The GHZ Forum

I must be crazy or something, but here goes anyway.

Basically, given the prevalence of Japanese pop-culture in our society, I've always kind of been mystified by this foreign tongue, and envious of those who can read it. I mean, seriously, if you can read Japanese, then you've more than doubled the amount of video games you can play, right there, or even get to play popular titles before they even reach the States. Same for anime or manga (albeit I wouldn't even know where to start looking with regards to that). Granted, I have absolutely no real reason to go to Japan, so learning this language as a means to communicate is probably a waste of time ('sides, aren't the Japanese notoriously xenophobic or something?), but, hey, if I can play any of the titles listed under "No Export For You" without much issue, then it's a step in the right direction!

Right now my goal is to be able to read some of the text - not so much understand it, right now, but at least be able to take some of the alphabets (probably Hiragana/Katakana) and be able to realize what it's saying phonetically. It's... slow going. I think I can read the five vowels in Hiragana, barely. Even that's largely useless, seeing as Japanese has no spaces, making text in all Hiragana nigh unintelligible. I mean, really, AFAIK Japanese uses Kanji for pretty much everything except sound effects, and that's the last thing I want to learn - 2000 letters is going to be a bit painful, so I'd rather have some of the simpler stuff down pat first.

I'll admit I'm a bit afraid to commit myself to learning any language; I mean, for one, my study skills suck as a whole (getting Cs in my major, largely because of messing tests up, cannot be a good sign), and for another, the last language I tried learning, Latin, didn't exactly go over so well for me (so many goddamn tenses!), albeit that was back in freshman year of high school, and I'm now a junior in college. Also, given that I'm attempting this at twenty (twenty-one in four scant months), I almost feel like I'm starting this way too late for it to be any use... but, hey, importing video games. That's as good a goal as any, no? Plus America as a whole is the laughing stock of the entire planet when it comes to learning languages (almost every other country knows at least two, even if it's just their official language and English; America knows English and... um, that's usually about it), so getting a leg up on that would be nice.

I figured that if there was anywhere I could get some pointers/moral support (debatably), this place'd be as good as any. I mean, face it, most of us here are otaku. It's not like it's a big secret or anything. Christ, just look at GG! sometime. I know there are people here who can read Japanese to some extent, so...

If it matters, I'm trying to get a start on this using http://www.guidetojapanese.org/. I know my college offers Japanese classes, but that's 6 credits (usual classes are 3), and, well, I don't know if I want to learn a language by being graded on my progress (even if it'd be damn good incentive to keep learning). Although I do admit, it would help fill my semester up... I can't think of any other classes to take other than two Computer Science ones (my major) and an upper-level Math (probably going to be my upper-level concentration), because nothing else seems relevant. :E

tl;dr: discuss Japanese

Shadow Hog wrote:discuss Japanese

They're really fucked up. And they eat with sticks, WTF.

I just read the two syllabaries, some extremely common kanji and that's about it, and I don't think I'll ever use it for anything else than leisure-related activities and to get lame/ stupid double entendres.

Hiragana is super easy once you get the hang of it. The problem with reading it is that, as you said, there are no spaces between words, so you have to have a good vocabulary, understand the grammar, and know the context of the sentence. This is actually also true of kanji, where just one of the thousands of symbols can still mean three or four different things. This means that just knowing the alphabets, grammar, and having a good vocab is still substantially useless if you don't understand context, which means that you have to engage in real-time conversation and learn a little bit about Japanese culture and slang.

If you really, really want to learn the language, I'd have to recommend a class. It would probably take a lot of willpower and smarts to learn it by yourself without living in Japan. Ultimately, though, I can't really recommend learning Japanese unless you're sure you'll be using it in the future. It IS a lot of fun if you're committed, but if not, it's just too much of a hassle.

Wow.

I don't know if I'd recommend trying to learn the language if you plan on using it just for games and anime.

