Nipponese Learning Thread: 「調和」 Edition

Anyone know if the Punch Line game is any good? It's 89% off on PSN.

who are you

what have you done with Dekinai-chan?

She's Dekiru-chan now. :^)

Quick grammar question: Do I need the だ after 好き when using a qualifying sentence? Basically, if I wanted to say "a person who likes cleaning", would I say 掃除するのが好き人 or 掃除するのが好きだ人? Either works? Neither?

[掃除するのが好き人]の方が正しい

It's 好きな人, 好き is actually a -na adjective

Or is it, after posting I'm doubting myself now

My instincts tell me, that adding な modifies 人 itself, and removing it lets 好き function as a verb.

Maybe 掃除するのが好きな人だ

What sort of supplies do I need to buy for next month?
I'd like to make up flash cards and what-not myself or something if I can plus I need more pencils and the like.

Looking at it again, it doesn't make sense to connect 好き and 人 with no particle, gramatically speaking. So 好きな is probably correct.

Why make flash cards when you can use anki? Anyway, get some writing utensils, a few notebooks, and a pair of headphones. The paper and pens are obvious enough, you need to practice your writing. The headphones help with listening comprehension; the better you are able to hear words, the better you'll get at recognizing them. That's my two cents, anyway. I don't know if you'd need anything else. If you want to make flash cards, then get some markers and some 3-by-5 cards.

You don't need any books or anything, everything is available in the OP. I guess maybe you could buy some of the books if you're feeling charitable.

好きな makes alot sense in retrospect. I can't find anything on the internet anywhere to give a definite answer though. Thanks.

...

Good job keep up the good work, it's always great when people try to answer questions even though they don't know the basics either.

What's the right answer user? At least we can learn it and not make the same mistake again

Ever get the feeling that you're not doing enough to learn as much as you could? I study every day with anki, but I feel like maybe I should put more time in. I do about an hour a day, more or less. How much do you study?

No. I've already experienced burn-out, so I know the value of pacing myself now.

Since i have time as now i'm studying 8-10 hours at day, and yet i feel like i'm not moving or that i really didn't grasp the concepts. The worst feeling considering i'm tired as shit too at the end of the day.

can't

It's like working out at the gym; you need a short period of intense training followed by a long period of rest.

Not much explanation, a grammar book will do a better job at that than me anyway.

掃除(をするの／するの）が好きな人

Depending on what the rest of the sentence is, part enclosed in parenthesis can be omitted. 好き is indeed a na adjective.

Couple of things to remember:

1.It doesn't matter how much you try to learn a day, it's up to your brain to store it in long term memory, which you don't really have control over. - Forcing this will generally lead to depression and eventually burn out.

2. There is always someone who studies more than you. The opposite is also true, spend less time being concerned with other people's progress and focus on yourself.

I remember reading one of those mots of a guy pushing a giant boulder uphill with something like "this shits hard enough without having self doubt weighing you down" or something to that effect.

If you want to study more, try going for a nap after work or something, it's what I gotta do.

I've looked at multiple lists of 人名用漢字 and I'm not seeing 子 on any of them, despite being in every other girl's name. What am I missing?

It's a 常用漢字 all of which can also be used in names.

That's just an appendix to jouyou, with more uncommon kanji.

Why have multiple ways of counting different types of things? A system for short objects? A system for long objects? Come the fuck on.

How do i go in learning grammar?
I've finished tae kim and while i think i understood most of it i'm afraid to start reading because i could get the translation wrong or not finding the right nuisance of a phrase or get the grammar wrong

You're just going to have to read. Of course you aren't going to understand it all at first.

Reminder.

Thanks.

バンプ～

Looked up the word for the LHC today out of curiosity. Realise I know all the components of the word. To the point I can type it like half a day later right now (大型ハドロン衝突型加速器) without having to look it up.

Feels good, man.

Was kind of disappointed that the pattern of 光子, 陽子, 中性子, etc… didn't extend to shit like quarks and the such. They just give up and use katakana borrowings of the English.

For sure, what i fear is get the wrong translations. There are tons of use for the particles の、に、ecc. and nuisances to the phrases, how the fuck i know i got the one right? Or i got it wrong?

You'll find your reading slowly evolves over time. Sort of like being able to scratch off more and more layers as you learn more.
So you read something now and just power through. You'll only get the gist and miss some minor things, but that's okay. Then go back to that same manga or whatever after 6 months or a year. Suddenly there's new depth in what was there before. But as a whole the story is still the same.

The less technical jargon to remember, the better, as far as I'm concerned.

Can someone explain why anki actually needs your time to be synced? Is it reporting to google or something like that?
If there's no workaround for anki needing to spy on you I'll just alternatives, but it seems like a useful program otherwise.

Daisuki

Make sense. Thanks man

Nah, they have their own program. I would say, if you use Anki with smartphone, then syncing is pretty useful.
If you use it only on PC, just make a backup of the folder of your profile and it retains all the cards and progress made to the day you made the back up.

Anki doesn't need to be synced, you set it in the options and you need an account on ankiweb.

No, Anki IS 日本語勉強 itself.

これらの三人が男だけど俺は恥かくほどVNを楽しんでいる。

SRW V is amazing for any of you who haven't started yet.

Was it? The reviews I saw on Amazon seemed particular scathing, especially of the ending. For instance:

gay.

