My Study

[darksyndrem]

Well, I can learn them I just feel like I'm learning them very slowly. I've gotten through like 35 in a few days, well I guess that's better than I think it is?

[jesselt]

There's no reason you shouldn't be able to learn all of the Hiragana and Katakana in a week or less. I made flash cards for all of them and started with Hiragana. Take three days to learn all of them front and back (be able to know how to say しゅ and be able to write kyo etc.) then do the same for Katakana. I took my flashcards literally everywhere with me and just reviewed them whenever I was waiting for something. On day seven you should mix them all up and go through all of them knowing each one and if it's Hiragana or Katakana.


That's how I learned, at least.


Oh. And it also helps if you come up with stupid sayings for the ones you can't remember very well (よ looks like a YO-yo, etc.)

[Uriko]

Originally Posted by MMM

People say Genki is a good textbook. Pound for pound music and anime are not good tools for language learning. Your time is much better spent with your nose in a textbook than watching anime or translating lyrics.

Genki is a really good textbook.

Uriko recommends. (^-^)-b

Originally Posted by darksyndrem

Well, I can learn them I just feel like I'm learning them very slowly. I've gotten through like 35 in a few days, well I guess that's better than I think it is?

35 out of the 46 hiragana? that's pretty good, don't you think?

how i learned it, i just sat down one night & memorized.
rewrote things 'til they stuck.
used the hiragana & wrote the names of characters or celebrities that i liked.

wasn't too shabby.

[MMM]

You can "learn" all the hiragana in a few days, but it takes weeks to "know" them. Find a pace that works for you (I recommend 5 a day) and stick with it.

[darksyndrem]

Originally Posted by Uriko

Genki is a really good textbook.

Uriko recommends. (^-^)-b



35 out of the 46 hiragana? that's pretty good, don't you think?

how i learned it, i just sat down one night & memorized.
rewrote things 'til they stuck.
used the hiragana & wrote the names of characters or celebrities that i liked.

wasn't too shabby.

Yeah~I guess you're right. And is there any untranslated online manga? Like onemanga.com except in Japanese that yall think would be good for practicing my reading? I've been looking all through my school library and I've yet to find any Japanese books, trying not to spend money lol

[RadioKid]

How about chatting with Japanese people at Yahoo Japan Chat?

Yahoo!メッセンジャー - チャット

And here is a link site for free Manga sites (for Japanese).

http://enchanting.cside.com/service/freecomic.html

Among those links, you can find some picture books for Japanese children with limitted Kanji.

Web

[kirakira]

Originally Posted by darksyndrem

Please help, I feel like it's taking forever to learn just the Hiragana, and I would like to be able to read Hiragana and Katakana as soon as possible so I can stop using Romaji

Unfortunately it's just memory work. You'll just have to remember it, use flash cards, whatever.

One thing you can try is listen to Japanese music while following the lyrics. Great for learning hiragana (bad for everything else). But give it a go.

[kirakira]

Originally Posted by darksyndrem

Yeah~I guess you're right. And is there any untranslated online manga? Like onemanga.com except in Japanese that yall think would be good for practicing my reading? I've been looking all through my school library and I've yet to find any Japanese books, trying not to spend money lol

Manga is a terribly flawed way to learn Japanese mainly because the Japanese written in those things are way too broken. They drop random particles, shorten some while not others.

To a native Japanese person with a solid foundation in Japanese, they know what the author is trying to say and their brains automatically fill in the gaps. But for Japanese learners with shaky foundations, it just looks like a random mess.

e.g. Japanese person hears "なにやってんの？", brain process it as なにをしているの？（怒られたかも）.

[darksyndrem]

Thanks Radio!! And Kira, I see what you mean by what you said with the manga, but I'm not really looking to use manga to learn japanese, just to get used to seeing the Hiragana and Katakana and recognizing them quickly. If that makes more sense?

[darksyndrem]

Well, I've come to another problem to bother yall with
I don't know if any of yall use an SRS(spaced repetition system) but if you do, I could use a little help. First of all, my Japanese keyboarding will only type in Katakana, I don't have a clue how you guys type with Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji. Secondly, when I'm looking for sentences, and I've found a sentence that I want to learn, how will I know what it is in english? Or what the "answer" is? I thought there was one more thing but I can't remember at the moment lol
Thanks in advance for the help and thank you very much for the help you guys have already given