O genki desu ka

Karlusss

こんにちいは

Unfortunate that there's no posts in here.

So who speaks/is learning Japanese?
Why? Where/how?
Ever been to Japan?

I've been doing it in school, got the Leaving next month. Just took it up as an 8th subject out of interest, not for any points reasons or anything. I've grown fond of it now, and I'm worried it'll just atrophy when I'm not being made to learn it.

I have a feeling I might end up in Japan some college summer, but how useful being able to say sushi is delicious in polite Japanese is going to be... I dunno.

Anyone else? Don't make me an orphan poster, please!

kawaii

I'm doing japanese LC next month aswell. Good luck to both of us. I'm going to take a year out next year and plan to travel to japan and some other places. I was doing a saturday class in St Michael's but now we have a class in my school after school...

So there you go!

Dont be at yourself

I'm doing my finals in a 4 year degree of Japanese at the moment. Don't really know why I chose to do it, but I'm glad I did. I'm heading back out to Japan for a year in the summer too.

Cake Fiend

Fortunately, there are tons of resources out there for you to keep your studies up after the LC, should you choose to (I find Japanese a lot more interesting than any of the languages I studied for my LC!). Have a look through the stickies at the top of the forum.

Some goals to keep you interested might be to aim to be able at some point to watch Japanese movies or anime without subs (or at least with Japanese subs!), or maybe play import Japanese games.





BTW, you spelt 'こんにちは' wrong

Karlusss

Oh balls, so I did.

That's pretty embarassing considering it's the only thing I wrote in Japanese, or have typed to anyone since going to all the trouble of downloading the Windows pack.

kawaii, who teaches you? Not David McCartney by any chance?

And Cake Fiend-san, I've always been sort of put off by the gigantic gulf between the Nakatas and Tanakas of the Aural Leaving Cert and Beat Takeshi going full blast about how kids are going to have to kill each other without a hint of a masu in sight. But I'll definitely try.

Dont be at yourself

Try this

It's a Japanese comedy show, and while the talking speed is quite high, it's based on an American family in Japan, so most of the vocab is fairly straight forward. (The humour is another matter!)

Piste

I'm also doing LC Japanese! I'm in the 5th year saturday class in St. Michaels, though I'm only in TY so I took it kinda easy this year and will be a bit more dedicated (ie do any homework ever!) next year. I'd like to do a homestay and go to a Japanese school for a few weeks next summer, once I found out there is language tuition I wasn't as put off by the idea, and I love to travel

Most people I've met who are studying Japanese are big anime nerds or have some sort of obsession with Japanese culture, I just took it up for the craic cos I thought I'd be bored in Transition Year!

Dont be at yourself

Most people I've met who are studying Japanese are big anime nerds or have some sort of obsession with Japanese culture, I just took it up for the craic cos I thought I'd be bored in Transition Year!

While it undoubtedly attracts a fair share of anime/manga nerds, it also attracts a lot of people who are just attracted to the unusualness of the language and the culture. When I picked my college cource, I had a passing interest in Japanese cinema, but really I just wanted to go and live on the other side of the world for a year. Most of my classmates were the same!

Geranium

NekkidBibleMan wrote:

While it undoubtedly attracts a fair share of anime/manga nerds, it also attracts a lot of people who are just attracted to the unusualness of the language and the culture. When I picked my college cource, I had a passing interest in Japanese cinema, but really I just wanted to go and live on the other side of the world for a year. Most of my classmates were the same!

Agreed, I'm tired of hearing about manga, and I also refuse to go see "Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift". But it's a fun language, and people are always interested when you mention you're learning it. I'm taking the leaving in it this friday. Took it up out of interest and wanting to visit the place.

KBarry

My wife is Japanese and we're both surprised that it's studied in school here. Sugoi ne!
I ought to be ashamed of myself. I speak little enough to class myself as a non-speaker of Japanese. I can read Hiragana, Katakana and few Kanji.
Funny story... before my first visit to Japan a few years ago I signed up for Japanese classes at weekends. Took it dead serious and thought I was great. On arrival in Japan though people couldn't understand a word I was saying to them. I was delighted when one guy finally realised that I wanted to go to suchandsuch museum. Trouble was, I didn't have a clue what he was saying back to me. Never did find the place.

Chiaki

hey when i was in school we couldnt study japanese so im just learning it by myself. the internet is ok for stuff but its unstructured and im obviously going to miss large chunks. can anyone suggest entire courses or even books/anime/etc that a beginner could understand?
any help is much appreciated!

johnny_ultimate

Ive just started learning the fine language, so might be around these parts a bit more. So far, I'm not much further than hello/goodbye/'Oishi!' but Im determined to learn before a planned trip to the fine country in '09. I'm using the BBC Talk books and CDs to learn the basics, and seems quite good so far.

(By the way, I do have a strong interest in Japanese cinema/games/animé, but overall I just love the culture of the country).

kawaii

johnny_ultimate wrote:

Ive just started learning the fine language, so might be around these parts a bit more.

That's what they all say...

Cake Fiend

Chiaki wrote:

the internet is ok for stuff but its unstructured and im obviously going to miss large chunks

Have a look in the stickies for some good sites. Two of my favourites are JapanesePod101 and Reading Tutor. They are more procedural than most sites. Another one I like for progressive learning is www.speedanki.com .