Learning New Languages

[taiyuu_otoko]

Re: learning new languages. It's easy if you expect it to be. Get creative. visualize yourself speaking. practice while you talk to yourself. Try photoreading (google it).

Re: Japanese

http://www.alljapaneseallthetime.com/blog/about

Heisig (you'll learn the kanji in a few months)

Pimsleur (expensive, but worth it)

http://www.taipansoftware.com

EVERYTHING by Taeko Kamiya, by far the easiest way to learn grammar.

And....

And..

And...


Get yourself few jgirls to practice with

 

[Sojourn]

WOW I almost forgot about this thread. I had to pause my Japanese learning because of school. I'm trying to get into a state school that has a good study abroad program. Anyways I'm back on track.

Re: learning new languages. It's easy if you expect it to be. Get creative. visualize yourself speaking. practice while you talk to yourself. Try photoreading (google it).

Re: Japanese

http://www.alljapaneseallthetime.com/blog/about

Heisig (you'll learn the kanji in a few months)

Pimsleur (expensive, but worth it)

http://www.taipansoftware.com

EVERYTHING by Taeko Kamiya, by far the easiest way to learn grammar.
[/SIZE][/URL] to practice with

I have looked at the AJATT method. I have some reservations about Heisig because you don't learn the reading of the kanji, but I'm going to give it a try. So I'm just going to use the AJATT method and see were it goes. Hopefully the Heisig method works if not then I'll just find another method.

 

[Heart Break Kid]

Learning one new langauge is hard but after it gets much easier. Especially if you learn from certain groups of languages. Learning English was hard for me but I was kind of young and I watched TV a lot.

However, I learned spanish a couple years ago without too much trouble. The only thing that bothered me was there are less indictors of objects/people included in oral spanish while they are always there in french. However, knowing English and French made it easy.

I learned Italian recently and it was a breeze. The romance languages share a lot so it is very easy. My method was:

1) Get some language tapes... usually pimsleur [for regional accent] and michel thomas [develop an 'intuition' of the language] (demonoidable)
2) Watch tv/listen to music in that langauge... or if you know what type of accent you want pick stuff from that region... I have found a lot of Spanish and Italian songs I really like, you would be suprised !
3) Talk to friends who speak that language

The third one really knocks you up the learning curve. If you do not have friends who speak the language you want to learn join a club if you are in university. There are tons of clubs to do with language and learning to speak where you can make some friends. I am in our uni's french club and I have no problem giving a helping hand to people learning the language. You will find a lot of people like that in the clubs.

However, I want to learn either Russian or an asian language next semester when I have some time. I am not sure if it will be easy now that I am learning how langauges are structured or hard because I am not in my teens anymore and I will not have the advantage of having spoken several similar languages.

If you do all these though, they will certainly help you learn the language at a much faster and more effective pace.

 

[taiyuu_otoko]

. I have some reservations about Heisig because you don't learn the reading of the kanji, .

Trust me, it's a lot easier learning the meanings FIRST and the readings LATER. (At least in my case) Of course that assumes your goal is to be able to read the whole joyo.

And the imaginative learnign skills you develop while learning via Heisig will really help you in other areas.

good luck

 

[Sojourn]

Trust me, it's a lot easier learning the meanings FIRST and the readings LATER. (At least in my case) Of course that assumes your goal is to be able to read the whole joyo.

And the imaginative learnign skills you develop while learning via Heisig will really help you in other areas.

good luck

I have another question what would be a reasonable goal for fluency? I mean how long will it take to become fluent reading, writing, and speaking? I just want to know a reasonable number of years so that I can set my goals accordingly.

 

[taiyuu_otoko]

How long till fluency? It depends on a lot. If you are not around native speakers to practice listening to a few hours a day, that part can be tough.

But if you suck it up, you can be fluent in reading in a year or two if you really get into it.

I know a guy that came here with ZERO knowledge, and just partime, outside of work, he was able to pass the JLPT level 1 within one year. But all he did was work and study.

Part time, outside of Japan, or any nearby J-town, I'd give yourself at least a year for medium conversational fluency.

Really take a look at Taipansoftware.com. It only costs thirty bucks, and it's the best kanji drilling software I've seen. (and trust me I've tried a lot!)

If you wanna cheat, you could just blow off all the textbooks, and learn only the most frequenlty used words/phrases/kanji. There are plenty of sites that show those. Depends on what you goals are, really.