Japanese for those of you...

so far all you people who know or want to learn japanese, how did you get started? or why do you want to learn?

and also, for how long have you known japanese?

just curious.

 

I started learnng a few bits and peices from the web, the basics like learning kana, that part is fairly easy, although I dont memorize things very well. beyond that I didnt find it very easy to get anywhere, even though there is a lot of pretty good stuff out there. So i enroled in night classes and did that for about 2 years, but not very intensively. Very slowly compared to a college course (like GeishaBoy is doing). I took that as far as that school went, now Im planing to go to another school which does it to the next level.

I learn kanji mostly on my own though, because that isnt included in the courses I did. The next course does include it though.

I think its best to learn kanji from the start, personally, like for the common verbs, adjs and nouns that you are using. I can read stuff with kanji I know quicker than all kana, also its clearer with kanji whcih word is meant. There are a lot of words in Japanese that have the same sound but they always have a diffrent kanji. Also something like 行く jumps out at you compered to いく.

The great thing about classes is that you get to talk to a real Japanese person, good when you don't have any Japanese friends. I hop I can get some at some point ^^

Watching subbed anime is good, but nothing like having someone to talk to, and they can answer questions that are hard to find the answers for.

I started Japanese before I was watching anime though, its just a language and culture that always fascinated me.

 

i know some japanese.
i started learning from the web.
i must learn japanese, cause i am moving to Japan^_^
i have known japanese for about.....four months.

 

... that's not... very... long, is it?

tte, why are you moving to japan?

nanka... hidoitte yuuka.... saite.... kana...?

 

i'm not going just yet, i have to learn alot more.
there's special business i have to take care of in Japan. Also, i'm going there cause i love it there.
what was that last thing you said?

 

well, it's not exactly saying no fair.... but... meh. you gotta learn!!! lol...

 

yeah, i'm workin on learning more japanese.
i know the colors and how to count to 99, and some words and frases.
and names of the family members, and days of the week, and time and i got a lot more to learn^_^

 

*punches air.*

GAMBARE AKARI-CHAN!!!!!!

 

family member names are a pain, considering its a different word for someone else's relation to when its yours, EXCEPT that when you politely address one of your own family members, you often use the word you normally use for someone else's. Mindboggling ^_^

Do you know the dates of the month? The first ten are mostly in native Japanese numbering with ka on the end (10th = tooka), but the 1st just seems like random (tsuitachi), after the 10th it changes to the Chinese (11th = juuichi nichi) except for the 14th and 20th are on a differnt system too. Ouch, my brain hurts. Counting from 1 to 100 etc is fairly easy, but the whole numbering and counting system thing is a complicated nightmare.

so much to learn... -_-

 

I started to like Japanese as many people here, watching anime. I couldn't learn too much that way so I started looking for information in the internet. Then I found a great website with Japanese resources and an online course, which I inmediately started. Right now, I still study in the internet. I've downloaded a few books and watching more anime. However, I plan to seriously study it in the near future.

 

... you're loosing me rokuemon.... and i already kinda knew the dates, etc too.


.... atama ga kurukuru shiteru....

aaaaaand that made me sound like a little kid...

 

Sorry I kind of meant to confuse you ^_~

Days of the month go like this (more natural pronunciation in brackets, as close as i can get).

1st = tsuitachi (tsu-itatch)
2nd = futsuka (hutska)
3rd = mikka (mik-ka)
4th = yokka (yok-ka)
5th = itsuka (itska)
6th = muika (mweeka)
7th = nanoka
8th = youka (yawka)
9th = kokonoka
10th = tooka (tawka)

The 1st 10 days of the month use old Japanese numbers in some way plus "ka" which is the counter for days. The exeption is tsuitachi which does not mean what it's kanji says! tsuitachi means "moon+stand up" and you would expect the kanji to be 月立ち but its not, its 一日 which literally says ichi-nichi. ichi-nichi is used when you want to say "1 day" and the kanji is the same.

