japanese writing system is actually composed of katakana, hiragana, and kanji (chinese characters). Although kanji is written the same way and have the same meaning as chinese characters, you read it differently. Kanji is crucial in the writing system. Katakana is used for writing forieign and borrowed words, and hiragana is used for sentence particles.
besides, korean has kanja too don't they? they just dont used it anymore. and 98% of korean alphabets are the exact same characters of japanese's katakanas. so what's with that?
I found this website http://thejapanesepage.com/news.php . It send a kanji a day into your mailbox. Worth a try
I've been reading manga and watching anime for years, but I only started serious Japanese learning this year (since I got a Japanese friend to help me ) Pronunciation is very easy for me since my native language also uses direct speech Writing and reading is also quite easy. You only need to memorize the kana, which are very limited. I know how to read and write hiragana and katakana after learning them for 2 weeks Currently progressing towards kanji... The most difficult part of the language is the use of particles such as de, no, na, ni, and ga as well as forming sentences since it uses subject-object-verb structure :(
I just started Pimsleur Japanese just because I would like to be able to watch anime without reading the subtitles.
is the Pimsleur progam any good? i also want to learn japanese for the same reason, to watch anime without subtitles and it might come in handy for work aswell
That's funny because my uncle said the same thing to me as well. haha But you don't want to start saying that to people because you're going get in deep s***. I've been self-studying/learning Japanese for 3 years and I'm finally taking Japanese in College (yes I'm old). Some materials I've used: I recommend these 1. Japanese for Basic People 1 - This is kind of hard if you use this for self study, but if you are really good with language learning, then it shouldn't be a problem. 2. Let's Learn Japanese Basic I- These are instructional videos that teaches you the basics of Japanese Language. They show skits pertaining to what is going to be taught (useful expression and phrases), and explain grammar points thoroughly. I think someone mentioned this previously. 3. Japanese in Mangaland- A more relaxing way of studying the language. Click on the Link 4. Teach Yourself Beginner's Japanese- You ought to get the cassette that comes with it because it'll be more helpful (of course the versions I've used were way older.. haha) Books I've used that I didn't like: 1. Primsleur books 2. Japanese in 10 minutes a day The only website I've used till this day http://www.japanese.about.com if you are really a newbie in Japanese, start here if you would like to learn Kanji, from beginner to advance, go here If you're interested in Korean, here's a site that I found that's quite useful: http://www.bensmatrix.com/culture/basickorean.html I hope this was very informative for you guys. Have fun studying Japanese!! 頑張りましょう！
i took 2 yrs of japanese before, but since i have no one to talk too w/ i lost most of the stuff i rememeber. but the hardest part about learning japanese is how to make sentences.
I'm currently taking my first year of Japanese at my school. The hardest thing for me is Sentence structure and particles. And then there's also the Kanji -- from chinese characters, Since im chinese and isn't too great with chinese writing, But I do know some characters. I constantly get confused when we learn Kanji in class. I always think chinese before jap, so i always pronounce wrong, and there's the fact that the characters are used differently.