I took Japanese classes for about 5 years and there's only so far you can get on your own and in a classroom, without living there and using it on a daily basis. I think I just got too unmotivated in the last couple of semesters. I could barely carry on a conversation, while asking for the other person to repeat what they said and be corrected a lot. It takes a rediculous amount of time, patience, and concentration to be able to follow along in some pretty basic instructions and conversations.

If you're playing an RPG or watching an anime for instance, you have to be able to understand little nuances in the dialog to truely understand what is going on. You'd think that being able to read these in their original form or understand speech without subtitles would be rewarding, but I've found that if I can follow along, the dialog is incredibly simple, plain, and boring. I found I was better off just following things in English, where if there is some depth to what I'm reading or watching, I can understand the subtleties and enjoy it more. But it is good for when navigating menu screens in imports that don't require much reading or listening.

I think you might understand Japanese games better if you study culture more than the language. I'd recommend taking that Japanese class if you need to fill your schedule. You can probably judge from that one class if you want to keep going with it or not. Just don't expect to import the newest text-heavy RPG or watch some untranslated anime raw, after studying the language for only a year (while maintaining a bareable lifestyle). And 6 credits in a language is dabbling in it, eventhough it probably won't feel like it.

I bought a copy of that "My Japanese Coach" for the DS. Haven't actually used it yet, but I consider it a semi-important gem buried under all the mire of Ubisoft's usual DS offerings (Petz, imagine..., et al).

My brother used to play Slime Forest Adventure to learn some of the alphabet.

That's all I've got.

Shadow Hog wrote:so many goddamn tenses!

Seriously, wow.

I just tried that Slime Adventure thing and I think I've finally stopped mixing chi(ち) and sa(さ) up! Yay me! For a while I think I knew what it was like being dyslexic.

People care about Japan outside the internet and gay little conventions?

Prove this, please.

Take the class, Shadowhog. It's worth the trouble, and early lessons aren't that hard. In fact, they were very encouraging after all the horror stories I'd heard about how hard Japanese was supposed to be. If you stick with it the later ones aren't that bad, either. Just know you're really, really going to hate keigo (honorifics).

Kogen, I got a free journalism trip to Japan and South Korea last summer based on my interests in the region that had nothing to do with either gay little conventions or the internet. Does that count?

I'd love to, but all the classes are waitlisted (and how). I've missed my chance... this semester. I'm probably gonna go for it next semester, though.

Honestly, I should've just gotten over my fears of other languages back in High School (burned out on Latin or not) and taken Japanese then. I've only wasted, like, six years here, right? Heck, they even had a student exchange program back at high school where actual Japanese students would come visit our school for a week - so there's my chance to practice speaking it, right there. Sure, I couldn't actually have one come to my house (parents work for NSA, so foreign exchange students are a bit of a liability), but still!

My real concern here is how, if I only get one year in a language from college, I'm going to follow up on this. Certainly there's some sort of after-college program I could sign up for (without having to become a graduate student)?

As my interest in video games has been fading, so has any vague motivation to learn Japanese.
I do plan to start learning Chinese one day though, so I know the language of some of my ancestors.

Also http://pepper.idge.net/japanese/

Kogen wrote:People care about Japan outside the internet and gay little conventions?

I'd say Japanese people care about Japan. And while I'll concede that there does seem to be rampant homosexuality at anime cons, I'd hardly call them little. Have you seen the numbers for Otakon? Or Anime Expo?

Okay, maybe I exaggerated about how hard it all is in my earlier post. A friend asked me to play this Shin-chan SNES game he had, knowing that I had taken some Japanese.

...and I could actually read it and follow along fairly well. I haven't studied any Japanese in the last year, so I guess this stuff is lodged in my brain permanently.

That, and the classes I took were probably more effective than I thought they were.

And Shadow Hog you have to remember that high school classes and college classes are a lot different. If you had trouble with a subject in high school you might not have the same trouble with it in a college environment.