Miya

Wow, that helps a lot! I had no idea I could do that

I don't speak Spanish, but here's my advice for you -- find some native Spanish speakers and talk to them! Trust me, when you hear natives around you speaking the language you're learning, you'll start to pick up some of it naturally and your pronoucniation get better

Is the correct way in keigo to say "Sensei, can I come visit your house?" 先生のお宅にうかがいでいただけないでしょうか？ This was totally on my test today and I have this huge feeling I got it wrong

Yeah, particles and keigo are the only two things in Japanese I really have a lot of trouble with ;_; Which is unfortunate because both of those are pretty important.

I use 'an hour' because the [h] in [hour] is silent so it's really pronounced like 'an our' and words that start with a vowel sound use 'an'.

I actually just watched a Japanese show and it had this tongue twister in it For those who want to actually hear how it's said: katcha papad pakka papad kacha papita pakka papita

Katakana is definitely harder for me. The characters are just too similar and it's much harder to sound out the words.

I use words like WTF when I don't want to cuss There was also this girl in my high school who said "lol" (she actually pronounced it, not say L, O, L)all the time.

Kansai-ben is a dialect spoken in the Kansai region in Japan. NMB48 is from Osaka so they speak/sing with a Kansai-ben. However when they're in Tokyo, I notice some of them try to speak "standard" Japanese. I don't really listen to Japanese radio much. Sometimes I'll listen to Japan-a-radio, but they play really old Jpop songs, lol.

So it's been a little less than a month since I've made this post. But apparently things have changed in America already and a new slang word similar to YOLO has emerged, lol. The new word is "YOYO" which means "You're on your own". Cute, eh?

To me, slang is just another dialect. I don't really have a problem with slang and it's actually quite interesting to see what new words are created by youngsters.

Are you talking about remembering how to write characters or remembering the language (as in understanding it)? If you're talking about remembering how to write characters, then there's no shortcut. You have to get it down by writing it many times. If you're talking about understanding the language, then I suggest you try to listen to Chinese radio or watch Chinese t.v. Of course it's best to use the language itself, but in the case that you can't, you should expose yourself to the language as much as possible. It really helps you familarize with the language and then (hopefully) you'll remember it better.

誰もいらっしゃいませんでしたから、自分で勉強いたします。（笑） 私は明日中間試験がございます。とてもしんぱいでございます。今日はいっしょけんめい勉強いたそうと思います。今晩は徹夜でしょう。

Cool, which song did you listen to? I would also recommend SKE48 if you're more into the energetic/dancing music. They are also the strongest performers among the ***48 groups in my opinion. (even found you a subtitled video ) SKE48 - Aozora Kataomoi (Live) / Sub español - English sub / Romani lyrics And if you're into Osaka/Kansai-ben fan, then NMB48 would be for you. They're pretty good as well and are consider the "sexiest" among the groups. They're interesting because they speak in Kansai-ben. I've been learning bits of Kansai-ben from their shows lately http://youtu.be/o9x23NlSo7c Then HKT48 is the baby group, lol. If you're looking for little sister type/cute songs, then you might be interested in their music

Instead of combining though, I'm thinking we can just not show the subforums on the front page. That way the forum will look more tidy and I won't have to scroll down forever before I get to the area I want to go. So for example, we would have a link that says "Study English" and when someone clicks that, they will be presented with the subforums. Just a suggestion though. I like the subforums and think it's fun to have lots of categories.

It depends. I read fast when I'm reading things I'm interested in because I'm more focused. If I'm reading something I have no interest in (such as an assigned reading), then I'll read slower and lose my focus.

I know English and Chinese and I'm currently studying Japanese. I also really want to learn Dutch and Indonesian, but I don't know if I'll ever have the opportunity to do so. I don't want to set a number on how many languages I plan to learn. I feel like I'll learn what I need to/have an interest in. If I set a number, then I'll feel like I accomplished my goal and I'll lose my drive to learn more.

I use this site to check on stuff every now and then, but I'm not a regular user. It's good as a resource though, many professors at my school recommends it.

^But in the USA, it's more of a budget problem too. My school had to cut Russian because of budget problems. It's quite sad actually... Foreign languages should be made available to students who are interested in studying them. It's one story if they don't want to learn it; it's another if they can't learn it because they don't have the opportunity to.

I used to use Viki to watch my Asian dramas, but then the site ran into some problems and I stopped using it. One thing I like about Viki is it has subtitles in a lot of different languages. That way you can potentially expose yourself to many different languages at once.

Even in Japan though, you would only use keigo towards those who are considered "above you" (teachers, boss, etc.). So unless you are constantly around those people, you won't have a chance to practice your keigo. Actually in my Japanese book, it says American students studying Japanese are better at keigo because they actually study it and memorize how to use it. Some Japanese students in Japan still get mixed up with keigo because they use regular speech too much. Unfortunately, I'm not one of those American students who excel in Keigo, lol. OTL

Wow, I'm surprised at how much they remind me of English. :amazed:

So originally I was going to say that Google Translate is good for translating little words, but not entire phrases. But then, this happened last night while I was translating a Japanese word: Really Google? Can't you do better than that?

Mine is kind of lame, but... I like to write mine out on paper first. I get distracted by the computer/internet a lot so whenever I have a paper to write, I'll just do the research beforehand, write them down, and then turn off the computer. Then I'll start brainstorming and outlining on scratch paper. When I think I have enough information, I get some more scratch paper and start to officially write my essay. This method really helps me focus. Plus writing it down is... kind of a different feel. I can write anything down, knowing that my rough draft will be in the trash after I get the official paper done. So I can be as messy and unorganized as I want. I can draw arrows, cross out things, mark things in different colors, etc. I don't have to worry about grammar or spelling or punctuation because when I type it up, I will catch those things (which would be consider my first edit). I feel that when I do this, my papers are always better than if I were to just type it out from the start. Sometimes if I need to edit it again, I read my paper outloud to myself. When you read your paper outloud, you'll usually catch mistakes that you weren't aware of before.

Lots of professors at my school prefer multiple choice because they can be done on scantrons. They literally take like 10 minutes to get the scores. And I guess multiple choice benefits students more because there's always a 25% of guessing right. Personally, I tend to like/dislike it based on what subject I'm being tested on.. I remember back in middle school, we would have multiple choice math tests. Those really saved my life because I sucked at math and with multiple choice, I was able to work my way back up. So I think for math where there's a definite answer, it's better to have multiple choice. But for, say, language classes, it's better to have short response questions just because there's so many possibilites and different ways to be correct. But I guess if we had a question that says "Circle the wrong one", then multiple choice would be acceptable too.