Learning Japanese

[toc36]

Hope this helps our language skills ...............

Not Suitable For Work: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=miss+hannah+minx+japanese+word+of+the+week+

Edited June 21, 2015 by Densha
Added a NSFW warning in case someone is browsing the forum at work. Thanks for your understanding.

[Densha]

It hurts... it hurts so much.... please feel sorry for me who had to withstand these kind of people during my first year of Japanese classes.

Edited June 21, 2015 by Densha

[ToniBabelony]

The existence of these people is unavoidable. Avoiding them however is. Sometimes they pop up in the media as foreign curiosities. "So, this is how these kind of foreigners interpret Japan. Oooh... Interesting. Yes, yes..." And that is about it.  People from overseas who have this fantasy world view of Japanese pop culture (which is hardly present in daily life) are always approached with a bit of care, not taken too seriously, and thus usually have a hard time integrating in Japanese society once they decide to move to/live in the promised land.

 

If you want to learn some Japanese, hit some serious books and do actual conversations. Better yet, go to Japan, avoid tourist spots and try to communicate solely in Japanese. This is not learning. This is just looking at distracting big eyes with a lot noise surrounding the moving image.

 

P.s. I see she had some coop with the famous DJ Aoki, a USA born Japanese. As popular as he is overseas, you hardly hear from him here in Japan. Maybe this is because he doesn't speak Japanese very well, or at least he doesn't do so in interviews.

[JR 500系]

 

If you want to learn some Japanese, hit some serious books and do actual conversations. Better yet, go to Japan, avoid tourist spots and try to communicate solely in Japanese. This is not learning. This is just looking at distracting big eyes with a lot noise surrounding the moving image.

 

Totally agree on this.

 

I learnt my limited Japanese through watching anime since I was 13, listening to J-pop and kept watching J-Dramas in Japanese with English subtitles. I was able to pick up words commonly used and then start to converse to Japanese in their language. My true test came when I met with my wife's friend's husband who was a true bred Japanese in Japan and he spoke no English. However, we were able to converse quite easily with my limited Japanese so I guess that's ok~  It also shown my Mrs who was sceptical that I can speak and understand Japanese  :)

[Densha]

JR500,

 

To be honest, anime and J-pop etc. do not really use Japanese as is spoken in daily Japanese life. Of course, I know because I actually did the same in the past, things like grammar and some vocabulary can be learnt from this kind of entertainment, but you really have to careful with using "anime vocabulary" is daily life. It can sound pretty funny to Japanese people.

 

The best is to get a good textbook or take a Japanese language course and communicate with actual Japanese people. I can tell you it works.

 

Actually, the talk show part of NHK's "Cool Japan" features exactly these kind of people. That's one of the reasons I can't stand that program.

Edited June 22, 2015 by Densha

[JR 500系]

JR500,

 

To be honest, anime and J-pop etc. do not really use Japanese as is spoken in daily Japanese life. Of course, I know because I actually did the same in the past, things like grammar and some vocabulary can be learnt from this kind of entertainment, but you really have to careful with using "anime vocabulary" is daily life. It can sound pretty funny to Japanese people.

 

The best is to get a good textbook or take a Japanese language course and communicate with actual Japanese people. I can tell you it works.

 

Indeed. Cant agree more on this! I mean, if you watch too much anime, one will be going 'くそ' or '殺す' or '死ぬ' which all are profusely used but have negative meanings and cant exactly be used in real life without offending people, right?

 

J-pop one will be going like '夢' or '愛してる' or '永遠' which all kinda surrounds love and dreams, not very practical for day to day conversation...

 

I did some Japanese class and that helped tremendously. The conversational portion was great, along with the understanding and practice of the Hiragana, Katagana and Kanji. I missed the JLPT (Japan Language Proficiency Test) though and that was a pity...

 

I tried books, while that did helped a little, I found the basis for my Japanese was through the huge amount of Dramas and J-pop and anime all combined together along with the Japanese class and the impromptu face to face conversations. I'm still learning and I still quite reluctant to speak for fear of getting things wrong and having another meaning instead...

 

All in all, I just practice makes perfect and that's no better way than to read, write, speak and listen often to learn Japanese correctly and quickly. Definitely not through some weird youtube channel...  :P

[Densha]

Hrmm... last year I had a Japanese teacher who was actually yelling "殺す！" to another teacher as a joke, but honestly it sounded strange and as if he just wanted to fit in with the "anime weeaboo crowd" in my class. I don't know honestly. I have actually heard a Japanese exchange student talk about his friend while using words like "あいつ" and ”おまえ" so I think it really depends on the relationship as well.

 

And yes, a lot of words in J-pop are great for writing novels and poems (or song lyrics for that sake :P) but not in daily conversations. Japanese people will understand what you're talking about but it may come across a bit peculiar.

 

If you intend to get a job in Japan getting JLPT2 (or at least level 3) can be very convenient, but if you're not it doesn't really matter except when you really want to do it for yourself. Your skills won't get worse from not taking a JLPT test after all. ;)