Miya

I study from the book GENKI by Eri Banno. I'm sure there are other sources online for basic Japanese phrases like this, but I don't know of any. I'll let you know if I stumble across any

Nowadays, I prefer to use the internet. But before the convenience of the internet, I always used the Oxford dictionary.

^I would be interested. I think it'd be fun to have a games section where everyone can participate. And maybe once in a while we can have contests and the winner will win something like a medal by their name. I would love to have a thread to play Shiritori in

It depends on why you're studying Chinese. If you're studying Chinese because of a job, then it's best to get a good grasp of it ASAP. This means you'll have to study 10+ hours a week. If you're just studying for fun, then you can go at your own pace. 2-3 hours should be sufficient.

Haha, I wouldn't say I know a lot, but I know enough to carry on some conversations. And yup, おつかれさまでした is often said before one leaves from work. To me, it means "Good work today", "thanks for working so hard today". Japanese has a lot of these Kimarimonku (きまりもんく - set phrases).

The one Kanji I always got wrong when I first started studying Japanese was ”今”. In Chinese, this character means "today/now". Which is okay if you use it in Japanese as "今" (ima - now) or　"今日" (kyou - today). But then you get the pronunciation "Kyonen" and to me that immediately means "This year" because "kyou" means today. But actually "this year" is pronounced as "Kotoshi" and "Kyonen" actually means last year. :confused: I don't get them messed up any more because I missed that like 50884375135 times on my tests, but it did confuse me for a while. Which is why I disagree that being Chinese makes learning Japanese easier. I think it just confuses us more because even when the characters are the same, they mean different things. For example: 書く (kaku) - Chinese character means "book", but in Japanese it means "to write". 勉強する　(benkyousuru) - Chinese character means "forced", but Japanese means "to study". (okay, maybe that one makes sense XD_

Thanks for the link, I'll have a look at it I guess what I'm most confused about is when to use the correct particle to get the correct meaning. Because in Japanese, changing the particle can change the meaning of the whole sentence. For example: a) 私は広島にアパートを見つけました。 I found an apartment that is in Hiroshima. 私は広島でアパートを見つけました。 I found an apartment when I was in Hiroshima. (meaning this apartment could be in Hiroshima or some other place.) c) 私は広島のアパートを見つけました。 I found an apartment that is in Hiroshima. I always thought "で" meant "at/in" like 図書館で勉強します (I study at/in the library) so I immediately thought ( meant "I found an apartment located in Hiroshima". And since ”に” refers to a movement like ”うちに帰ります”　(I'm going home), I thought (a) meant "I went to Hiroshima and found an apartment ". But of course, I was wrong. I'll have a look at the site you provided first. Hopefully I'll have a better understanding after reading it.

Japanese: Dog (Inu) - Wan wan Cat (Neko) - Nyan nyan Cow (Ushi) - Mou mou Crow (Karasu) - Kaa kaa Frog (Kaeru) - Kero Kero Pig (Buta) - Buu Buu

I'm not studying Dutch at the moment, but I'm interested in it and would love to study it in the future. Can you make a "Basic Dutch phrases" topic for those who are interested in learning Dutch?

^I'm not entirely sure, but I think Orwell influenced Murakami to write 1Q84. I couldn't find most of the books mentioned here on Amazon (Amazon only sells the English versions) so I might have to stop by my local Kinokuniya to look for it.

This is the very first website I used: http://www.sf.airnet.ne.jp/ts/japanese/ It's good for beginners

I watch a lot of foreign movies and I can definitely say it helps. Not only does it help you get used to hearing the language, but if you turn on the subtitles, you can also see the characters and (somewhat) follow along. I always tell myself I'm "studying" when I watch Japanese movies

I do care about grammar, but I'm not super nitpicky about it. As long as I can understand what the other person is trying to say, then I'm okay with them using slightly improper grammar. Sure, it's great to have perfect grammar, but I know not everyone can do it and to me, that's okay.

Personally, I don't find online tutorials effective. I don't know... I really dislike reading long passages of text on my computer. I get distracted really easily when I do that. So whenever I use online tutorials, it never ends up working for me. But hey, everyone is different. There are people who learn amazing stuff using online tutorials.

I had to study Shakespeare in high school. A lot of my classmates hated it (because we were forced to write papers and stuff), but I was alright with it. I thought the plays were interesting so I actually enjoyed reading them

Even though I'm a Cantonese speaker, I'd have to say Mandarin is more useful. Mandarin is used universally. Cantonese is useful if you want to live in Hong Kong, Macau, etc., but even those places are quickly being populated by Mandarin speakers.

Chinese is super useful to me. It's the only way I can communicate with my parents and relatives. Plus with so many tourists and Chinese immigrants in America, it comes in handy when they ask for directions!

Thanks for correcting my mistake. I now see where I was confused. To me: なにかあった　－　There is something. なにがあったの　－ What's happened?/What's wrong? I glanced over too quickly. すみません。

Suggestion: How about creating another subforum named "Other Languages". In that subforum, we can have members start threads about different languages. For example, someone who's interested in Korean can start their own Korean topic and anyone who can speak or have an interest can reply there. You can limit it to one topic per language and once that language gets a specific number of replies (or pages), you can create an official subforum for it with all the subcategories. That way you can tell which languages garner interest. Also, that would give people who have interest in less popular languages (like Thai or Indonesian) an opportunity to participate in chats.

^Yes, depending on the context, 'moshi' can also mean 'if'. ('moshi moshi' doesn't mean 'if if' though)

I think mine would be Les Choristes. I also like La vie en Rose a lot.

Maybe we can start a penpal thing here? Since most of us are passionate about learning new languages, I think the members here would be more willing to become penpals. And if people are uncomfortable with giving out their addresses, maybe we can do an e-mail thing? It'll be fun ^^

I know more than 3 languages, but I'm not completely fluent. Currently focusing on my Japanese studies, but I'd love to pick up my French again.

Thanks for the recommendations everyone! I'll definitely look into it and hopefully find something that interests me My professor recommended Murakami Haruki too, but back then my Japanese was not good enough to read his work. Hopefully now I'll be able to understand ^^

メルビンさん、初めまして。私はミヤです。二十一歳です。カリフォルニアに住んでいます。よろしくお願いします。 私の趣味は音楽を聴きます。メルビンさんの趣味は何ですか？ （ちなみに、漢字はだいじょうぶですか？）