Learning a new language

[PJKCuber]

Hi world! I'm trying to learn a new language, for the sake of expansion of knowledge and culture. I'm particularly attracted towards Japanese because anime will make it easier to learn, and I just love the culture. This will be the 5th language I'm learning. I'll post my updates and things I learn here. If anybody else has similar goals, they can post here too . I'm currently trying to finish hiragana and then move on to kata kana and then learn the kanjis. I'm using JapanesePod101 to learn.
If anybody knows Japanese, can they tell me if learning Hiragana,Katakana,Kanji and Romaji is necessary to be able to read,write and speak the language.While writing hiragana characters, is it necessary to put them in between one line or is it ok if they cross the top and bottom?
Word list :
1) あい [ai] (love)
2) あう [au] (to meet)
3) いう [yuh](to speak)


Day One: 12th September 2015
Hiragana Learned : あ[aaa...], い and う [oooh]
Word(s) learned (1): あい [ai] (love)

 

[Dene]

In learning 日本語 you will ultimately need to learn full ひらがな, and preferably full カタカナ, as well as a large amount of 漢字. My advice is to start by learning full hiragana, while picking up some kanji along the way. The katakana can wait but you'll have to learn it eventually.

Seeing as you are already multilingual, learning another language should come relatively naturally. However if you haven't worked with an Asian language before you'll find it's significantly different to anything you've seen before. I found, in comparison to western languages, Japanese is much more obviously structured (and certainly easier to pronounce, given the strict phonetic structure).

I learnt Japanese through high school, and while I eventually got semi-kinda-ok at it, I never really truly got the hang of it. However I've only ever known one language (英語) which makes it harder to learn more later on (according to psychological research).

I'm not sure what you're referring to in your last question, but in traditional Japanese, the writing is down vertically (not horizontally) and goes from right to left (not like western languages, which are written from left to right).

 

[PJKCuber]

In learning 日本語 you will ultimately need to learn full ひらがな, and preferably full カタカナ, as well as a large amount of 漢字. My advice is to start by learning full hiragana, while picking up some kanji along the way. The katakana can wait but you'll have to learn it eventually.

Seeing as you are already multilingual, learning another language should come relatively naturally. However if you haven't worked with an Asian language before you'll find it's significantly different to anything you've seen before. I found, in comparison to western languages, Japanese is much more obviously structured (and certainly easier to pronounce, given the strict phonetic structure).

I learnt Japanese through high school, and while I eventually got semi-kinda-ok at it, I never really truly got the hang of it. However I've only ever known one language (英語) which makes it harder to learn more later on (according to psychological research).

I'm not sure what you're referring to in your last question, but in traditional Japanese, the writing is down vertically (not horizontally) and goes from right to left (not like western languages, which are written from left to right).

Sure. With my other goals in mind, it should take forever to learn, but better late than never. The Asian Languages I speak are not related to Chinese or any other languages. By the last question I mean that does the character have to fit between the two lines of a notebook paper like they do in English? Do you really need books to learn, or can you do it all online? I should learn Grammar after I'm done with Hiragana and kanji and katakana right?

 

[shadowslice e]

In learning 日本語 you will ultimately need to learn full ひらがな, and preferably full カタカナ, as well as a large amount of 漢字. My advice is to start by learning full hiragana, while picking up some kanji along the way. The katakana can wait but you'll have to learn it eventually.

This actually sounds a lot like you're giving advice to cubers on what it is they should learn.

Speaking as someone who knows no useful Japanese I can imagine that this is what it is like for a non-cuber reading advice threads.

 

[PJKCuber]

Day 2:
Date : September 16th 2015

Hiragana Learned (5): え[eh] , お[o]

Words Learned: いえ [yeh] (house) , あお [ao] (blue) , うえ [ue] (up)

 

[Dene]

Sure. With my other goals in mind, it should take forever to learn, but better late than never. The Asian Languages I speak are not related to Chinese or any other languages. By the last question I mean that does the character have to fit between the two lines of a notebook paper like they do in English? Do you really need books to learn, or can you do it all online? I should learn Grammar after I'm done with Hiragana and kanji and katakana right?

Yea write between the lines. But I mean, if you aren't sitting any exams, you can't lose any marks for not writing between the lines can you?

You could learn Japanese without any books, but coming up with a strategy to learn it might be difficult. You're never going to be able to learn all the kanji so I wouldn't worry about that at all. You'll pick up more along the way, but don't focus on kanji, just learn the hiragana to start with. To be honest I'm no teaching expert, but my advice would be to learn the alphabet, increase your vocabulary, and learn basic sentences. After that just keep expanding.