Has this got it's CG's released on panda? If not, you've a duty to perform user.

Not him, but if you search the title shown on the titlebar in his screencap, you shouldn't have any trouble finding it

Well the ending does end on a cliffhanger, but they are making a sequel so I expect that will continue right where it left off.

A reminder there's now a nippon vidya board >>>/wv/
もはやヴィ

But video games are Japanese by default.

A question.
With so many similar words, how do I recognize what words are used in a oral comunication?
when I search a dictyionary there are many similar words and vastly different meanings.
How do I know?

Context. 鼻 is nose and 花 is flower. They both sound the same, but you'll never hear someone say, "these noses smell great" or "My flower hurts"

Thanks user

Speaking of which, there is a scene in Yakuza 0 where someone gets 華 mixed up with 鼻. I wonder how they translated that.

I always wanted to translate the dialogs of this game, thanks

Okay!
I just restarted my learning AND I THINK I have 10 of the vowels in Hiragana memorized!

あいうえお
and
かきくけこ

and i'll know if I memorized them if some other user tell me if I got them right in the AIUEO order.
I think I did…

I think this actually came up as a pun in Dragon Quest 8. English version made it pick flowers/pick nose, which was clever for a translation full of problems.

Started the core deck but i found something i couldn't explain. In this phrase:

一般の方はこちらの席へどうぞ

どうぞ what does it means? I don't think it's please considering the core translation doesn't use it, so i thought it was a どう + particle ぞ, but even there i can't find what that どう would it mean in this way

It means please. But more with the nuance of like "go ahead". So you'd use it if you were gesturing for someone to go ahead of you or holding a door for someone.

Thanks for the explanation user

きついボイプーシの持ち主は俺のチンポをどうぞ

You're right on both counts. It does mean please.

According to Japanese dictionary, it can mean either "please" or "go ahead".

They have different pitch accents so don't sound the same. Problem is the accents aren't consistent throughout Japan.
In Tokyo accent anyway

尾高アクセント はな2【花・華】 助詞がつくと 「花が」 低高低
平板アクセント はな0 【鼻】 助詞がつくと 「鼻が」 低高高
Hana-ga meaning "flower" is low high low.
Hana-ga meaning "nose" is low high high.

There is also the verb version of the word, 好く. It's just comes off as sounding more formal and is less common in ordinary conversation than the -na adjective version. Here's some examples from a dictionary:
誰からも好かれる人
A person liked by everyone
私はああいうタイプの人間は好かない。
I don't like that type of person.
犬より猫を好く　
I like dogs more than cats.

user, it's プッシー not プーシ.

You can use 好く人 in that way, but not 好き人.

Need help again:

時の経つのは早い

時の経つの is a nominalized form right? That should roughly translate in "the passage of time"s?

I think so, yeah. Time is already a noun, but "to pass" is a verb, and that is what is being nominalized.

お前の顔がプーシだ！

Seems every day i have a problem with a phrase:

手紙が届くのに三日かかりました

The problem is in this part:手紙が届くのに.
It is 手紙が届くの, a nominalization to mean " the delivery of a letter" or it's just 手紙が届く + のに (even if i can't see why it should mean despite)?
Or it's just two phrases together?

A literal translation would be: "Although the letter arrives, it took three days"
Seems like a pretty common Japanese sentence to me.

nihongoichiban.com/home/japanese-grammar-particles/
check this page, it lists a bunch of particles and gives a brief explanation on how they're used. may come in handy

So the word there is のに and the translation in the core deck just omit the although.I think i'm having problems in deciding what of the myriad of use the の particle have.
Thanks man

Seems great, thanks user. It will make checking much easier

I think it's the former. Here's a similar example sentence and translation I found:

So the proper translation of that sentence is probably just "It took 3 days for the letter to arrive."

Fonts

When using Anki, some kanji in the Core2k/6k deck appear different based on which platform you're using. On desktop, it uses Meiryo. So does Jisho.org. On AnkiDroid however, it's DroidSansFallback which looks slightly different. I edited my deck to use Meiryo again by editing the card CSS like this:

```
.card {
font-family: Meiryo, sans-serif;
}
```

Or you can load another font from the collection.media directory using CSS url('font.otf').

It is easier for me to learn on a consistent font. I bet that people say learning both is good practice. I agree, but I want to do that on my own terms.

That droid font and simsun is Chinese, not Japanese. That's why it looks so different.

Yep.のに isn't nothing else that the sentence nominalized with の plus the に target particle and it's used in special cases

I use a random font I found in my collection.media folder. I think it came from the KanjiDamage deck, but I'm not sure. It's called "DFKyokasho-W4"

And why would I want to learn Nipponese?

I think you'd probably like Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar. It's nice for looking up grammar stuff you don't get. Lots of example sentences with good explanations on how to use them (not pictured.)

It's not unless you wan't to learn Chinese. You can also "fix" it by switching your phone to 日本語. The newest Android version also has secondary system language if you don't want to do that.

Fuckin nice, thanks for the advice user

Why is vocab so painful?

I think grammar is more painful, honestly. Learning the syntax is going to take a lot of time, because there's a nuance to everything, and there's a bunch of ways you can say a single sentence. It's especially taxing when you don't have any way of proofreading your work. I guess you could do something like Lang 8, where a native penpal can shove his red inked pen of scrutiny so far up your ass that you're bound to learn, but I wish I didn't have to do that. At least with vocab, you can easily look up the answer to your query and learn to remember the correct answer for next time.

user, do you know where I can get some kindergarten level Japanese books? I figure that I need to do a lot of reading to pick up the grammar, and that means starting from the beginning.

