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Lasonax

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Everything posted by Lasonax

  1. I think Japanese The Manga Way explains this pretty well. Here's a link to the page describing these two (Google Book preview): http://goo.gl/8cypXA
  2. I don't think I'd ever use it... So I don't think I will ever learn it either. Surely it would be fun to know how to "speak" sign language and all, but really... The only reason I could ever have for that would be if some family member got deaf, or I just wanted to be "cool" / "you never know". I think I'd rather just spend my time on a language that I'd have more use for, or well... I think I'd rather even learn a dead language than sign language to be honest. It just feels rather uninteresting.
  3. There is no "absolutely best way" of learning a new language. What works for you may not work for someone else. Personally I think that, for people who has no problems focusing/learning: self study is the way to go. Having a teacher is useful, but for people who can focus and study on their own, it's a waste of time and money to spend your time on a teacher or course. Courses may be limiting in that you'll constantly have to adapt to the rest of the class, instead of focusing on what you can learn on your own. With a private teacher, this will of course be avoided. But as I said, self-learning is probably better if you can focus on your own.
  4. Aren't we all? It feels like for every mistake that I do, the world falls apart for a slight moment. But no matter what mistakes you do, there is no point in worrying about it before it happening, or after it has happened. You just have to move on, correct your mistakes, and hopefully learn something from the failure. After all, we learn from our mistakes. Even if it may not have helped you learn the language faster or something... You may have learned something else. Just as an example, I've failed "twice" already. First, I did not learn how to write the kana. It's not THAT important for me to know, considering the fact that I will most likely not have that much practial use of knowing how to write the kana... But I still should have learned to write them, it would have speeded up the process of remembering them. Instead, I just learned how to pronounce them when seeing them, and not the other way around. It's not something huge though, as I can probably learn to write them in just a few days or so... But still. I've also done some mistakes with the kanji. First, i tried to learn the pronounciations aswell as the keywords. Did I mention that I learned i the wrong way aswell? As in... I didn't learn how to write the kanji. After doing about 50 kanji, I realised it was a waste of time to learn the pronounciation. And after about 100 kanji, I realised I had done it all the wrong way. It's pretty much a waste of time NOT to learn how to write the kanji, atleast if you're using Heisig's method. So I had to start over... Fortunately it took just a day or so before I knew how to write the kanji I had already "learned". You can't "fail" completely. You can make major or minor mistakes, but no matter how many or how big mistakes you do: you can always correct your mistakes.
  5. Well, no word is impossible to translate if you're allowed to use several words to describe the word... But many words don't have a direct translation to another language. "lagom" - Not too much, and not too little, just the right amount. (swedish) "旬" - While not really a word... or maybe it can be a word... It's a kanji that means "a ten-day-period". I think Heisig used some single word for this to refer to the ten day period, but I think that was some kind of made up word from a book, rather than an actual word. There is also a kanji for "one ten-thousand". In english we'd say ten thousands, but the Japanese says "one ten-thousand", kind of... I'm sure there are lots more, but I can't think of any else at the moment.
  6. Revenge only leads to more revenge. - Scar Whoever saves one life, saves the world entire - Oscar Schindler Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony. - Ghandi There are of course dussins and dussisn of amazing Ghandi quotes, but the above is definitely one of my favorites.
  7. You should teach the kid the language which is used in the country that you live in, it's as simple as that. The first language should always be that, if you want to teach the kid your other languages as he/she grows up, then do that aswell, but the priority should really be the nativel anguage of the country you live in... So that he/she can go to school and everything.
  8. Haha, oh... I didn't know that swear-words got starred out on these forums. It was on a different forum that I got the warning of course, where swear words was not censored like that. Without having to say the swearword in one way or another, it's the swearword that could be a synonym to poop. I think you know what I mean now
  9. A quick googling tells me that it's from episode 174 (Season 8 episode 21) which was originally aired on April 20, 1997. The episode is called "The Old Man and the Lisa". It's not so extraordinary to be honest, but everyone seems to remember it either way. I think I've just seen this episode too many times to forget it... I don't even like the Simpsons!
