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Whats the best way to learn Japanese?

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Honestly, whatever you do, don't try to rush by the fundamentals. I knew a guy who spoke Japanese fluently, but because he still said "RRRA RRRI RRRU RRRE RRRO" with a super strong english "R" sound, all the locals thought he sucked ass.

If you get the cadence down, everything else will trickle in as you encounter it.

Hell, here's some more suggestions:

1. Watch movies without subtitles. If you don't understand a word, don't stop it and look it up. Just let it go by. If that word comes up a bunch of times, then stop and look it up. Japanese is a context-heavy language, and you'll get great contextual knowledge doing this. (This probably is more for you after your first year or two, but still)

2. Play video games in Japanese. Presuming you love games or you wouldn't be here, I suggest you do this. Same thing: Just let what you don't know slip past, and after it shows up a few times, then look it up.

3. Keep a daily journal in Japanese. You learn a lot when trying to overcome the challenge of writing situational Japanese.

4. When you write, do the GOOGLE test. Take a phrase you think you want to write, and put it in quotes to see if any Japanese person in history has ever said what you are about to say. You can change certain things like nouns or whatever, but if nobody has ever said it in the history of the internet, chances are it is a wrong translation. Take that into consideration, and make the choice if that's what you want to publish (on facebook, twitter, or whatever) .
 
Is this Rosetta Stone language software any good for a beginner? Iam just doing it because iam interested in it not for a degree or something.
 
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Watching it helps me alot.
 
How old are you? If you're still a student, I'd recommend looking into every possible way to actually study abroad in Japan.
 
Practically abandon your friends and family, replace everything you own with Japanese equivalents (yes, even porn), and immerse yourself completely in Japanese language and culture.

As crazy as it is, I followed this guy's advice pretty strictly for a good seven months or so and made amazing progress in that time (reading/writing thousands of kanji; comprehending some short Japanese sentences at a glance; understanding a nice amount of simple spoken Japanese without subtitles), but then I fell off because it was stressing me out to be such a hermit and because I realized that I really had no reason to use the language other than to play imported JPN games or watch anime raw, which just meant more of being a hermit. Vicious cycle, lol.

I still want to get back to it, but if I do it'll be rather casually so I don't get burned out. I'm not even aiming for fluency anymore as my goal. It'd just be nice to know enough to get by.
 
Is this Rosetta Stone language software any good for a beginner? Iam just doing it because iam interested in it not for a degree or something.

i started about 2 months ago using the rosetta stone japanese level 1.

for building vocabulary, hearing pronunciation (even if it's a bit slowed and overdone), and having to craft short japanese sentences quickly in your mind, it's been outstanding. i would not recommend it for learning the kanas or kanji, or for getting a solid grasp on grammar or sentence structure. the program is TOTAL immersion and if you start wondering why "ga" is used instead of "ha/wa" or when you get to the counters, there is zero help unless you google it. i know a lot of japanese is situational and eventually you'll just "know" when to use particles/verbs/etc, but i can't work that way, i have to ask questions.


i have been supplementing rosetta stone with the following:

Kanji de Manga Vol 1 - for learning kanji, obviously, uses short comics to reinforce the kanji's meaning and usage.
Japanese for Busy People I: Romanized Version - for learning to read in kana and write in romaji (which also helps to read in kanas for me since it helps build vocab)
Japanese for Busy People I: Kana Workbook for writing and reading the kanas, writing them helps ingrain them into your memory immensely
RealKana.com - basically a practice app for learning the kanas. I started using this about a month+ ago, and within a week of studying and using the practice feature, I had learned at least 50 of both hiragana and katakana. i'm about 90-95% on recognizing all kanas now. this is web-based and there's an iOS version.
Kanji Flashcards (free)- includes the kanas as well, I use this whenever I have a few free minutes (bathroom, car ride, bored, etc). Another rote memorization tool, but it's been helping to reinforce the kanas and occasionally I manage to commit a new kanji to memory.

i've also just recently joined a local group of people who are into Japanese language and culture. it's a mix of native speakers, English speakers who've learned Japanese, and people who are just interested in Japanese culture/cuisine. i did this because i don't have the time or money to take a class, and i want to have some experience both speaking and hearing native speakers.


this kind of approach is a little off-putting to me. while i have no doubt that it results in RAPID progress and development, i am not so eager to learn Japanese as to pretend that i am in fact Japanese, or that i want to renounce my real heritage and American identity. japanophiles creep me out.
 
Total immersion is the best way to learn a language. Try to think in the language, watch movies, series, listen to japanese music, find people online to speak to and so on. Just try to incorporate it into everything you do. Basically, the mission is to simulate actually living in the country.
 
Best way to learn any language is just to immerse yourself in it by going somewhere where it is spoken natively.

I remember going to Spain for a year with only a few months of lessons under my belt and I left THINKING in Spanish.
 
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