I've been waiting for duolingo to do a Japanese course for a long time now and it seems like it's finally happening this year.
incubator.duolingo.com/courses/ja/en/status

I can't wait for it to start so that I can find out duolingo is actually terrible and I waited for nothing.

Instead of making excuses to wait you could have learned Japanese by now.

You shouldn't lie to people.

duolingo is garbage, you're better off with anki. duolingo is like some kinda shitty freeware version of rosetta stone.

...

I used to want to learn Japanese and move to Japan by marrying a Japanese girl… but with the country poisoned by radiation I don't know.

If you're in BC come to >>>/vancouver/

Radiation hasn't affected life in Kansai, and it's still safer than any other country in the world.

canada a shit

enenews.com/

?

I agree but c'est la vie.

Hence why I said Kansai, I can't speak on Fukushima since I don't live anywhere near there.

Where in Kansai you live, my man?

関西弁わかる？わからへん？

Nara

大体分かるけど、自分から話すのは苦手やな、日本語の勉強材料はみんな東京弁だったから。

It's the little things most of the time. Every now and then i hear something that was completely gibberish before but now i understand part of it or totally and it's fucking great.
Wish i could do the same and finally learn math and physics like i always wanted

奈良に行った事があるよ。欲張りな鹿は噛んだ。

じゃあ教科書で標準語習うと、居酒屋で関西弁習うなぁ。

あぁ、あの鹿共ははんぱねぇ。

ダハハ、ちげぃねぇな。

A: 好きな動物は何ですか？
B: 犬が好きです。　Aさんは？
A: 私は猫が好きです。　猫は好きじゃないですか。　猫のどこが駄目ですか？
B: す、　すみません…

Help me understand
Tae Kim translates it as, "What's wrong with cats?" but that's not a literal translation. Could this be roughly translated as, "where's the bad in cats?"
Couldn't I also just say, 何が駄目ですか？ so it would be, "what (about cats) is so bad?" with the subject omitted?

Yes.

I think so.

Thanks.

how do i learn kanji? it's extremely hard for me to just memorize the appearance of complicated strokes and a bunch of things that it's supposed to mean. when you learn letters you learn voices and then you just put them together to make words it's that simple but kanji is just torture

Learn vocab, not kanji.

but then i will never be able to read manga/eroge and that's the only reason i'm even trying to learn this damn language

Mnemonics.

Kanji helps immensely when learning vocabulary. Learn the radicals first, if you know all ~200 of them then it won't be hard to memorize all other characters.

Vocabulary is more important because vocabulary is actual words. Additionally, you will learn about Kanji simply by learning vocabulary, because words utilize Kanji to the fullest extent. Core2k/6k. Do it. Grind, grind, grind, grind, grind, grind, grind.

"Grind" is code for "torture"

It's all part of the process, user. Don't let it get to you. People make mistakes. Mistakes are fine, given the proper attitude. Think of it this way; a mistake just means that you have more to learn, and learning should be something you aspire towards. If learning is a chore, then you've got the wrong attitude. Don't get me wrong, I understand your frustration, but if you just change how you think about it, you'll find that things will go much smoother.

Typical, cliche advice? Yeah, but that's because said advice is effective.

Getting used to the syntax is what really bothers me. A lot of it is backwards or nonexistent to English and my native language.

私はからだが丈夫だ。

This is an example sentence found in core2k/6k. A rough translation would be, "As for me, it is my body that is strong". I want to know, couldn't it also be "俺の体が強い"?

Excuse me, but what the fuck am I looking at? This is not real, right?
youtube.com/channel/UC4YaOt1yT-ZeyB0OmxHgolA/videos

Looks real to me. I think it's pretty great. Where's the porn?

Well this is pretty neat. Took me around 5 years of inconsistent Japanese studies to be able to see Kanji as more than random chicken scratches.
Time to grind Kanji like a バーカ野郎.
Good luck to the rest of you.

「帰ったら先ず手を洗いましょう」

So, about this phrase, the core deck translate it as:"When you get home, wash your hands first".

However the presence of 「ましょう」 confuse me: the phrase seems a suggestion or a soft command while isn't 「ましょう」 usually used to mean "shall we/let's" ?
Can't the phrase be translated as "When we get home, let's wash our hands first" ? And how the fuck do i get this without a context?

For me, 丈夫 carries more a feel of "resilient" rather than "strong" per se.

I would go with the latter, personally.

Why are you studying full sentences instead of just vocabulary? Not every sentence is going to have an accurate English translation.

To get a bit of feeling and refresh of grammar especially, see if i can translate it and how far from the "right" core translation i am.

I think it's better to keep English and Japanese as separate as possible in your mind. Otherwise it will be hard to read Japanese without trying to translate it into English in your head first.

You are right. is right too. Also I don't see what context you need anyway.

By the way, does no one here use obenkyo? I have come to like it more than anki at least for the future it has.

Didn't thought about that.So i shouldn't try to translate it?

Because i don't know who is right, me or the core translation.

