learning japanese: where do I start from ?
By nagikka
@nagikka (407)
Italy
October 29, 2009 8:28am CST
Soooo yesterday I decided that I'll be going to learn japanese and I mean to be serious about it. In the past I started to learn this language by myself, but I thought it was really hard because I had nobody to whom I could ask for explanations on many different topics that had me in trouble.
Recently, I found out that in my city I can get lessons from a japanese guy who's been living here for four years and who owns a studio in which he gives lessons to people or groups of 2-3 people. Of course I was happy to see that I could learn japanese straight from a native speaker, I don't really trust those courses organized in my city and run by italians. Ewww.
I'll be starting to take lessons in the beginning of 2010 but right now I'd love to start and learn something by myself :D so where do I start from ? should I just learn hiragana and katakana to make things easier once I start attending his lessons ? could you suggest me a few websites that could be helpful to learn hiragana and katakana ? also, years ago I had found a website that was entirely about kanji: it'd show each single kanji and explain how it was born, making it easier to memorize it. Could you tell me a site that's similar to the one I had found ?
Thanks in advance :)
1 person likes this
4 responses
@Monkish (95)
• United States
29 Oct 09
Definitely start with hiragana. You will see a lot of hiragana and it is a good place to start for basic reading skills. After you get a good hold on hiragana you can look into kana. You will not see kana as often as hirgana but you will still need it to be able to read gaijin words. You can also look into starting on some basic kanji. One character kanji are best to start out with and little by little you can move onto multiple kanji characters. I recommending finding some simple reading material, things that Japanese children who are learning to read is good.
If you can afford it I recommend www.japanesepod101.com
They post pod casts on the Japanese language daily.
There are many free resources online also. When learning hiragana find a good hiragana/kana chart. I like to keep one with me in my study for easy reference.
If you are interested in it I also recommend listening to Japanese music and watching Japanese animation. These are good for learning to train your ear to catch words when the speakers are speaking rapidly.
Good luck!
1 person likes this
@nagikka (407)
• Italy
29 Oct 09
Thank you, I'll definitely start with hiragana then and, like you said, I already have a couple of books for japanese children that I bought online a couple of years ago (I don't exactly remember the website, maybe Yesasia or Playasia, there was a huge selection of books for children ^^).
There's one thing I culd never understand about kanji and it's about the fact that they can be read in two differen ways, or maybe I have mistaken something? this is definitely one of the questions for which my teacher will be extremely useful I guess ^^ he said we will be studying on minna no nihongo, which I read is one of the best books -if not the best ones- for foreigners.
No problem for anime and music, I like jrock and I grew up with anime since I was a small kid so I guess that's great. I remember that once I started to study japanese alone and after some months I watched an episode of Inuyasha and I was all happy and giggling because I cold actually understand some of the words that Sesshoumarou was speaking lol stupid thing, but I get excited with small things :D
@sakaeyellow (6)
• Hong Kong
2 Jul 10
Try this web site.
http://www.japanese-language.aiyori.org/
I've spent months creating it. I hope you will find it useful.
