimasu" is like the act of currently doing. Hope that makes sense, you had part of it right grammatically.

I'm moving in to writing sentences on my own, prematurely. I think I formed the above sentence right but I could be wrong. Notice the は 

Ya, typically the non-main information precedes the main object and verb. For example 今朝友達と図書館で日本語を勉強しました。In Hiragana: けさともだちととしょかんでにほんごをべんきょうしました。

"This morning I studied Japanese at the library with my friend", in literal order "This morning, with my friend, at the library, Japanese, I studied".  Hope that kind of illuminates the grammatical structure.

Also, glad to have another learner aboard with us :)

Well, you would just substitute the program name for saying "television program".  Like in English it would be long-winded to say "I watched the television program nichijou" when you could just say "I watched nichijou".  Everything in that sentence is good except you would just say 見ました、見る is the "dictionary form" of the verb and it wouldn't be used here, so you just use the stem of the verb "mi" and do the typical masu, mash*ta, masen and masendesh*ta endings.

そのホテルにとまっていますか。日常はどんなテレビ番組ですか。

あなたかわいいです。　

I'll arrive in Japan and be able to successfully scare off women now by barking very direct compliments at them.

Oh wow, that's a great explanation of sentence structure, which coincidentally I kind of suck at. I'm going to use that as a study aid.

うつくしいのさくらです。まだ、わたしはがくせいばかご日本語です。

After shoving my sentence into Google translate, it seems either my grammar is way off or Google translate is awful. Basically, I am trying to say that the cherry blossoms are beautiful and I'm still an idiot when it comes to learning Japanese. Though I seem to be better at 日本語 than I ever was at フランス語.

I think if you want to say sakura are beautiful you'd just say さくらはきれいです。The particle の is used to connect nouns, not adjectives.  For example 日本のくるま would be a Japanese car, but a beautiful cherry blossom (to use your word) would just be うつくしいさくら

My handwriting is too atrocious for writing the sharp lines in かたかな.

It means both clean and beautiful depending on the context.  Reflects Japan's cultural emphasis on cleanliness also.  Katakana is fun :) don't you love how ツ シ ソ＆ン　are easily distinguishable?

Does this make sense? Google says "sure, i dunno lol".

Yep :) That's a fine sentence. Like if you were introducing yourself to someone. Only thing is that you wouldn't technically put a comma between the first two sentences, but that's pretty insignificant.  

 

Reading sentences will only get easier the more words you learn is my advice lol.  Well also, once you learn all the particles and their use, that really helps break up a sentence visually.

Ya, two weeks is nothing, you're doing fine. Do you mean a book written in Japanese, or a book about learning Japanese? Cause I'd recommend the latter, not sure if the former would be of any use to a beginner.

アラン

エリック

マット

カーリ

マーコ

ヘンリー

フィリープ

アンヂー

カンサス

ノルツカロリナ

In a few days, I'll be working more with sentences so I can start learning kanji within contexts rather than studying them individually, which seems like it wouldn't work very well.

I know all of those people except Kansas (Tanner) and whoever Nolutsukarorina is lol. Also, what about モシュキット？

Our PA prophet, fountain of perpetual wisdom? 

Nolutsukarorina was supposed to be North Carolina, where I live. I gave up while translating it and decided to stop caring.

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/File:Lore-dragon-Poem.png" rel="nofollow">

アンヂィ does seem to make more sense. 

I'm kind of stuck on trying to translate North Carolina. ノルタカロリーナ, maybe?

The Dragon Language is the dragon's Japanese.

DamoXt7942 wrote: CCVP wrote: Japanese always reminds me of the Dragon Language. http://www.uesp.net/wiki/File:Lore-dragon-Poem.png" rel="nofollow"> Cannot read such an advanced language.