I'm not going to discourage you if that's what helps you learn, but don't forget that your end goal is to natively understand Japanese. You won't be able to fully understand it if you have to view everything from an English perspective.

I think it would be a bit difficult to stop considering i don't know most of the words. However i'll try and just focus on the grammar of the phrase

You clearly won't be a translator anyway, so no. You don't need translation, you need understanding. It is okay to use your native language or English (if not your native language) to understand the meaning, but beyond that you don't really need to translate anything. You don't have translation anywhere in the language proficiency exams either. Translation is not a useful skill if you are not going to do it professionally and you can always train it at a later stage. It is better (easier) to learn to breath in the new language than trying to work with two at the same time (translating to yourself every sentence sounds like a bitch).
A good trick, if a trick at all, that I learned years ago with English is to try to think in it. It even has become a habit of mine and I still do it often. Lately I have been starting to have "think in Japanese" sessions.

I have been unconsciously thinking/dreaming in Japanese a lot recently. It's a really cool feeling.

All right, i think i got it.
Same thing but it usually happens involuntary, English just bleed into my thinking as now.

I forgot to reply to this. You don't need context if you understand the grammar or even just know the general meaning of the key words. It is a very straightforward sentence. You saw the "ましょう" and you immediately realized the given translation is missing the meaning it adds. You shouldn't have doubt.

That would be the goal. I didn't learn English the same way I am learning Japanese now, so my English grammar is suffering in result, but because I can think and speak so freely in it I don't really bother improving any more. I "train" it enough by shitposting online as it is. And it doesn't have kanji.

For now train it. Try purposely think in Japanese by yourself, you probably don't have friends anyway. Don't even constantly check for words, you can do this later if you remember. Just try to say what you want in whatever Japanese you can for now. Go do it in front of the mirror or something, if you think it helps. Overall the toilet is a great place for thinking practice.

I'll do it, thanks user.

...

You can't learn Japanese if you choose not to learn Japanese.

t. person who failed to learn Japanese

It's okay user. :^)

The 2k6k deck is based off of newspaper word frequency, right?

Why is something like 春分 in it?

バンプ～

Does anyone in here want to suck my dick?

...

Yeah! Fuck yeah man! I'm down.

That is like saying you know the English alphabet by heart. What a hero.
Get anki or obenkyo or something and just do it everyday. Add one kanji every day or even one kanji every few days if you have to. But spend time reviewing stuff every day.

That's exactly my point, I've lost what little I used to have.

Why don't just go grammar + vocab? And learn kanji on the way?

Hadn't thought of that. What's a good route to go with that?

Tae Kim or Japanese the Manga way plus core deck.
You should know at least both kana though.

Thanks user. I've been using realkana to brush up on my kana, so after I catch back up, I'll use this.

lurker user here grinding kana on and off after starting a few weeks ago, I think your explanation awoke something in me and would make me understand japanese alot easier when I think about your perspective of the language even if it's a simple explanation. I'd screencap your posts if i wasn't on my phone

Nigga you should have learned the kana in a week tops. You are not a small child. With this kind of attitude you will never learn the kanji. This is why everyone's favourite Genki is such a trash.
TOO MUCH FUCKING ENGLISH
It is written for retarded Americans. In my country for example every single English textbook is completely in English. It makes no sense for it to not be, even if you are learning alone.
Use Minna no Nihongo. There is a Grammar and Translation book where you can get English explanations of grammar and translation of each new word. But the main textbook is fully in Japanese. This is the way to go.
Not sure how inspiration what I said was, but to learn Japanese means to learn a lot about the Japanese mentality. Many times more than you would from learning English for example. You learn a lot about the societal norms of behaviour from the way they speak. It is that ingredient in their culture. So it is understandable that if you try to learn Japanese by translating everything into your own language that you will lose a lot of its nuance and getting a feeling of this nuance can make a language a lot more understandable to you. This is a big bonus that the people that have seen a lot of anime get, it is not just about having a few familiar phrases.

you shouldn't wait for duolingo

non-meme reasons:
duolingo is not total garbage, it will teach you a lot of stuff about a language in a relatively mindless way. But it is 100% supplementary, not core in the slightest.

Same with Rosetta Stone. Their whole "learn through immersion" concept makes it really easy to just sit there and run through an hour's worth of lessons. But it's not going to really teach you anything on its own, it must be reinforced with other resources.

Are you implying I will not learn fluent nip by repeating the phrase "onnanoko wa hashitte imasu" two hundred times?

Women running away from you is part of reality no matter the language.

nice

無くなってよ

Would saying this mean something like "get lost!" or "get out of here"?

That would be 居なくなってよ

ありがとう

どういたしまして

...

Chapter 7 of Genki has a section about this, and says that 私はからだが丈夫だ sounds "far more natural in Japanese". Not sure if the other way is "wrong", but I generally use the first way.

Something like 出て行け、出て行って or どっか行って is probably better than いなくなれ／なって in most cases. Also the よ isn't a necessity.

Fucking savage.

You can learn Japanese, user.

It was explained to me by my teacher that 私の体 is making the topic of the conversation specifically about your body, whereas 私は体が is making the topic about you and you just happen to be talking about your body at the moment, which is more natural in Japanese.

