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Learning Japanese |OT| ..honor and shame are huge parts of it. Let's!

I

I'm an expert

Formerly worldrevolution. The only reason I am nice to anyone else is to avoid being banned.
White board method is just one piece of study lol. Literally 1/4 of the curriculum. If all someone is doing is whiteboard, it shouldn't even interfere in their daily life. It's doing the full menu that requires ~8 hours a day. Doing whiteboard only is just rookie status. Congrats, you can read like a 14 year old.
 
R

Resilient

Member
the "hardest" part of whiteboard is halting your hobbies and making time for it. if you can do that, the like you said it's easy. there were a few people still doing it though. they must have died like Kansoku said.

but yup. it's definitely just the beginning, and anything targeted at adults/over 18 will require more study with the other shit you listed. though, i agree with the 14 year old part lol. if you wanted to quickly get to a level where you can play games on your DS....whiteboard really is the fastest way to go lol.
 
K

Kaneda Shotaro

Member
Resilient said:
are the whiteboard ppl still dominating? who was still doing it?
Click to expand...

Still doing it, ridiculously easy since I already enjoy kanji and used to write out kanji everyday anyway to remember it. And doing the listening practices.

Still getting fucked on grammar. I know Expert said to just learn the basic meaning behind a grammar point but it's easier said than done. I can learn a hundred kanji in a few days, I can't tell you why there's so many ways to use a verb in a sentence. Fucking verb rules, so many...Maybe it will click with me one day, I don't know but it's 100% my roadblock.
 
openrob

openrob

Member
Hey guys,

So I have been on and off studying Japanese by myself for a little while. I have a grasp on Hiragana/Katakana and know a bit of vocab. I have pretty much burned through levels 1 & 2 of Wani Kani whilst also reading a few chapters of RTK. With the help f occasional youtube videos and sites lik NihongoONarau I'm feeling a little confident.

Anyway, I want to progress and try to pass my JLPT Lv 5 as I thnk this would give me a real sense of progression. What would be the best resource to practice for this?
 
R

Resilient

Member
Kaneda Shotaro said:
Still doing it, ridiculously easy since I already enjoy kanji and used to write out kanji everyday anyway to remember it. And doing the listening practices.

Still getting fucked on grammar. I know Expert said to just learn the basic meaning behind a grammar point but it's easier said than done. I can learn a hundred kanji in a few days, I can't tell you why there's so many ways to use a verb in a sentence. Fucking verb rules, so many...Maybe it will click with me one day, I don't know but it's 100% my roadblock.
Click to expand...

the key for me was to just learn the meaning, see an example sentence or two then just accept it. And then when you see it in the wild frequently, that's where you learn how to use it and learn its nuances. I was like you too at the start getting caught up. You gotta simplify it at the start and dig into it later once you've become very familiar with it.

The reason is because you couldn't possibly learn when to use what from your books; that comes from seeing it in use.
 
I

I'm an expert

Formerly worldrevolution. The only reason I am nice to anyone else is to avoid being banned.
Kaneda Shotaro said:
Still doing it, ridiculously easy since I already enjoy kanji and used to write out kanji everyday anyway to remember it. And doing the listening practices.

Still getting fucked on grammar. I know Expert said to just learn the basic meaning behind a grammar point but it's easier said than done. I can learn a hundred kanji in a few days, I can't tell you why there's so many ways to use a verb in a sentence. Fucking verb rules, so many...Maybe it will click with me one day, I don't know but it's 100% my roadblock.
Click to expand...

Post here about what is bothering you and we can help simplify it. Do not try to master a grammar point when learning. Just get the basic mechanics. You'll learn from..geezus krist Res get off my nuts.
 
T

TheSporkWithin

Member
I'm an expert said:
okuru has always had this usage and it's quite common. youd easily encounter it anywhere. as to why it is has this meaning..because..it does.. for your actual question, it's just a matter or synonyms and nuance. not everything has to be divided between right or wrong.

http://okwave.jp/qa/q5473764.html

http://detail.chiebukuro.yahoo.co.jp/qa/question_detail/q1272425672
Click to expand...

Thanks for those. I can't say for sure that I've never encountered it before, but I've definitely never made note of it before and it just took me by surprise. Nice to see that 過ごす isn't actually wrong though.

TickleMeElbow said:
I don't know if there's much of a logical reason. As a native speaker, I just see that as a natural way of phrasing, and assume people just started using it that way lol.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the response. I realized that this is a rather silly thing to ask about and almost didn't post, but I thought that maybe some other people might find it at least slightly interesting.
 