  10. Another question that has been asked a million times already? This is getting a bit annoying. Learn to search guys! Anyway... As mentioned in every other thread that asks the same question, I want to learn japanese so that I can enjoy Japanese entertainment at it's finest, and to possibly move to Japan one day. (the second is a very far fetched and not so realistic goal in mind. It is possible that I will move there when I retire though, if I still like Japan when I grow old that is) I want to learn Japanese so I can read manga, light novels, visual novels, and just "books" in general. I want to learn Japanese so I can fluently understand Dramas and anime, without the use of subtitles. Actually, that's about it. I'm very interested in languages in general, so I don't actually need the best reason in the world to stay motivated to learn a new language. And as I said, I don't think the chance of me moving to japan is very big... I wish it would be bigger, but I don't think I will want to go there as much as I do now, when I grow old. I mainly focus on learning passive understanding, and not so much on actually speaking it/writing it myself.
  11. No, this thread is not about posting some obscure swear words, rather so is it about discussing the phenomenon as a whole, and to question common "swearwords". I recently got a warning on a different forum, because apparently I was swearing in a post. I raised my eyebrow in confusion, because I do not recall swearing out of purpose, but apparently "shit" is a swear-word. It was a bit surprising, as I never actually thought of "shit" as a swear word. Possibly not the most high-class word that you would use in a formal letter, but still, I never thought of it as a swear word. Swear words to me are words like "fuck", "hell", "motherfucker" and other word combinations of "fuck". There are of course others, but I've never considered "shit" to be one of them. Do you think that there are any, common swear words, that shouldn't actually be swear words? Do you think "shit" is a swear word? Why so?
  12. As far as english goes, I must say that how often people cannot make a differance between then and than, amuses me. I used to be one of those that didn't even know that there was a word called "than", but after being politely told how things worked, I changed my ways. It's not very complicated at all, and it's pretty weird that I was never quite taught this in school. I mean, how hard would it be for an english teacher to spend 2 minutes on telling the kids that it's supposed to be THAN and not THEN in certain situations? Shouldn't be all that hard.
  13. Is catsup an authentic word to replace Ketchup with? I thought it was just some joke that they made up to put in The Simpsons... I mean seriously, who can forget Mr Burns and his "catsup"? For a swedish person, catsup sounds a bit like swenglish. Cat = katt (eng) sup = supa = drink (alchohol, slang) (swedish) So it sounds like someone is refering to a cat who has been drinking alcohol. A cat-sup. catsup vs ketchup
  14. This question has been asked endless amounts of times on these forums, and I suggest searching before creating a new thread. It takes all between a year to ten years, depending on how much time you spend on it, if you live in the country where they speak the language you are learning, how simlar it is to languages you already know, and so on. To reach complete fluency, count with atleast 5-7 years. If it takes less time, awesome, but don't expect that to happen unless you spend a LOT of time on it.
  15. I don't actually think that this book series is very good for learning a new language, or anything else for that matter. It is true that I do not have the greatest experience with these books, but with the limited amount of experiecne that I do have with them, I feel like they're not worth my time nor my money. I feel like these books are meant more as a joke than as a really good book.
  16. I'm not a big fan of these storywriting ideas. I mean, I've done it countless amounts of times in school for both english and swedish class, and I must say... It isn't really the best way to show your knowledge if you ask me. Some people just have a very bad imagination, and even if they know "everything" about the language, they might be so anti-creative that they can't come up with anything to write, even if you give them a good idea to work around. I don't personally have this problem really, but I still find it easier to write about something that i don't have to come up with myself. I do like writing about myself though, as I really have no limit on how long I can talk about myself. I have so many thoughts in my head that I can just keep writign about them in eternity, more or less. Not really so that I describe myself a lot, but rather so that I think a LOT about EVERYTHING. So yeah, I can fill several A4 pages with my thoughts on any given subject, atlaest if it's like, something like my past, or something.
  17. I'm sure some people are so cheap that they refuse to even spend a cent on learning materials or anything. They'll just download PDF files from the internet instead of buying books, and they'll use the computer for everything, so they won't have to use any paper/waste money. Other people may even go to such lenghts that they travel to the country where the language you are learning is spoken. Because after all, we all know that by living in a country where they speak a different language than you do, you will eventually learn how to speak in that language, just by being exposed to it daily. Just being there on a short trip of two days or something, may not help you that much, but staying for a few weeks or so, could probably help a lot if you're already studying the language. And of course, you can buy books, you can pay teachers, you can buy software... There are so many things you can spend money on that will help you learn faster/better. And it's really all up to you and your wallet. How much money are you prepared to spend on learning a new language? Creativity allowed. Personally the only money i've spent on learning languages is the book Remembering the Kanji. It felt pretty odd, buying a book... Or anything at all for that matter. I'm usually a very cheap bastard, that never purchases anything, but I felt like this book was well worth my... what... 25 dollars? It's nothing! I do however refuse to pay to use some service like WaniKani to learn kanji, or something like that. Books are fine, but software? No, that's across my line.