I love my moving pictures user, but I would never live in a country like japan. They may be ethnically homogenous and polite, but they still have pretty extreme censorship laws and are no funs.

it's a lot more fun in the underground. That censorship doesn't mean shit at live events. You find a lot more of the interesting and fun people in this country don't always make themselves apparent to the outside world

Il look it up on your book proposition thanks. I guess im taking it slower on kana so i can memorize it and not block myself on basic knowledge when trying out grammar and vocabulary. late reply because of wage-slavery and phone

Japanese is so difficult to learn, the grammar is so difficult. I think it must be the most difficult language to learn of all the major languages in the world. I think some of the motivations are retarded but at least you all will have a very useful skill. Keep up the work.

Can't happen if you are actually made to read page after page of Japanese and Japanese only. A few lessons in and you will be reading the kana smoothly. Use something like anki and obenkyo/u to pratice individual kana for a day or two, but then you should move to reading. You might be slow and often unsure at times, but with reading training you will get around a lot quicker.

Grammar is really not that hard. You just need to understand it once and then practice it. A big part of it is just to learn how to turn verbs. If you haven't learned properly that everything after that, even if nothing that special, will feel like a bitch.
And don't forget about Chinese. It might not have as much grammar, but surely having to use kanji only is not easy for the western brain.

I actually studied Chinese for about five years because I'm fucking retarded and it's not that bad. Learning Chinese characters is not difficult at all, it just takes time and memorization but after a certain point it gets easier to learn, just need to get the basic thousand or so and you're good to go.

White brains struggle with the tones more than the characters. Other than that Chinese is deceptively simple.

So then why do you think that Japanese is harder to learn than Chinese?

Actually it might be exactly because of that. He is complaining about grammar, because he never did grammar in Chinese and even the kanji read differently, so it fucks with what he has learned so far.

Not vidya

Uh, so you're saying Chinese doesn't have grammar? That can't be right.

Not at all, but as far as I know it is pretty much just getting the order of the words right. It is not like you can do any transforming with the characters alone. They also have the intonations, but I have no idea how they work.

I decided to study it for when I stayed with a friend in Japan and just assumed it'd be very simple since I already knew the characters. I was young an naive.

I don't think I could live in Japan, because I would be forced to live in the cities.
I hate cities, they have too much people and not enough space.

The way America and Europe are getting these days, I'd say censorship is way worse there.

Depends what language you're coming from, but Japanese and English are pretty different yes.

You don't have to live in the super urban places like Tokyo. I'm in Nara and it's pretty comfy.

Nope. 消えろ or 出てけ is used.

Here's 478 untranslated dialogue lines in Elona+. Why not practice your nihongo and help translate vidya at the same time?

s000.tinyupload.com/download.php?file_id=93568850245427223166&t=9356885024542722316613733

Learn vocab WITH kanji. Every time. That's the only way to do it.

OP pasta needs a list of games that are good for practicing Japanese, graded by difficulty. Like games that are all in kana with simple vocabulary, then games that mix in a few kanjis, then games that are entirely in kanjis and so on.
Learning a language is fine, but if you don't have a way to use that language on a daily basis it'll all be forgotten in no time.

I've heard the early pokemon games has a lot of kana and is relatively simple to understand.

I think that's something most people can handle on their own. Plus, all kana doesn't make it easier to read.

Alright no more meme posting. What's the deal with this language? I managed to teach myself Hiragana and some Katakana using Anki, then quit.

At what point do I get to actually like comprehend words? That's a strong motivator for me. Being able to say sentences and stuff.

When you start with the vocab.
How did you expect to learn words when you only learn the letters?

Most old games do. Not sure if it is because of not being able to put kanji in or because they wanted to be able to sell them to everyone.

I think it might have been due to graphical limitations.

So that's the core 2k right?

Anyone using a samsung 7 with the latest update? If I type かえる on the phone, I get 変えること, 帰ること、買えること as the "suggested words" with 変える、帰る、買える being far down on the search list.

i didn't suggest otherwise

When you've reached sufficient study. Just make sure you study everyday and don't be a retard and burn out.

Yes. At some point you'll want to create your own word lists from various sources for studying.

Use keyboard layout.

Also you people are seriously starting to creep me out. Maybe there is some basic misunderstanding, but I was made to make sentences since the first lesson. I know in my class there was no one that wasn't at least on some very small level familiar with the language on a level enough to understand something like "Watashi wa user desu," but seriously, what is with your way of studying? Since I have started having Japanese classes what people do online seems more and more random by the day.

That's because it is. We're all random people who have different methods of learning and different schedules, so that means some of the people who post here are very high level speakers, and some are incredibly new. Even among the new people, there are varying degrees of proficiency. In a classroom setting, everyone is supposed to move at the same pace, along with the teacher, and use the same materials. You're paying for someone to discipline you, essentially.

Anyway, as for me, I just do the core2k/6k deck every day. For me, this is the easiest aspect of study; I just have to spend about an hour or so a day reviewing cards and learning new words. I have very little understanding of grammar at this point, but I can formulate basic sentences. I find that grammar is almost like a language of its own, that requires constant exposure and nuance to understand. That will only come with time and extensive repetition, I guess.

Autonomous learning is always going to seem strange when compared to "conventional" methods of study.

I think it really depends what you want to learn japanese for, I'm sure if you wanted or had to go to japan soon, learning and understanding simple phrases like how to propperly introduce yourself should be your priority, but this has little use if you want to learn japanese for reading unstranslated manga/anime/games which is the priority for most of us here, so we strive to learn that which would helps us to achieve that first.