C

Crayolan

Member
I'm still doing the whiteboard (or technically back of a notebook, in my case), but I'm just using it for kanji and vocab. I'm pretty slow with it though since when I'm busy a lot of days I end up just practicing the already-learned kanji but not learning a new group.

Despite it going slow, I'm noticing my progress and it's a pretty good motivator to keep it going as consistently as possible.

Grammar I'm just letting myself learn through my college courses, since I tend to absorb that a lot better than I do kanji and vocab. Plus my kanji/vocab level is way below my grammar level so I really want to catch up as soon as possible.
 
G

GYODX

Member
TheSporkWithin said:
Thanks for those. I can't say for sure that I've never encountered it before, but I've definitely never made note of it before and it just took me by surprise. Nice to see that 過ごす isn't actually wrong though.



Thanks for the response. I realized that this is a rather silly thing to ask about and almost didn't post, but I thought that maybe some other people might find it at least slightly interesting.
Click to expand...

I've never really questioned it myself, either. The する in stuff like ～においがする, 五億円もする絵 and 一年もすれば忘れるだろう is much more likely to catch me off-guard despite how common it is. (That last one might be a bit hard to parse, but it means something like "You'll forget it if you give it a year or so")

１
㋐ある状態・現象の起きたことやその存在がおのずと感じられる。「稲光がする」「地鳴りがする」「物音がする」「においがする」「寒けがする」「動悸(どうき)がする」
㋑ある状態になる。ある状態である。「がっしりした骨組み」「男好きのする顔」
㋒（金額を表す語に付いて）それだけの価値である。「五億円もする絵」「その洋服いくらした」
㋓（時を表す語に付いて）時間が経過する。「一年もすれば忘れるだろう」
Click to expand...
 
T

TheSporkWithin

Member
GYODX said:
I've never really questioned it myself, either. The する in stuff like ～においがする, 五億円もする絵 and 一年もすれば忘れるだろう is much more likely to catch me off-guard despite how common it is. (That last one might be a bit hard to parse, but it means something like "You'll forget it if you give it a year or so")
Click to expand...

I've never seen the "price-valuation" する, but I've seen the others plenty and they never really bothered me because する is the most generic verb there is and is thus completely malleable in my mind (similar to "do" in English). 送る just gave me pause because it has a specific prescribed meaning which every other use case cleaves pretty close to, and then there's this other way to use it which at first glance appears to be completely unrelated.

On that topic, I asked a Japanese teacher about it today and he said that 送る has a more detached and objective nuance to it than 過ごす. If he were writing in a scholarly style he would almost always prefer 送る, but for personal narratives he'd be more likely to use 過ごす unless he specifically wanted to distance himself from the experience.

This is just one person's opinion though, but I found it interesting and it helped to firm up my understanding of the issue a bit more.
 
C

CHUNKYBOWSER

Member
Just finished Genki II in my class at Kansai Gaidai.

I decided to buy the Tobira textbook today and I'm finding it to be a very good progression from Genki II. It's really forcing me to do more reading, which is a good thing considering how lazy I've been with kanji reading practice.
 
R

Resilient

Member
Expert + Zefah - where do you get your Japanese news from (online)?

anyone can answer this, i just think these 2 are most likely to read online based on their jobs
 
I

I'm an expert

Formerly worldrevolution. The only reason I am nice to anyone else is to avoid being banned.
Resilient said:
Expert + Zefah - where do you get your Japanese news from (online)?


anyone can answer this, i just think these 2 are most likely to read online based on their jobs
Click to expand...

yahoo

Safs Safs Safs said:
Hey can someone help give me a general idea of when to conjugate verbs? I know that is vague...

I find it hard to know when to use past tense or not
Click to expand...

???
 
B

Beckx

Member
んです is used (among other situations) for offering an explanation, add to short form (present or past), e.g. 勉強したんです (I had to study (as an answer to a question why you didn't go somewhere)).

Second example is about politeness. あった is the informal/short form past tense, あいました is the formal past tense. though use of the short form can still happen in polite sentences (see above, adding んです to the short form in that situation makes a sentence with formal politeness).
 
K

Kilrogg

paid requisite penance
Safs Safs Safs said:
Like when should I use -んです as opposed to ます.

Or あった instead of あいました.
Click to expand...

Oh. Basically what Beckx says, though んです can be a bit tricky since that particular concepts doesn't exist in English grammar.

