Beginning Learning Japanese

eVeNtInE

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ruadhan

well, i am currently teaching myself for the leaving cert and have been doing so for a bit now and i found that the book i have is very useful. though if you want to learn speaking more than you can get other books which specifically help for speaking, i'm sure, though i couldn't tell you them. i could probably help more if you were starting with reading/ writing.. though i'd say first learn the proper pronounciation of the letters, especially the r. Maybe get cd's and dvd's and watch lots of japanese anime!
Anyway, you'll probably need to learn the writing to properly learn japanese so if youre going to do so, learn hiragan first. Hiragana kantan is a good book. and them move on to katakana, Katakana Kantan is good. Then go onto a main textbook, like what i have Nihongo Kantan. while doing so, you'll learn vocab and grammar and listening and speaking skills aswell as kanji. Anyway good luck

eVeNtInE

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ruadhan

well, what year are you in? i'm in transition and am over a third through the book i have, which is tailormade for the leaving cert. It is a two year classroom course so easily taught teaching yourself in that time if youre dedicated. The leaving cert japanese is basicly the level of junior cert french, so not that hard but the writing gives the extra difficulty. If youre in fifth year or lower no you definitely have enough time. DEFINITELY get Nihongo kantan and the partner workbooks Hirgana kantan and katakana kantan. If youre in dublin you can get them in the modern languges book store on westland row.

eVeNtInE

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ruadhan

well there is one book tailormade for the course, the one i have. and it is used by a lot but i think in some schools and some people who teach themself use different things.. If you live in dublin you could probably get classes. Do you?

eVeNtInE

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ruadhan

yeah, i'm the same.. live in waterford so i have to learn all on my own. but i think if you put the effort in it's not that bad, if you're good at languages.

ruadhan

woops, sorry forgot to answer your questions... em to do the course teaching yourself may take only a year but if you have three you can make sure you have it down. the syllabus is very much similar to junior cert languages. You have to know hira/kata kana and around 100 kanji. there is an oral and an aural aswell. you have to write two sort of essays in the exam and also there is some quite easy comprehensions.
there is also a question always on japanese culture, which is covered in nihongo kantan. you could definitely master the course in three years. and the syllabus is available online.. search google and you'll get the link

eVeNtInE

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ruadhan

well, there are lots of cd's that really help for aural and most dialogues in the books are on the tapes... for oral, it teaches how to pronounce at the start and i guess the aural helps oral too. I f you practice saying things after you learn them the oral will come. It helps if you know any japanese people or watch anime or go to japan for these. i have to say when teaching yourself, the risk is with oral but if you do try you should be fine.

best of luck for both of us teaching ourselves!

eVeNtInE

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ruadhan

well, all together i think they cost around 60 euro.. which is not really that bad, as schoolbooks go.

Aard

OP, if you're interested in going to Japanese Leaving Cert classes (free of charge), contact the Marino Institute of Education and they'll tell you where the nearest class to you is on.

The book I used for the LC was called "Genki". I wouldn't bother with Katakana Kantan tbh (not sure about Hiragana Kantan, but probably much the same), I thought it was way too simple.

ruadhan

well, katakana kantan may be slightly simple but it definitely helps learn the kana and lots of good vocab.. Hiragan kantan is actually much different and way better than the katakana, in which you learn kanji, grammar, vocab ad many other things and is really useful.

And i did contact marino and tbh they werent very helpful to me.. especially since there is like no classes outside of the dublin commuter belt, so there is really no point in contacting them unless you do live there or maybe if you live near cork or maybe limerick...