In the end if you want to be fluent, all the roads lead to rome, and as long as you keep up studying, whichever method you use doesn't really matter, as you'll have to learn everything anyways.

It is not actually super conventional, because by the end of the year only the people that studied on their own will be able to get N3. The thing that I am the most grateful about is finding about this textbook, not the classes itself. It is the only good textbook I have seen so far. And it is not about, again, some conventionality or something, but because it makes you use the language and only the language all the time.
I have heard about this before and now I am starting to understand why it such a big meme around here, but grinding kanji alone is not going to teach you anything. Even more, the fact you are not practicing the words in real conversations and writings, is slowing down your learning of even them. It is not that hard to put the textbook and extra materials on your phone and do them whenever you have the time, just like the kanji. Having a note to practice writing sentences in would be great too and not too hard to achieve.
You are certainly overestimating the difficulty of the drama and the magical Japanese nuance. Considering the same thing appears on the threads on anime boards, I have to wonder how many in them are actually consuming Japanese media. Is Japanese really alien to so many of the people learning it in such threads? There is just something seriously wrong going on here.
It is not that I am going on some ego boost here or anything, I am quite lazy and your typical loser from around here, but I am starting to think I maybe should write a very short and simple guide for how to study based on my own experience.

I completely disagree. The most optimal way to learn it, no matter the reason, is to practice everything you learn in any form possible. It is how you learn a language. Any language. At least if you are reading indeed a lot, it could be forgiveable if you don't write a lot. But even you understand the words, if you don't understand the grammar, how do you really understand what is being said? Even if you can read the kanji, do you really know them considering you might not be able to actually write them down? As the person that has consumed the most Japanese media in my class I can understand a lot more than my classmates, but that trying to make sentence is a lot more difficult and really shows your level. And I can't see people reading and understand the more complex (longer) sentences without knowing any grammar.
I am probably just sleepy and making an ass out of myself, but I just don't think they are shortcuts. And I don't even mean shortcuts about getting fluent or something, but even just becoming good at only one of the aspects. I really think that the people doing that are hindering themselves more than they realize and than it can really be explained without just doing it the "proper way" themselves.
Anyway, I should be going, because I feel very fucked up right now.

The thing that I am the most grateful about is finding about this textbook, not the classes itself
Which textbook are you using?
I do practice using them. Not in conversation, but through comprehensive listening. I always try to watch at least an hour of anime a day, for the sake of training my ear to pick up on words I've heard. Yeah, most anime is subbed, but I don't care, I'm not even really watching it to follow along with the plot or anything. I just want to listen to how words are used.
I doubt that. There are entire volumes of books dedicated to the subject of Japanese grammar. I think it's comparable to music theory. Sure, you can pick up a guitar, or other instrument, and learn to play a few chords and scale progressions, but you're not really going to understand how it all really works unless you take time to understand what the CAGED system is, what half and whole steps are, how chords are formed, and all that other stuff.
If you think it will help, then go for it. I think it'd be more helpful to get my hands on elementary grade or children's books so I can have something to read. Know where I can get those on the internet for free?

Everyone's learning process is different, so I really don't feel like there is a "proper way" for it, there are methods that work differently for different people, I do agree that grinding kanji only won't really it, and practicing both grammar and writing is absolutely necesary at some point.

I'd genuinely like to see your guide, perhaps your way is actually easier for a lot of guys here too. Also, which textbook are you talking about?

...

Hey, good work, user.

I'm a ways behind you. It doesn't feel like I'm making any progress, but I've been doing my anki every day for about 2.5 months straight. I hope it pays off.

It will especially pay off when you do reading practice. Lets you focus less on the vocab and more on the grammar.

I see you made the same mistake as me, starting with too many new cards

I actually just went with the default, which is 20 new cards a day. It quickly became overwhelming, so I switched it down to 1/4 of that. Feels pretty comfy, but I am starting to become concerned that I'm moving at too slow a pace. I was considering bumping my number up to 10, but I'm not really pressed for time, either, so maybe I won't.

Nah, I wouldn't recommend more than an hour a day. It's better to go slow than burn out.

I am. This is the shit I'm dealing with. Image names are reversed.
Studying in a classroom is slower imo. The only benefit should be is having someone explain it to you if you can't work it out for yourself.

Speaking and listening practice you should be doing along with voab/grammar study, but that all depends on your end goals.

...

I've not done a lot of grammar but can someone explain how ーて form past tense works?

Does it just mean that the action was done for a while instead of just done?

E.g. what would be the difference between 探した and 探していた?

The difference is the same as in English between "He searched" and "He was searching"

So…
食べた ate
食べていた was eating
見た seen/saw
見ていた was watching

Correct?

Yep

俺は自殺したいほどに下手だ

上手になれ

Still waiting for you to drop the name of that book, user.

He did here

Oh, thanks. Didn't see that.

It took me about a month to have Kana completely memorized, but then again I'm a bit slower when it comes to memorizing shit.

bump.

can someone please tell me how the hell do I pronounce 店員? The female voice in the core2k/6k deck sort of drops the first ん so it sounds like てえいん or something weird like that, and it's also that way for google translate robot voice and forvo doesn't have any native speaker recordings of this particular word. I don't want to trust the female voice from the deck because earlier I came across another word (動く) and she sort of slurred one of the syllables so that it sounds like another (the word is pronounced うごく but she pronounced the ご with a sort of nasally emphasis that makes it sound like she's saying うもく)

gengojeff.com/2013/06/16/japanese-nasal/
and
japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/177/pronouncing-が-as-nga
might be useful.