But just FYI, what you're talking about has nothing to do with "conjugation" per se... Which doesn't really exist in Japanese anyway. Conjugation is when you change a verb's form based on the subject, which many Western languages do, but Japanese doesn't. Whather it's me, you or somebody who does the action, the verb won't change.
 
I

I'm an expert

Formerly worldrevolution. The only reason I am nice to anyone else is to avoid being banned.
While I'll update the op with this shit too (I know I know), I'm already getting emails for the US careerforum career fairs. If you're here in jp then you're already preparing for the tokyo/osaka ones because you're not a scrub.
 
R

Resilient

Member
O.O dead thread? how is everyone doing?

5 and a bit weeks out from JLPT..who's taking it again?

For the people have taken N1, how did you find the listening parts? I know Zefah took it and breezed through (Mr. 100%). I want an idea of what level of listening I should be at...News level? Drama level? Game show level? Or is it a bit lower? And what kind of topics from memory - general conversation, asking for directions/help, news reports? 60min is a long time..
 
Sakura

Sakura

Member
I will be taking the N2.
I was going to go for the N1, but my teacher said I should take the N2 first because I haven't done the JLPT before.
We did 2014 or 2015's N2 last week and I got 165 so I think I will be fine.
 
B

Brawly Likes to Brawl

Member
Resilient said:
O.O dead thread? how is everyone doing?

5 and a bit weeks out from JLPT..who's taking it again?

For the people have taken N1, how did you find the listening parts? I know Zefah took it and breezed through (Mr. 100%). I want an idea of what level of listening I should be at...News level? Drama level? Game show level? Or is it a bit lower? And what kind of topics from memory - general conversation, asking for directions/help, news reports? 60min is a long time..
Click to expand...

Trying to get my studies back in swing after dealing with some life stuff. I have been keeping my reading up so I don't think it'll be much trouble.

Edit: Think I'll be going for the N3 this December. Although, by the time registration comes, maybe I can handle N2, who knows...
 
M

MadraptorMan

Member
N1 listening wasn't hard for me at all except for the last conversation, cause it was about a woman trying to buy a bird from a pet shop and having like five different birds explained to her, all different colors with different attributes...and then at the end she's like "okay, I'll take this one." (. _ . )

Other than that not really bad at all.
 
U

urfe

Member
Best to just take some N1 practice listening questions.

There was always some stuff on the listening I didn't get. It's good to have a solid basic in polite Japanese, casual spoken Japanese, and business (sonkeigo kenjogo) Japanese
 
R

Resilient

Member
urfe said:
Best to just take some N1 practice listening questions.

There was always some stuff on the listening I didn't get. It's good to have a solid basic in polite Japanese, casual spoken Japanese, and business (sonkeigo kenjogo) Japanese
Click to expand...

Yeah I figured. They only take you so far I guess. Wanted to see what people ran into tho. How did you go with the listening last year topic-wise?

Thanks for the insight peeps!
 
R

Rutger

Banned
Resilient said:
O.O dead thread? how is everyone doing?

5 and a bit weeks out from JLPT..who's taking it again?

For the people have taken N1, how did you find the listening parts? I know Zefah took it and breezed through (Mr. 100%). I want an idea of what level of listening I should be at...News level? Drama level? Game show level? Or is it a bit lower? And what kind of topics from memory - general conversation, asking for directions/help, news reports? 60min is a long time..
Click to expand...

I'm just going through the whiteboard method. I haven't increased the rate of new kanji that I'm learning everyday like I wanted to, but I'm okay with this pace for right now. I'm not working towards any JLPT at the moment, and I'd like to start improving other areas like listening.

Not much else for me to say at my level.
 
R

Resilient

Member
eefara said:
Mostly just maintaining for me. I've been kinda lazy lately, so I haven't worked on much besides new vocabulary. Just gotta make a habit of studying at a specific time every day.
Click to expand...

Yeah: do try and work into a schedule regardless of if you're doing whiteboard or just your own routine. Once I had a schedule going, it just stuck. So it forces you to get that 2, 3 hours per day because you've allowed the time for it.
 
E

ethanny2

Member
CHUNKYBOWSER said:
Just finished Genki II in my class at Kansai Gaidai.

I decided to buy the Tobira textbook today and I'm finding it to be a very good progression from Genki II. It's really forcing me to do more reading, which is a good thing considering how lazy I've been with kanji reading practice.
Click to expand...

