Learning Japanese...

[mystic_kendoka]

Does anybody know a site that teaches japanese? This isnt as stupid as it sounds because i already speak korean, and the grammar for japanese and korean are practically the same, so all i have to do is learn and memorise some words...

also is hirakana/katakana hard to learn? cant be as hard as chinese/hanja/kanji...

[R A Sosnowski]

Does anybody know a site that teaches japanese? This isnt as stupid as it sounds because i already speak korean, and the grammar for japanese and korean are practically the same, so all i have to do is learn and memorise some words...

also is hirakana/katakana hard to learn? cant be as hard as chinese/hanja/kanji...

Don't know of any sites.

Hiragana and Katakana are "abbreviated" Kanji - it's like memorizing another approximately 100 characters. Some of the Katakana are very similar to the Hiragana.

HTH.

[Hitokiri]

Konban wa!

I've been studying Japanese for several months now and I don't really think that it is as difficult as many people say. If the grammar of korean and japanese is similar, you won't have any bigger problems, I think :)

Well, as for a site that teaches Japanese I would recommend this one (http://japanese.about.com/mbody.htm) . This site is quite easy to understand and offers a large variety of kanji as well as step by step instructions how to draw hiragana/katakana. Ganbatte kudasai :D

saraba

[Musha]

Hi mystic,

Hiragana and Katakana are really simple and they are almost like Korean Hanguru. Learn Hiragana first and then Katakana. It should only take you about three months at max. I heard that some one once even learned them all in a week but that was trying extremely hard :). You can't really learn from the internet it is best to get a book if you sceriously want to learn Japanese I used 'Japanese for busy people' and before that a cheap book with tape.

がんばれ！ Good luck

[nodachi]

Not trying to be high and mighty, but I learned hiragana in one week. About 3 hours actually if you added the time that I was actually studying it. You need to learn them with words so you get used to piecing them together rather than just individually. After a few hours of writing and rewriting the same characters over and over and in different words to practice new hiragana and review the old, then eventually it sticks in your head. Repetitive writing again and again and often writing the romanji underneath each hiragana to beat it into your head is quite successful. Kinda boring, but effective.

You must practice writing them or you will only be able to read them and not able to write them when you want to without blanking out.

I think anyone can do the same as I if they write and write and write. You should have seen the lists and lists of papers with the same few characters on them over and over. But it works.

[Kaoru]

Hi Mystic-san,

Well, I put these up aleady in another thread, but, I added a couple more, so I may as well post them all again. :)

Enjoy!

Kaoru

Japanese language learning websites
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Hiragana quiz

http://www.okayama-u.ac.jp/user/int/study/gakusyu/hiragana2.html

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Excellent site, even though it's for kids, but who cares? It's useful!

http://www.jinjapan.org/kidsweb/language.html

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Has a lot of listening comprehension quizzes

http://www.klbschool.org.uk/interactive/japanese/index.htm

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Has some cool games. Awesome site, has other cool language resources on it, too.

http://japanese.about.com/bltoy.htm

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Some cool dictation stuff.

http://sp.cis.iwate-u.ac.jp/sp/lesson/j/

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Another cool Japanese language site.

http://www.genki-online.com/

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Fun site all in hiragana. This is a hiragana game where you have put the character that is given together correctly(The one that is spit out...you'll see if you watch it long enough., and click on the correct character below that matches it to make a word.

http://www.nekopy.com/game/kana/f_kana.html

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A good place to begin to learn to listen and understand Japanese.

http://www.japanese-online.com/LANGUAGE/index.htm

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Here is a cool page with lots of good links to reading and listening to Japanese...not romaji, but the characters. It's even got little manga stories.

http://www.geocities.co.jp/HeartLand/8291/index.html

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Here is a page all in Japanese. These are stories to practice reading Japanese. They are mostly in Hiragana.
I can't read them yet, but someone here may want this anyway.

http://e-codomo.com/lib/kamisibai/kamisibai.htm

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And, one last site all in hiragana. It is a website meant for kids, but that's ok, because it gives a person a good chance to practice
reading skills to play the little games. And, you can even listen to video clips! That is in the upper left hand corner of the page.
Just click on stuff to try the games.

http://hirakegoma.tv/index2.html

------------------------------

Hiragana lessons-no romaji

http://www.btranslations.com/Resources/japanese/kanji_kana.asp

[Kaoru]

Sheesh, I hate this edit limit! haha, Oh well. Here is what I was going to add...

A book I just got that I really like, is called: "Japanese for Everyone:
A Functional Approach to Daily Communication." The publisher is Gakken.

It is a college text book and it begins right away with hiragana, katakana and some easy kanji with furigana written over it.(furigana: small hiragana)
If you can get the tapes that go with it, that's even better. I still need them. You can get this book at Barnes and Noble books or anywhere where you can order it. This book has very little, if at all, romaji. After the first several chapters, there is no more romaji in the dialogue on the first page of the chapters. After the dialogue, nothing is romanized. So, better to learn the characters aloing with this book. I really like it a lot!

Kaoru

[mystic_kendoka]

i can write kanji/hanja most are the same, i just need to learn how to pronounce them as kanji... which i think is harder than learning from scratch...

[mystic_kendoka]

Konban wa!

I've been studying Japanese for several months now and I don't really think that it is as difficult as many people say. If the grammar of korean and japanese is similar, you won't have any bigger problems, I think :)

Well, as for a site that teaches Japanese I would recommend this one (http://japanese.about.com/mbody.htm) . This site is quite easy to understand and offers a large variety of kanji as well as step by step instructions how to draw hiragana/katakana. Ganbatte kudasai :D

saraba

this site is very useful...i have started with hiragana.. thank you very much...

[Hitokiri]

this site is very useful...i have started with hiragana.. thank you very much...

No problem, I'm glad you're pleased with it. If you should have any further questions, don't hesitate to ask :)

saraba

[JSchmidt]

Another site:
http://www.coscom.co.jp/

I recently bought their books/CD and while I haven't spent much time on it yet, it looks very good.

Jakob

[mystic_kendoka]

i can now read and write the vowels...