Japanese

[jdj5585]

How many know or are trying to learn the language?

[Hollycat]

learning

[Fynn]

Studying it as a full faculty at uni. Quite hard.

[jdj5585]

I took it for two semesters in college, but always found the professors--even the Japanese one--far too lenient. They emphasized sentence structure without teaching us vocabulary. Don't get me wrong, structure is really important, especially in Japanese, but you won't learn a language without a hardcore regimen of vocab. I try to learn on my own, but it becomes too much of a chore. The only thing I really find intimidating is learning Kanji, even though it shouldn't be...How about yourselves?

[cloud_doll]

Well, I think your professors did that because Japanese, when spoken casually, is usually shortened and many words are dropped. It's about how the sentence is structured to be understood rather than all the words you use.

I'm learning, but it is very difficult. Much like French in my eyes, but honestly I sound really dumb when I try to speak any language other than English =(

[Hollycat]

I can speak cantn and spanish and english good enough, but don't even ask me to speak japanese yet

[Shlup]

Meh, I work on it a little bit from time to time. I crammed for three months before going to Japan last year, but other than that my learning has been irregular.

[Yar]

I'm majoring in Japanese Multi-Age Education with a minor in second language acquisition. With my minor, I'll be able to complete grad school in just two semesters. I'm also hoping to fit French in there at some point, my university offers only one year of French however.

If I keep going at the pace I am now, I think I'll be able to call myself fluent by the end of this semester. I live with a Japanese roommate (my professor paired us up) and we have a unique way of communicating. I speak to him in Japanese but he replies in English.

We have 4-1 hour classes every week. For each class we need to learn at least 3 new kan'ji, and do a shizton of homework. We're also expected to do some studying on our own outside of class, so I learn thirty new words every night. 単語はとても大切です!

I'd say that speaking really is my weakest point. It used to be listening, but I can understand most of what is thrown at me these days. Watching Japanese movies helped a lot. Drinking and partying with Asians helps a lot too. I didn't watch anime, because I hate most of it. Didn't listen to much J-Pop either, that is the worst. omg

I kind of fell into Japanese. It wasn't what I wanted to study, but I signed up anyway. Throughout my freshman year, I was looking for a way out. It wasn't until this semester (my 2nd sophomore semester) that I really felt that I liked studying it and that I wanted to go full throttle into it.

You get out of it what you put into it.

Some kids don't realize that Japanese is more than just something cool for otakus to do in their free time. It is a lot more serious than that. I've seen so many nerdy kids jump into the Japanese program at my school, realize that it was more intense than they had thought, and then drop out soon after.

ファイト!

[Jessweeee♪]

It's on the list of things to do before I die. It's a goal of mine to be multilingual, but going from English to Japanese is quite a challenge. Teaching myself Spanish is going well; it's made much easier by the fact that while I don't understand it very well, I can read and pronounce it clearly since it's phonetically similar to English. Someday I hope to take formal classes and have the discipline to learn Japanese.

[Wolf Kanno]

I've studied off and on for a few years. I was doing well last semester when I got a pretty intense course (which was partly ruined by my obnoxious classmates) but sadly, I need to get back to studying it and using it so I can retain it. I've been studying Kanji but its a bit of a pain even though it makes writing the language (and actually understanding some of the grammar) so much easier.

I plan on going to Japan in the next few years. Though I will probably find myself traveling to the countryside to avoid the crowds and visit the shrines. I also want to see one Osaka Hanshin Baseball game before I die. I hate baseball but I really want to see it for the crazy fans.

[Forsaken Lover]

Ya know this is an astounding coincidence. I logged on here to see if there were any people who could read Japanese in hopes they could translate something in a manga for me. I've seen a few translations online already but I wanted to know precisely what is said.

Dunno if anyone here reads or knows of Bleach but this is the scene I was talking about. I wanted to know exactly what the girl said.
http://img263.imageshack.us/img263/8134/050cmr.jpg

It's just really bugging me since all the online trans I find are different.

[jdj5585]

Meh, I wish my classes were more intense. It was far too simple for my tastes...Maybe it was just my school?

I think it was partly a fault of theirs. They fired my first professor because he failed to publish frequently enough, and then shoved most of his students into a class with a fluent Japanese teacher. But from what I understand, several lessons that were supposed to be taught were left out...I think they believed us to be 'dumber' class, and so stuck us with her in hopes that we'd improve more quickly. But she wasn't strict enough.

[The Summoner of Leviathan]

I studied it for two years in university and off-and-on again on my own. I didn't do so well in uni with it because, like Justin said, there's a lot of homework and studying involved, none of which I did. I was a horrible student. That said, I managed, somehow, to pass the classes. I get grammar, no problem, it's vocabulary that kills me. It is not that we weren't taught it, it is that I did not study it (same thing happened to me in English classes, French and Ancient Greek; needless to say I have a history of not studying vocab). Grammar stuck with me more easily. Also, for some reason I was one of the few who knew the difference between a transitive and intransitive verb as well as which takes a direct or indirect object.

Honestly, my own issues aside, Japanese isn't that bad to learn, kanji aside. I mean at least it has a limited set of sounds and everything is really phonetic. I mean it is not like English where we have "knight" and "night" or that some spelling of words must simply be remembered by rote for they don't follow the basic rules. Such as "'i' before 'e' except after 'c' or rhyming with 'ay' like in 'neighbour' and 'weight'" though there are some weird exceptions.

EDIT: Mastering a language is a lot about using the language. If you are not going to use it often, then you will lose it, though with effort it does come back. Being able to have a milieu where you can use it helps but only if you do. *sighs* Which is why my French is so rusty (though my comprehension is really good).

Also, Justin come to Canada, we have lots of French! As long as you stay east of Ontario.

[Ouch!]

If I keep going at the pace I am now, I think I'll be able to call myself fluent by the end of this semester.

Speaking from a linguist's perspective, fluency is realistically not obtainable unless you grow up learning the language. Full language acquisition faculties drop off drastically after the ages of six or seven. Functional? Absolutely. Fluenty? Not likely.

[Yar]

Fluency is simply fluid use of a language. You don't need to know the entire language inside and out like a native person. People commonly confuse having a very high degree of language proficiency as the same thing as fluency.