Haha thats wild I go there too

On another note I will be preparing for the N1 in Dec while supplementing my studying with JPN games. Seriously in SMT4 Final everytime an Angel speaks I have no idea what they're saying =p
 
T

Two Words

Member
My friend does graphic work for people on the side. She made this and wanted to know how this translates. She asked me not to immediately state what it is supposed to say. She knows of this thread, so you can speak directly to her.


xR8tWJr.png
 
U

urfe

Member
RangerBAD said:
Monster?! Report it to the army!
Click to expand...

Im not sure if I would personally use 軍 vs 軍隊, 怪獣!? vs something like 怪獣が現れたら, and しろ vs nothing (軍隊に報告！) or しよう.

Art's really cool.
 
R

RangerBAD

Member
urfe said:
Im not sure if I would personally use 軍 vs 軍隊, 怪獣!? vs something like 怪獣が現れたら, and しろ vs nothing (軍隊に報告！) or しよう.

Art's really cool.
Click to expand...

Well, it's not like I wrote it.
 
T

Tribes of Trusty

Member
After many years of thinking about it I finally began learning Japanese. Even though there is a lot of material to work with on the internet, a lot of it is in English (not my first language) and even if I am quite fluent in it, it does not replace learning with your mother tongue.

I decided to take the beginner level distance classes from the ministry of education, in order to get some clean foundations. It looks a lot like the material I had for studying English and Spanish in high school, which is quite good imho. It is also convenient as my work schedule doesn't allow me to have fixed classes.


So I began to learn hiragana, the hard way : by writing on practice sheet and repeating each time. It is dumb but efficient. Though I often mistake some of them such as き and さ, た and に.
this bodes well for learning Kanji -_-
 
B

Brawly Likes to Brawl

Member
Tribes of Trusty said:
After many years of thinking about it I finally began learning Japanese. Even though there is a lot of material to work with on the internet, a lot of it is in English (not my first language) and even if I am quite fluent in it, it does not replace learning with your mother tongue.

I decided to take the beginner level distance classes from the ministry of education, in order to get some clean foundations. It looks a lot like the material I had for studying English and Spanish in high school, which is quite good imho. It is also convenient as my work schedule doesn't allow me to have fixed classes.


So I began to learn hiragana, the hard way : by writing on practice sheet and repeating each time. It is dumb but efficient. Though I often mistake some of them such as き and さ, た and に.
this bodes well for learning Kanji -_-
Click to expand...

Kanji's not that bad as long as you learn the radicals. It only gets easier as time goes on.
 
P

PreyingShark

Member
At first, kanji will be your enemy.

Then one day you'll be playing Pokémon Platinum in Japanese, which doesn't have a kanji option (unlike the newer games), and you'll be like "Oh god where the fuck are my kanji this is such a pain in the fucking ass."

Then you'll realize that you no longer hate kanji.
 
T

Tribes of Trusty

Member
PreyingShark said:
At first, kanji will be your enemy.

Then one day you'll be playing Pokémon Platinum in Japanese, which doesn't have a kanji option (unlike the newer games), and you'll be like "Oh god where the fuck are my kanji this is such a pain in the fucking ass."

Then you'll realize that you no longer hate kanji.
Click to expand...

Like, everything is written in hiragana/katakana and you can't understand a lot of it because of the homophones ?
 
S

SmokeMaxX

Member
I'm gonna dive into seriously learning Japanese in a little over a week. This thread has been a huge help. How hard would it be for a native speaker to understand me if I pronounced 'r' sounds like if it were an English 'r'? I'm working on softening it, but it's not intuitive and it's been mostly me trying to jam the 'L' sound and a soft 'r' sound together (I asked about this sound in a previous thread, but I put off learning Japanese because other life issues came up).
 
B

bobbytkc

ADD New Gen Gamer
PreyingShark said:
You can understand it. It's just a pain in the ass once you get used to plowing through sentences with kanji.
Click to expand...

I like kanji and all.

I just dislike the japanese way of having different pronunciations for them as and when they like it. Hardest part about it imo.
 
U

urfe

Member
Resilient said:
yo urfe, do you remember what the reading comprehension parts of the N1 were like? like, what the topic contents were?
Click to expand...

Sorry for the late reply.

There's always a few business-esque questions, some excerpts of articles on various topics (with difficult/specialty words explained in simple Japanese at the bottom). I believe there's also a few letters which are written in a more plain writing style, but I honestly forget.

Looking at my certificate, I got about the same on reading and listening, and it was just language knowledge (grammar/kanji) that really gets to me.

edit: I'm slowly playing through Mother 3, which is without kanji, and it really makes you read everything out loud (or at least in your head).
 
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