genki-desu

It seems that you are much further ahead than I am in your kanji studies. I know the english meaning of quite a few kanji (into the hundreds) and can guess a few others from radicals etc, but in terms of knowing the on yomi and kun yomi for each kanji I would say I have about 100 learned well. If only China and Japan had only met once in their history, then we wouldn't have to deal with there being loads of different readings for the same characters.

I have never come across an anime where I preferred the Dub to the Sub. It has gotten to the point where I just don't bother with dubs anymore. To be fair I also don't watch much anime anymore, but I can't see myself ever returning to those awful over the top English voice overs. Also, with subtitles and the original japanese voices you can learn japanese passively, and get a lot of listening practice. If you are trying to learn the language then I don't think it makes much sense NOT to use subtitles. As other people have said in this thread, before long you start to understand little packets of conversation that pop up all the time (and if they pop up all the time in anime, they probably pop up all th etime in real life).

Hi, I too can vouch for polyglot. It's amazing what you think you know until someone talks to you in japanese and you draw a complete blank on how to talk back to them (It would help if they didn't talk so damn fast over there and gave you longer to think ) . As for listening practice I would recommend watching subtitled videos. Whether it be anime, comedy (check out Gaki No Tsukai - I'm obsessed and keep picking up words from them without realising it like "papatto" from their kiki series), or dramas. It's odd how much you just pick up over time from watching TV. Of course the subtitles are necessary, and can actually help working out weird grammar points. Most importantly, it helps you understand CONVERSATIONAL japanese rather than textbook japanese. Some anki decks also have spoken voice readings aswell which is very useful.

Hello back to you from Jolly Britain! (I'm in the north, so maybe not so jolly). I bet you anything you don't drink as much tea as I do! I run on the stuff. Anyway, nice to meet you and good luck with your language learning journey! Because it is the nectar of the gods.

Hi, I'm Matt and I'm from England. For some reason I have got it into my head that I want to learn japanese (it might have something to do with Gaki no Tsukai for any other japanese fans out there). I am setting myself some short term and long term goals in order to help me stay focused: Short term goals: .Be able to read some of the famous japanese childrens stories within 2 months (who doesn't want to know a story about a child spawning from a peach and fighting demons?). .Start a Japanese learning blog. .Completely stop falling back on Roumaji. Long term goals: .Read Matsumoto Hitoshi's books. .Write a textbook for another language (not english) in Japanese! Thanks guys, I hope I will enjoy my stay here! Good luck with all of your language learning journeys. If anyone wants to talk to me feel free to either do it publically in the forum or send me a pm/email.