Czarownica

I'm not too into j-pop, to be quite honest, but a few weeks ago or so AKB48 released a new single and it's just so catchy, I sing it all the time now!

It's here, if you're curious  :wacky:

I don't correct it because I despise when people correct me.

Sorry, you might be just overly sensitive. You honestly would rather make the same mistake over and over than have somebody point it out to you?

It might be different if the person's first language was something other than English and they were asking for help, but this usually isn't the case. It really gets on my nerves when others try to prove their "superior intellect" by correcting the spelling of a couple words in a sentence. Thoughts on this?

Sorry, but no. I'm not trying to prove my "superior intellect" to anybody, I just try to make the conversation readable. I'm sick and tired of lazy people not bothering to use proper (or at least semi-proper, I don't expect everybody to use Queen's English all of the time) English while writing. I'm not a native English speaker and when a native speaker uses worse English than I do, then something is very wrong here.

And if somebody misspells "a couple of words in one sentence" then they're either lazy and sloppy, or really need somebody to teach them how to spell properly, so either way I feel like I should correct them.

Are there people out there getting offended when a cashier points out to them that they made a mistake while counting money and tried to pay too little? If you're making mistakes, people will point them out. That's life.

Just don't do that

Seriously, it's not an addiction, it can be changed immediately. Just say to yourself "no romaji from now on" and stick to it. If you don't remember hiragana and katakana, go back to your kana textbook and master it. Then you can focus on studying grammar and vocabulary 

I think if you look at a very long text in normal Japanese (that is, without any spaces for words, because Japanese doesn't have that) written in hiragana, you'll know the answer. It'll look like a long, frightening mess. Kanji actually makes both reading texts and learning vocabulary easier, once you know at least a few hundred characters.

I wouldn't want Japanese to be a hiragana only language, reading it would be so tiring. And that's taking into consideration that I don't know all that many kanji.

Done! And now you have all my personal information and can murder me in my sleep!  :grin:

Nice to see quite a few likes already. Hopefully you'll post some fun linguistic things from time to time

Yeah since both languages use the same alphabet it wouldn't be difficult for one to learn the other language.

Huh? No, they don't  :confused:

I can recognize Arabic, cyrillic script (I can't tell which language those words are in, though), Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Thai, Indian languages, Greek... I think that's pretty much it.

I know quite a few Ukrainian people who got fluent in Polish really fast and it got me thinking - is Polish naturally very easy for Ukrainian people? And if that's the case, is Ukrainian very easy for Polish people as well? I can't read the cyrilic alphabet, so I can't really check it for myself. I'd be cool if I could learn another language, this time without much effort... But it's probably too good to be true.

I've been to a few sites like that (I haven't tried Polyglot Club though) but they never worked too well for me. It's mostly my fault, I'm very shy and I have a hard time trying to talk to strangers online.

I also feel bad because Japanese people on those sites always have lots of people trying to talk to them, I'd feel like I'm just being another bothersome person.

Maybe I was a bit too quick to praise it, because I'm experiencing some problems with their search feature right now. I hope it's a temporary thing, though.

Well... So far I've only had classes with native Japanese speakers. I think that the beginner grammar stuff should be taught by non-native speakers, though. My teachers are awesome, but I think they sometimes didn't understand what our problems were, and we were a bit too intimidated to ask for more details and sometimes we didn't even realise that we don't exactly understand... If you follow me.

I'm very grateful I can have classes with native speakers, though, especially now.

Yes, how do you write "kotoshi" in kanji? I often made the same mistakes when I was starting as I am of Chinese origin and am more familiar with the Chinese usage of hanzi or kanji. Japanese is just plain confusing compared to Chinese!

"Kotoshi" is 今年, so it's quite regular (except for the reading). "Kyonen" is written with a different kanji - 去年. A bit confusing when it comes to reading, but in writing it's all pretty normal, I think

I like 足, because it reminds me of a guy sitting on a sled http://www.linguaholic.com/uploads/emoticons/default_tongue.png' alt=':P'>

足が痛いので、今日図書館に行かないつもりです。

I plan not to go to the library today because my leg hurts.

[i hope I haven't messed this sentence up ^^]

I recommend starting with hiragana. It's not difficult to learn, a few days should be enough, and then you can start learning katakana

Unless you're 90 years old right now, I'm pretty sure you still have time to master both French and Spanish But if you ask me, Spanish is easier. Or rather, French is harder - its pronunciation is pretty crazy and their grammar can be weird sometimes.

That being said, I wouldn't abandon French now if I were you - I'm sure you can learn both of those languages  Obviously, it's just my opinion and suggestion, though.

I found a fun site today! As you might have guessed, it's devoted to kanji and I think it's pretty awesome.

http://app.kanjialive.com/

The one thing I dislike about it is that there is no kanji list, only the search function. However, the site has stroke orders, meanings, readings, example compounds, radicals, mmnemonics... I think I might be in love.

I have two classmates that have zero knowledge of the English language and they actually believe they don't need English to succeed in the business world.

It seems that they also have zero knowledge of the business world I'm pretty sure that it's nearly impossible to get anywhere in business without English nowadays... Unless they're planning on having a very local business and start it all by themselves, since every company requires people to know English well if they want to apply for some serious position.

I'm not really angry when people tell me that English is not important. I mean, it's their opinion and they'll probably realise that they're wrong sooner or later.

I study in the Modern Languages department, so there's a lot of people around speaking multiple languages. One of my teachers is fluent in Japanese, English, Italian, French and Polish...

It's pretty depressing, because I feel so stupid compared to them!

I've only recently found out that a word "surprising" (and also "surprise") is not supposed to be spelt "suprising". I wrote it like that my entire life! Such a shame... I still think my version looks better.

I just like knowing things And knowing a language is pretty great. I'm sure that it'll help me appreciate the culture, but it is not my main motivation. I kind of hope that knowing Japanese will help me get a good job (although at the moment I'm on that stage when I just sit around thinking that I have no future whatsoever) and also I enjoy being able to read/watch things in English - it'd be cool if I could read/watch things in Japanese too.

You know, I recently came to the conclusion that (partially) because of its agressiveness, German is also quite a sexy language  I guess it's a matter of taste, though...

I'm bad at listening/conversation. Other than that, I think kanji. I don't have problems learning kanji, but I don't know nearly enough just yet and it really hinders me when I try to read something.

Grammar can be difficult too...

I love Naoki Urosawa's stuff, especially "Monster". Urosawa writes really amazing thrillers, they're great. "Monster" has a very faithful anime adaptation and "20th Century Boys" got a movie adaptation. Still, I think manga is better.

When it comes to lighter stuff, I enjoyed "Fullmetal Alchemist" very much.

I'm moving this topic to the Japanese Literature subforum, I think it fits there better

English has some pretty crazy pronunciation if you ask me. I love English, but I definitely prefer writing in it than talking in it. The "th" sound and all the crazy vowel sounds you guys have are driving me maaaad!

I still think it's a really pretty language. Just not at all that easy to speak.