Most of the rest of the days use Chinese ON readings of the characters with nichi the ON reading of day:
11th = juu-ichi-nichi (10+1+day)
23rd = ni-juu-san-nichi
30th = san-juu-nichi

Apart from these 3 exeptions:
14th = juu-yokka
20th = hatsuka
24th = ni-juu-yokka
The reason numbers with 4 in use the old Japanese words is that the Japanese do not like the Chinese reading SHI as it means death in Japanese. (Although the word for April is shigatsu, so go figure.)
There is traditionally a special way of saying 20, also used when you say the age 20 years old (which is hatachi not ni-juu-sai) and hatsuka means 20th or 20 days. I dont know why this is though.

Writing and reading dates is easy, because in modern Japanese dates are written with the Arabic numeral plus kanji. The kanji for day month and year are easy to remember. So here is todays date (in year, month, day order, which is the Japanese style):

２００５年　５月　２４日
年 (nen)　月 (gatsu)　日 (ka/nichi)

Easy to read, harder to say!
ni-sen-go-nen go-gatsu ni-juu-yokka

You will sometimes see the kanji for numbers used, so its worth learning those, and they are simple kanji so it's not hard.
eg 二十日 reads hatsuka (20th or 20 days).

Here are the number kanji up to 10.

一二三四五六七八九十



OK I know there is lots of sites and posts explaining dates, but I think there is somee extra explanation here that you don't normally get, for anyone who is interested.

 

okay, everyone is really confusing me.
yeah Rokuemon, family members are very compilicated....but not as complicated as what ya'll just said.

 

Heh, well not as bad as counting and numbers, but don't tempt me to go into it in painful detail ^_~ theres a lot more too it than in English, anyway.

 

i already know the numbers and stuff, but it can you like say the months differently? like:

1. ichigatsu.
2. nigatsu.
3. sangatsu.
4. shigatsu.
5. gogatsu...

?

 

That's how you DO say them. Month names are simple, because they simplyfied them some years ago.

It is chinese number + gatsu. The ones you said are correct, the rest are:

6. rokugatsu
7. shichigatsu
8. hachigatsu
9. kugatsu
10. juugatsu
11. juuichigatsu
12. juunigatsu

Note although people mostly use "yon" for 4 and "nana" for 7 (because of superstition) in month names SHI and SHICHI are used for April and July.

KUgatsu is used for September, not kyuugatsu.


What is always annoying is knowing when to use ku or kyuu for 9, and whether its ok to use shi and shichi or yon and nana for 4 & 7, and rei or zero for 0. there seems to be no rules about this, you just have to remember.

Telephone numbers, time of day, months, days of the month, etc. they are all have different rules!

For example: is 4 oclock yonji, shiji, or even yoji? Is 7 o'clock shichiji or nanaji? Is 9 kuji or kyuuji?

How do you say the telephone number 03-3485-7196 in Japanese?

 

mou sore shitteru nya!!! ^__^

but isn't it just like, an instinct of knowing when to put kyuu, and not ku? at least for me it is.

4 o'clock: yoji.
7 o'clock: shichiji.
9 o'clock: kuji.

03-3485-7196: zero san, san yon hachi go, nana ichi kyuu roku.

... deshou?! tte, is that for tokyo?

 

I cant agree its "instinct"! but if you are quick at picking things up and you hear it a few times then it suddenly "sounds right" from then on. But you have learned it, not born knowing it!

but anyway, youre answers are right, but 7 o'clock can be either shichiji OR nanaji.
With telephone numbers, where you put commas you say の "no" to divide up the parts of the number. 0 is usualy "zero", but some people say "maru", which is like saying "Oh" for zero in English.

hai, Toukyou no bangou desu. renta-kaa desu!

 

i have known nihongo (japanese) for all of my life.
i learned to speak from my family the babies begin to speak english.
i live in the US and in the future plan to go back to Japan.

 

meh, some people might of been! lol.

woot! i got the answers correct!! (or semi.) dakedou... soretteba zenbu karari taihen desu ne... eigo mo sou dakedou... ttem, renta ka nano? lol. what's it called? i might give them a call one day...

... ha? dude, that's confusing... GOMEN!!! dakedou, can you like, make that clearer...? onegai.