Basically people are lazy, and so てんいん becomes てえいん with the え and い nasalised because that flows better. It's easier to move from the start of the word to the end of the word hitting those points in your mouth than pronouncing it "correctly".

So the voice on your deck is correct, as is enunciating it perfectly. But the latter will likely make you sound like a tool just like in English. We have a place in Sydney called "Sydenham". Over time we got lazier until the modern Australian pronounces it as "Sydnəm". If someone says "Sy-den-ham" then we can instantly tell they're either a foreigner or a retard.

very helpful, thanks.

I need more Japanese expressions. Is there a good searchable database of them?

I'm looking for stuff like saying 耳にたこができる when you hear something again and again or saying 閑古鳥が鳴く when business is slow.

jisho.org/search/#words #exp

bump

Can someone help me out here? I want to read something like nanatsuiro drops or clover days, but I can't find anywhere to get them without paying for them.

You didn't look very hard, user.
sukebei.nyaa.se/?page=search&cats=0_0&filter=0&term=clover day's
sukebei.nyaa.se/?page=search&cats=7_27&filter=0&term=ななついろ★ドロップス

I'm not sure whether to feel glad or sad.

That's called allophones, user.
/g/ is sometimes pronounced as a nasal 'ng' instead.

バンプ～

腰と腰をバンプしよう～

結構

そうです！けっこうです！

Anyone know any guides for talking dirty in nipp? I need one for reasons.

Is she nekkid?

animetric.com/Static/Extras/Yuribou-Hentai-Dictionary.html

こんにちは、皆さん

話題はよく思いつけないが、やはりちんぽの話しましょうか

大きいなちんぽが前立腺を当たるとすごく気持ちよくなるよ。お勧めです。みんなはケツ友になりましょう！

でもやる前にケツまんこの奥をしっかり洗ってね～ しないと大変なことになるかもしれません

r8 my academic prowess

gay/10

wut where was the gay part

It's Nagai Go's Kekkou Kamen, so yes she is. "She hides her face but not her body." It was a parody on an early Japanese hero, Gekkou Kamen, (Moonlight Mask) down to even doing her own version of his theme song:

Gekkou: youtu.be/cetcTWPuq6I?t=81
Kekkou: youtube.com/watch?v=twv_qdioAjE

She was if I recall properly created as part of Nagai's pissing match with the PTA, who hated him for creating manga that wasn't Disney-tier prudish, so he wrote a comic about a masked nudist kung-fu beating up school staff who were all deranged perverts led by the Toenail of Satan (a parody of Gekkou Kamen's Claw of Satan.)

youtube.com/watch?v=DuVYRz_twbs

you

...

That is my fetish, I wonder if anyone made porn of that.

自殺した方がいい

Apparently has a couple of eroge.
vndb.org/v8748
vndb.org/v8747

I wonder if they're any good.

せっかく話題をつけようと思ったのに　(´・ω・`)

life.ou.edu/stories/
Here's a website that has archived a selection of Japanese children's books. Good shit for developing your early reading comprehension. Do it, faggots.

is this the translation thread

Nope. It's the thread where you learn so you don't need a translation. :^)

Niggas
の attached to a verb＝こと= "-ing"/nominalized verb
に＝for
手紙が届くの+に+三日+かかりました
Letter-to arrive-for-three days-took
The letter took three days to arrive.
Just be careful when determining "despite" or nominalization.

user you know you can click on fap for eroge and shit on nyaa?
I think 99% of eroge that people know about are on nyaa.

バンプ～

Bleh

Been playing Phantasy Star 4 in Japanese. The kanji are surprisingly clear and readable for a 16-bit game.

Alys/ライラ's death still never fails to make me cry ;_;

悲しいから分からない。

For those learning nihongo to understand Kobayashi's Maid Dragon anime
tlnotes.com/tag/maidragon/

Sasuga Holla Forums!

I learned this language for vidya and some anime, but there hasn't been anything good on TV since Shin Mazinger 8 years ago anyway

first learn the definition, faggot.

Why is Lucoa so perfect?

Bump. Don't neglect your studies, user.

...

Why can't I have nice things?

cuz you're still obsessing over 3dpd

I like where this is going

How goes the Japanese learning, anons, are you winning?

O-Oh my.

頑張って

Damn, user. What do you even do in that situation? I guess just try and tell her that everything's alright, and that you don't see her any differently.

Eh, I don't know. I feel like I should be doing more than just an hour or so of vocab review with anki. I've briefly delved into grammar, and I spend a lot of time watching subbed anime, but I don't think that's enough. I've been doing this for a few months and I don't know how to count beyond ten, for christ sake. Maybe I should pay for private lessons or something, but then again maybe I should just double down on my efforts and do more to learn new concepts and such.

...