 

[OkinawaSolver]

Yea write between the lines. But I mean, if you aren't sitting any exams, you can't lose any marks for not writing between the lines can you?

You could learn Japanese without any books, but coming up with a strategy to learn it might be difficult. You're never going to be able to learn all the kanji so I wouldn't worry about that at all. You'll pick up more along the way, but don't focus on kanji, just learn the hiragana to start with. To be honest I'm no teaching expert, but my advice would be to learn the alphabet, increase your vocabulary, and learn basic sentences. After that just keep expanding.

Wow thanks I'm learning Japanese too!

 

[MoyuFTW]

Day 2:
Date : September 16th 2015

Hiragana Learned (5): え[eh] , お[o]

Words Learned: いえ [yeh] (house) , あお [ao] (blue) , うえ [ue] (house)

Hmm... Are you sure that うえ　is うえ？ I think you meant うち
You don't really need to know hiragana, katakana, or kanji if you're just speaking. If you didn't know your kanji that would fine for writing too, but you most probably wouldn't be able to read most stuff. I think it takes 2000+ kanji to read a newsletter. But 5 languages already? That's impressive

 

[MoyuFTW]

At the moment I'm learning Japanese at school. Every term we pretty much do a new topic. So last term we did restaurants/food/ordering, this term we did houses/neighbourhood. When we first learnt the symbols (hiragana etc) the way I found it easiest was to use flashcards. In primary school we had a race with the flashcards, one against another to see who was the fastest. It gave us motivation

 

[OkinawaSolver]

At the moment I'm learning Japanese at school. Every term we pretty much do a new topic. So last term we did restaurants/food/ordering, this term we did houses/neighbourhood. When we first learnt the symbols (hiragana etc) the way I found it easiest was to use flashcards. In primary school we had a race with the flashcards, one against another to see who was the fastest. It gave us motivation

Sounds more efficient than my learning of random Japanese words daily

 

[PJKCuber]

Hmm... Are you sure that うえ　is うえ？ I think you meant うち
You don't really need to know hiragana, katakana, or kanji if you're just speaking. If you didn't know your kanji that would fine for writing too, but you most probably wouldn't be able to read most stuff. I think it takes 2000+ kanji to read a newsletter. But 5 languages already? That's impressive

Well, Marathi is my mother tongue, Hindi is the national language, English and Sanskrit were learnt in school, now I'm doing Japanese. I'm not really good at Sanskrit(I can read and understand, but nobody converses in it anyway). Japanese is the fifth. It's not really impressive, every person in India has studied up to three or four languages.
No, I want to be able to read too. and yes, I fixed my mistake. うえ [ue] (up) and not house.

 

[Dene]

Wow thanks I'm learning Japanese too!

You're an "Okinawa solver"... and learning Japanese? I take it you aren't a native >.<

 

[mark49152]

Why do you want to learn Japanese? For conversation, comprehension, or reading? Will you be travelling there?

Reading/writing is difficult due to the large number of Kanjis. Hiragana and katakana alone won't get you far. If you're travelling they can be useful for signs etc., especially katakana as so many words are of foreign origin.

For conversation you don't need any of that and can learn the language much more easily using Romaji.

 

[Dene]

Why do you want to learn Japanese?.

If you bothered to read the OP you would know the answer to that question.

 

[mark49152]

If you bothered to read the OP you would know the answer to that question.

Yes I did and the OP says nothing about how he intends to use the language. Why the hostility? Haven't you got better things to do?

 

[Dene]

Yes I did and the OP says nothing about how he intends to use the language. Why the hostility? Haven't you got better things to do?

Hostility?

I'm trying to learn a new language, for the sake of expansion of knowledge and culture. I'm particularly attracted towards Japanese because anime will make it easier to learn, and I just love the culture.

 

[mark49152]

Hostility?

Dene, my question was whether he's more interested in reading, comprehension (e.g. of movies) or conversation, which isn't answered in the OP. If "expansion of knowledge and culture" is some extra dimension of language skill that doesn't involve any of those then I'm not smart enough to know anything about that and will leave him to your expert guidance .

 

[PJKCuber]

Dene, my question was whether he's more interested in reading, comprehension (e.g. of movies) or conversation, which isn't answered in the OP. If "expansion of knowledge and culture" is some extra dimension of language skill that doesn't involve any of those then I'm not smart enough to know anything about that and will leave him to your expert guidance .

Somewhat of both, but the first one seems easier to do.

 

[OkinawaSolver]

Haha not a native, former Okinawasolver (the Okinawa part still solver
)

 

[uyneb2000]

I'm practicing Spanish and French, and just started learning Dutch. Oh, I'm fluent in Mandarin when it comes to speaking, but I suck at reading.