Hi. Im trying to learn Japanese but Im finding it really difficult

[JustMe]

I am trying to learn to speak japanese and hopefully at some stage learn how to read it properly. Im starting with romaji but im having a hard time remembering anything. i dont take classes bacause i live in a small town and we dont have anything like that so im trying to learn out of books. Its a bit overwhelming seeing how many different characters and words there are. Is it possible to learn it properly out of a book or teaching yourself? Does anyone have any tips on remembering anything?
Thankyou

[Scoob94P]

Hi JustMe,

I'm self taught, i'm no where near fluent but I have been slowly learning for a few months now.

Yesterday, even though the first few chapters are a bit beyond my level, I started working on the 'genki' textbook.
It is very useful and gives you lots of background information.

To remember the characters (hiragana and katakana) to begin with I made flashcards. You can do a hiragana/katakana drill online where you do virtual flashcards, but i actually wrote every single one out *feels stupid* but in a way that did help because I took them everywhere and on car journeys etc I could practice.
For Kanji, don't start that until you know the hiragana and katakana because you will need to know the kanji readings, for example this kanji: 今, you may remember the romaji of it being 'ima' but you need to know it in the hiragana aswell, and so, you should learn the letters and sounds as soon as possible.
When you do get to more advanced kanji, I always find it helps to see if it looks like the meaning, for example the kanji for 'forest' to me, looks like a few trees in a forest. Some kanji you just learn because people around you use them a lot and you eventually pick them up.

Don't be afraid to practice your japanese at every opportunity, even if your just saying a few simple phrases. If you practice people can correct you and you get better through the experience.

Any questions please PM me, I have a bunch of japanese practice sites etc under my favourites if you want any.

Sorry for the long post!

[JustMe]

Originally Posted by Scoob94P

Hi JustMe,

I'm self taught, i'm no where near fluent but I have been slowly learning for a few months now.

Yesterday, even though the first few chapters are a bit beyond my level, I started working on the 'genki' textbook.
It is very useful and gives you lots of background information.

To remember the characters (hiragana and katakana) to begin with I made flashcards. You can do a hiragana/katakana drill online where you do virtual flashcards, but i actually wrote every single one out *feels stupid* but in a way that did help because I took them everywhere and on car journeys etc I could practice.
For Kanji, don't start that until you know the hiragana and katakana because you will need to know the kanji readings, for example this kanji: 今, you may remember the romaji of it being 'ima' but you need to know it in the hiragana aswell, and so, you should learn the letters and sounds as soon as possible.
When you do get to more advanced kanji, I always find it helps to see if it looks like the meaning, for example the kanji for 'forest' to me, looks like a few trees in a forest. Some kanji you just learn because people around you use them a lot and you eventually pick them up.

Don't be afraid to practice your japanese at every opportunity, even if your just saying a few simple phrases. If you practice people can correct you and you get better through the experience.

Any questions please PM me, I have a bunch of japanese practice sites etc under my favourites if you want any.

Sorry for the long post!

Hi and thankyou for your post. I sent you a PM message with some more questions if thats ok. Thanks again

[KyleGoetz]

You should be doing these three things in parallel:

1. studying hiragana and katakana (learn in a couple days) and then kanji (over the next 2-3 years if you work hard you can have all 2000 jouyou kanji learned (do 20-25 per week and focus on the kunyomi)

2. learn vocabulary (as you learn these, your understanding of kanji onyomi will come, but you will need to review kanji, incorporating the onyomi reading(s))

3. learn grammar (start with plain->polite, then learn past tense and te-form, then conditionals, then causative, passive, causative-passive, and other things i've not mentioned, culminating in just more advanced things like んがために, the difference between に対して vs. に関して [vs. others], etc.).

4. yahtzee

[sakumi23]

well...with only a texbook you can't learn that much(I mean without a teacher) but it helps you.I learned a lot from genki textbook and from a program called byki.you can download it from byki.com it is very helpful I guarantee that you'll learn a lot with it!!!!!hope it helped^^

[andylaurel]

tip: move to Japan.

[filiadragongurl]

JustMe & Scoob94P, I also suggest a lot of listening practice so you know you're getting the sound right. If either of you would like to PM me, we can chat on Skype or MSN so I can listen and correct you here and there ^.^ (My Japanese professor has always said I have very good pronounciation and tone inflection, so I promise not to stear you wrong!)

[Yuusuke]

Originally Posted by filiadragongurl

JustMe & Scoob94P, I also suggest a lot of listening practice so you know you're getting the sound right. If either of you would like to PM me, we can chat on Skype or MSN so I can listen and correct you here and there ^.^ (My Japanese professor has always said I have very good pronounciation and tone inflection, so I promise not to stear you wrong!)

Hey if you want to practice together my MSN is Yuuyuukun@hotmail.com

[Sinestra]

Just stumbled across your thread so sorry for the late reply.

I noticed you said you are starting to romanji. I would have to advise against this as it will work against you later. You really should start reading and writing in Kana as much as possible. Learning in Romanji is kind of the lazy way to learn Nihongo and you will find it difficult later on to actually put it into practice.

I would also recommend trying to find tutors over skype this is also a great way to learn if you dont have the option of taking face to face classes. I recommend Genki 1 as a learning source and can be found on Amazon.

[kyo_9]

cool~
to learn new language with self study is a bit hard..
but when you have a desire to accomplish something, things will get easier=
one of my friends also learn the language by himself, he did not take any japanese language classes either, but he manage to understand a bit what the Japanese people are saying.. When I asked him how he studies the language, he said that he learn it from television~ i believe there are some vids in youtube or other sites which shows some ways to learn the language.. you should give it a try also rather than focussing on kanjis and stuff.. well, at least you tried right~

have fun learning japanese..
g'day~