I'm working on a Japanese learner's dictionary. The idea is something like KanjiDamage but more functional and comprehensive. Dictionaries are neutral and don't point out nuances. They will match a query but never explain how the results are meant to be used. For example, a dictionary will say that both 滴 and 雫 mean しずく(droplet), but it won't say that 滴 is physical while 雫 is poetic. Dictionaries often get radicals wrong and don't include smaller kanji as radicals. For example, jisho.org says that the radicals for 湖 are 月, 十, 口, 汁. I say they are 氵, 十, 口, 古, 月. It should be easy for someone to find 湖 using 古. Dictionaries often lack a Japanese definition. For advanced learners, this is even more important than an English one because it's immersive and exposes relationships that would otherwise be hard to find. Sentences in dictionaries are often ambiguous and make excessive use of idioms. For example, jisho.org has the pair "私は少しはやる心を押さえたほうがよいと思う。", "I think you should hold your horses a little.". This captures the definition but it uses an idiom that doesn't exist in Japanese. There is no 馬 in that sentence. Another example is "水に流す。", "Don't cry over spilled milk.". There's two main reasons to use the sentence finding feature: Either learning how to use a word correctly or using a sentence as a template. The translations being non literal make both harder. I mention jisho.org here but that's just a front end. Most of this applies to the data sets which include WWWJDIC and Tatoeba. Front ends have their own set of problems.

What the fuck.

Well, according to Google translate,　(鳴呼) means shouting. I guess that's some sort of onomatopoeia? I don't fucking know.

It's a stylistic choice to make the game feel more old-timey. They do that a lot with English loanwords and country names too in that game.

It's 嗚呼 not 鳴呼. It can be like an Ah! of surprise or being emotionally moved or whatever but can also be used like ええ to express agreement or approval, be used to call to someone or as an 相づち like "yep" or "mhmm".

Most of the times I've seen it used was just in stuff where the writer was using lots of non-jouyou kanji. Also have seen it used a few times when there's a serious atmosphere, like they wrote ああ normally but in a serious scene used 嗚呼 instead.

*gets super close to the screen to find the difference*

it's literally one fucking stroke

I didn't actually look at the full-size image earlier just assuming they misread it, but I looked now and it does actually use 鳴 as wrote. So my bad on that, but nevertheless it's the same as 嗚呼. Just think of it as an alternate spelling.

If you are an advanced/ intermediate learner, you can just use websites like dictionary.goo.nee.jp for definitions in Japanese.

...

9 months in and I barely play games now. If I do, it's purely to harvest pronunciation, innonation, and grammar. Will this ever wear off? Once I'm able to fluently understand nip-only games, will I just play them again? I just love talking to Japanese people and mutually learning each other' languages.

Yes

Where the fuck are you being able to talk to nips so freely at?

...

bump

Study the way I do - playing Super Robot Wars.

I make friends on Lang-8 then move to Skype or whatever platform they like. I also like talking to people in Dragon's Dogma Online. I'm lucky with meeting good people whom I really click with.

My bad. It's ne, not nee.

REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
FUCKIN normalfag!

how the fuck did you niggers learn all that vocab
anki reps? some of those words are so specialized…

only 2200? shit i've played games longer than that. ez

hahahahahhaahaha

What's Anki? I just learn shit by playing games, reading manga, and watching anime/toku.

バンプ～

目を覚ましって
That's the first line Zelda says in Breath of the Wild. I heard it and immediately understood what it means. Progress is slow and studying can be tedious, but it's those moments that make it gratifying.

It'll be worth it in the end, to be free from shit like this.

Why do so many translations for games end up like this? It wouldn't even bother me if that was what the dude actually said, it's just the fact that their whole goddamn job is to take what was said in Japanese, and translate it into English. But they don't even do that, so why the fuck are they even hired in the first place?

Nepotism.

Don't you get it user? They need to add (((flavor))) to the text! Japanese scripts are so dry and soulless! :^)

The sad part is that there are people who unironically believe this.

Why does it matter if the translation isn't 100% if it works?

speaking of the devil.

Keep at it user, you can do it! There's no っ in there though

You know what, just start another Op Downpour on this or something, because with FE fates it was absolutely egregious the way they completely ruined characters and inserted menes left right and centre, you're just going to alienate people who were opposed to the translation in FE fates who didn't realize that you guys were absolute purists and thought you just stood against horrendous translations, not just the idea of non 1:1 translations.

...

1:1 translations are the other extreme, they just don't work that way. That doesn't mean you should add/remove/change anything you want though, unless you don't give a fuck about doing a translation and just want to write your own fanfic, which seems to be the case with treehouse and other "localizers"

My understanding of the way the video game translation industry works is that they use the neologism "localization" to charge unwitting developers more money. The more things they change about a game to match the foreign market, the more money they can squeeze out of the developers. In other words, there is a huge financial incentive for them to not ever do their job.

This too, plus don't forget those faggots who think they have some sort of religious duty to shit all over scripts for not being progressive/Christian/American/whatever buzzword.

Because your money, as well as the developer's money, is going to support a bunch of cancerous hacks who don't do any real work, while lowering the quality of the game as a whole. Hell, while it's never enforced, theoretically you're not supposed to import the original Japanese copy if you live outside of Japan, since they state on the box some equivalent of "For use in Japan only" so on paper at least, the sort of garbage these people throw at you is the only choice you'd have.

I think that's just in case of another Rapelay type incident.

Nah, it predates that I believe, it's probably so they can track better how sales are going in each market.

Why don't you learn the superior language 中國話

You can't learn mandarin.

Those kikes added straight up Marxist propaganda to the game LOL!