Sites You Should Not Use To Learn Japanese

[BenBullock]

Originally Posted by DanielSheen

Wow that’s a big insult to my website. That page hardly has any information let alone lessons. My website doesn't just consist of vocabulary there’s a whole lesson page full of EVERYTHING. Verbs, How to congregate them, sentence structure, Particles, Adjectives, everything.

That page has some information, in the form of romanized Japanese phrases. I can learn how to flirt or how to insult people or something. It's not such a terrible site but it's nothing special either.

There are websites out there which contain just plain wrong information. I didn't point those out, but if you type "Japanese insults" into Google, the top hit will tell you things like "rippo gakusha" (which means "rabbi") is an insult meaning "rabies". Now there's a poor quality website if ever there was one.

I'm not lumping your site in with that kind of totally wrong, laughable, garbage site. I am lumping your site in with the millions of other sites on the net which contain a teensy bit of useful information, but not enough. "Low information content" is how I described them.

If you ask me you're quite lucky to get any kind of user feedback, so perhaps you'll look back on this discussion as having been productive.

Originally Posted by DanielSheen

You people consider Romaji to be the devil.

Opinions vary about this topic. In fact, I'm on your side. I don't think romanized Japanese is such a problem. There are whole textbook series written in romanized Japanese, and linguistics books as well.

[BenBullock]

Originally Posted by MMM

I think you can understand where my misunderstanding was.

OK.

Originally Posted by MMM

I was under the impression that Jim Breen was basically retired. Is that not true?

I think he's become a graduate student.

[DanielSheen]

Originally Posted by MMM

I am saying if you are going to take the time to learn proper pronunciation, why would you NOT learn the kana?

Again, it is easier to read kana than it is romaji. Only someone who doesn't read kana would say that isn't true.

Romaji is a crutch, and anyone who has had a broken ankle will tell you that you can't use the crutch forever. If you don't learn to walk without it, your ankle will never get stronger.

I am taking time to learn to read the kana and kanji. It takes a long time to learn to read something. I know all the kana, I can write every single one of them in the proper stroke order. I can reconize every single one of them. I can't read Japanese thougth, not fast enough to be satisfied. It would probably take me a minuite to read a whole sentance, then try to figure out what it says if I didn't know those words. What helps me learn to read is the fact that I already know the words in Japanese, so its easyer to read the words I already know.

If I would have learned to read Japanese befor mastering remembering vocab and sentance structure, I would have spent more time.

It doesn't matter which way you learn Japanese, some people like learning better ways than other. If someone wants to read romaji, let them read romaji. It depends which road you want to take. You can learn to speak fast, then work on your reading skills, you will be benifited with already knowing the language. Or you can learn to read it, without knowing what your reading means, and be a bit slower in your progressing. Because again, It doesn't take 2 weeks to learn to read. Memorise the characters yes, but actually to look at something and not have to look at every letter, you see whole words looking at it.

[KyleGoetz]

Originally Posted by BenBullock

OK.

I think he's become a graduate student.

He retired in 2003, but I think he stays active with Monash U. If he's back in school, that's pretty cool.

[MMM]

Originally Posted by DanielSheen

I am taking time to learn to read the kana and kanji. It takes a long time to learn to read something. I know all the kana, I can write every single one of them in the proper stroke order. I can reconize every single one of them. I can't read Japanese thougth, not fast enough to be satisfied. It would probably take me a minuite to read a whole sentance, then try to figure out what it says if I didn't know those words.

If you can read and understand a sentence with words you don't know in a minute, then you are doing all right.

But what if you didn't know those words, and the sentence was written in romaji?

It would take even longer to figure out what it said.

There are good kana to kanji/English dictionaries out there:

Denshi Jisho - Online Japanese dictionary

I don't know of any romaji to kanji/English dictionaries (but I have never looked, either).

Originally Posted by DanielSheen

What helps me learn to read is the fact that I already know the words in Japanese, so its easyer to read the words I already know.

I think that is fine for fundamental, first quarter of school vocabulary...I really do...but when you are getting into brown-bellied warbler then you should be reading that IN Japanese, and not using the English alphabet.

Originally Posted by DanielSheen

If I would have learned to read Japanese befor mastering remembering vocab and sentance structure, I would have spent more time.

Rome wasn't built in a day. If your point is, you should have a certain foundation to work off of the kana learning with the vocabulary learning, I agree 100%. Let's say it takes 2 months to learn hiragana...I think anyone can learn 60 some characters in 60 days...well, that's about a quarter in college study. So basic greetings, numbers, colors...that is about enough before one should really be reading and writing totally in kana.

Originally Posted by DanielSheen

It doesn't matter which way you learn Japanese, some people like learning better ways than other. If someone wants to read romaji, let them read romaji. It depends which road you want to take.

I disagree as it is saying there is no wrong way to learn Japanese, and that simply isn't the case. There are wrong ways to learn English, and Japan was teaching English a wrong way for decades.

Originally Posted by DanielSheen

You can learn to speak fast, then work on your reading skills, you will be benifited with already knowing the language. Or you can learn to read it, without knowing what your reading means, and be a bit slower in your progressing.

You act like reading kana takes a lifetime. That is not true. 60+ characters...that's all we ask. As I stated above, you can learn words as you learn kana, and learn words in romaji in the beginning.

Just in あ、い、う、え、お there are several word combinations. Add in か、き、く、け、こ and that number goes up exponentially.

Originally Posted by DanielSheen

Because again, It doesn't take 2 weeks to learn to read. Memorise the characters yes, but actually to look at something and not have to look at every letter, you see whole words looking at it.

No one promised it takes two weeks, and anyone who said that would be cheating the learner out of the joy of learning Japanese.

I have been a student of Japanese for 20 years, and I still wish I could read faster.

[RickOShay]

Originally Posted by DanielSheen

I am taking time to learn to read the kana and kanji. It takes a long time to learn to read something. I know all the kana, I can write every single one of them in the proper stroke order. I can reconize every single one of them. I can't read Japanese thougth, not fast enough to be satisfied. It would probably take me a minuite to read a whole sentance, then try to figure out what it says if I didn't know those words. What helps me learn to read is the fact that I already know the words in Japanese, so its easyer to read the words I already know.

If I would have learned to read Japanese befor mastering remembering vocab and sentance structure, I would have spent more time.

It doesn't matter which way you learn Japanese, some people like learning better ways than other. If someone wants to read romaji, let them read romaji. It depends which road you want to take. You can learn to speak fast, then work on your reading skills, you will be benifited with already knowing the language. Or you can learn to read it, without knowing what your reading means, and be a bit slower in your progressing. Because again, It doesn't take 2 weeks to learn to read. Memorise the characters yes, but actually to look at something and not have to look at every letter, you see whole words looking at it.

I think you might be misunderstanding the point people are trying to make about romaji. You seem to be thinking that people are saying you must/should first master the written Japanese language before you should speak. And your response to that is speaking is more important and it is easier for you to memorize the language when it is written in a form that you can ready smoothly. I will get to that assertion, but first let me try to explain romaji problems to you as clear as I can.

First I will agree with other people that kana is the most effective way to learn pronunciation. There is no room for confusion there. Take どうも for instance. When one looks at どうも its pronunciation is unmistakable. But in romaji it is written commonly written as domo. Which is quite ambiguous as to what the corresponding (proper) kana and pronunciation should be.

For a person who has learned a large amount of Japanese in romaji, making the inevitable change to kana someday will just slow down their ability to learn to read and write properly. My feeling is that you should just "trim the fat" from the start. Romaji is not a necessary step, it will just be harder on the student in the long run, because it will force them to relearn things that do not need to be relearned in the first place. Romaji is fine for learning to memorize the kana pronunciations, but once your are capable of recognizing the kana and its corresponding sound, romaji is no longer necessary. You can learn to start reading things all in hiragana from then on out, and slowly move your way up.

Which on a second note, if romaji use is continued, it will just form the habit of writing sentences that are cumbersome to read, and may have unclear meanings, not to mention make more advanced grammar and reading comprehension harder for the learner.

So I know you believe that it is easier to learn to smoothly read and memorize Japanese through romaji, but why is smooth reading a necessary step in learning how to speak? I've passed the level 1 JLPT, so I guess you could say that qualifies me as somewhat advanced in my knowledge of the language, but I still cannot read Japanese anywhere nearly as smooth and quickly as I can read English. There will always be that kanji I don't know/forget, or that weird katakana word that I have to stop and sound out. This is simply the nature of the language. I will probably never read Japanese as easily as I read English, but this does not stop me in advancing my speaking skills in any way.

Even as a new learner, having to struggle through slow process of slowly reading sentences and paragraphs was not a hindrance to learning to speak. You can learn basic sentence structure, and memorize words, listen to others and then speak out, without knowing how to read smoothly. The mastery of kana and kanji will have to come someday for serious learners, so why throw in an extra step? Why not just cut to the chase? It will not hinder speaking and listening skills. You don't need to be able to smoothly read a novel, or even a paragraph for that matter to be able to effectively learn how to tell someone how you are feeling, or what you wanna do in the future.

Romaji might seem like a nice comfort for those that are intimidated by the kana/kanji, but it is not doing them any favors in the long run, and in reality.. with literally a few weeks of effort, they will find that it is not so hard to learn to read in hiragana.. it might not be smooth and fluent.. but does it need to be at that point? Students are just learning small parts of the language (expressions, vocab, grammar) piece by piece at that point anyway.. should reading be any different?

[MMM]

Rick, we are saying the same thing, just in slightly different ways.

Learning Japanese is not like playing Final Fantasy: put 60 hours into it, and you are a winner. It is a lifetime of learning...even for native speakers.

The joy of Japanese is the journey, not the destination.

[RickOShay]

Originally Posted by MMM

The joy of Japanese is the journey, not the destination.

Very well said MMM.

[BenBullock]

Originally Posted by RickOShay

First I will agree with other people that kana is the most effective way to learn pronunciation. There is no room for confusion there. Take どうも for instance. When one looks at どうも its pronunciation is unmistakable.

That's actually a particularly bad example. The o u in おもう is pronounced differently from the o u in どうも. It's one of the cases in which kana writing varies from the pronunciation. If you're interested in details, I have a whole page of other cases in which kana differs from pronunciation: What are the differences between kana writing and pronunciation? - sci.lang.japan Frequently Asked Questions

Originally Posted by RickOShay

But in romaji it is written commonly written as domo. Which is quite ambiguous as to what the corresponding (proper) kana and pronunciation should be.

Sure, but aren't you setting up a straw man there? If a Japanese textbook said it was "domo" or even "doumo" rather than "doomo" or "dōmo", that would be more of a case of the textbook using poor romanization than a case of romanization itself being at fault. I'd expect any textbook or website which was attempting to teach Japanese to be clear about how the romanization corresponded to the pronunciation.

[BenBullock]

Originally Posted by MMM

I
There are good kana to kanji/English dictionaries out there:

Denshi Jisho - Online Japanese dictionary

I don't know of any romaji to kanji/English dictionaries (but I have never looked, either).

Denshi Jisho, Tangorin, and WWWJDIC all accept romanized input. For Denshi Jisho and WWWJDIC you need to click a button, but Tangorin takes romaji right in the box.