  18. The block between the people who use the raw Heisig-method and the people who use Heisig+Readigs is quite huge, and it never seems to settle down, because well... As with most other things, people don't very easily change opinion, and so called "debates" is more like arguing over your own opinion while still knowing that the other person will... Probably never get your point, or change opinion. Do you learn the readings aswell? Why/Why not? You can of course answer even if you're not using Heisig's method, but I assume most people use his book(s)... Most, but not all, of course. Personally I did learn the readings aswell, for about 50 kanji, but after having learned those I started questioning it, and looked around for some information on the topic, and I found myself leaning more and more towards the "no-readings" side. I just found that it did take an awful lot of tiem to learn those readings, more often than not I could remember the key word for the kanji very quickly, but the readings took quite a while to learn. At the same time, I also felt like I was wasting my time, because I didn't think that I would have much use of these readings. And honestly, apart from when the kanji's reading is the same as the word for it (I mean... The reading for one is hito/hitotsu/hitottsu and that is also the WORD they use for saying 1 when speaking) I find it rather pointless to learn the readings, as I can just learn those later on when learning the vocab related to those readings. Truly there are quite a lot of kanji which is used as a word, or rather, one of their readings which is used as a word... But at the same time, there are also tons of readings/kanji that aren't used outside of compounds. I do see the benefits of learning the readings aswell, but I don't think it's really worth my time right now.
  19. Well, not really. I do remember using the old-fashioned style of flashcards back in the day, I even remember the "machine" that my teacher taught me how to make. It was kind of a flashcard system, but with a milk-package... I don't quite remember what it was for, but I think I remember what it was, for flashcards, in some way. Today I mostly just use digital flashcards, to save on paper/ink/everytyhing. I do however draw things every once in a while to get my imagination flowing when I'm practising the Kanji. Other than that, I think most digital/new methods are better than old ones. And if we're using old methods, the're probably digitalized/modernized by now.
  20. Old thread, I know... But I recently got my copy of Remembering the Kanji in the mail, actually... Three days ago if i remember correctly. The sixth/newest edition that is, and I got it new from Bookdepository. I did use some old Pdf I found online before, but since it didn't include all the kanji that the new edition has, I thought I was better off buying a copy. (I think it was the fourth edition that I found on pdf...). Either way, it's a good enough book for me to want to support Heisig with my cash. Honestly I do think that RTK is a very good method. At first I too thought that it would be very important to learn the readings and everything, and for about 50 kanji or so, I did learn as many meanings and readings as possible for each and every kanji. I did however realise that after doing 50 of them, it wasn't really worth my time. After reading some more on the subject and asking about other peoples opinions, I got to the conclusion that it's better if i just learn the readings with vocabulary instead of with the kanji. Surely there can be some great usage of knowing a lot of readings right off the bat, but I found that it doesn't really matter all that much, atleast not to me. So, I'm now only learning one meaning per kanji, and doing everything the RTK way. It's going much faster, and I could probably learn up to 50 kanji a day if I spent a lot of time on it. I don't quite have that much time though, and I do spend some time doing Anki flashcards to repeat the old ones I've learned, but yeah... It's a great book, which will get you on your feet really quickly. I think the most important part about knowing the kanji is just to recognize them. As in general, you're mostly going ot be reading them in compound words and all, the most important thing is of course to know those compound words/vocabulary. But to know those, you're going to need to recognize the kanji, otherwise it'll be hard... There are of course also times where one kanji = one word, but you can learn things like those while studying vocabulary aswell.
  21. Isn't this about the same as a flashcard system with pictures? To be honest, I don't actually see what the benefit would be of using this instead of using a flashcard program with pictures in it. Can you please, explain why one would choose to use this instead of a flashcard system?
  22. How could he possibly learn any japanese whatsoever from manga without studying japanese? You can't go in and read manga with 0 japanese language and say that it's helping you to learn the language. You wouldn't understand anything... You wouldn't even be able to read the individual syllables. The person in question does not have a status of currently studying japanese. I don't see why anyone would be on a language studying forum, and hide that they were studying a specific language... If it was that he HAD studied it before, it would be different, but if that is the case OP worded him/her self badly.
  23. You're reading what you want to read if I were to say so myself. Surely he/she can be interested in their culture, but being interested in some countrys culture is not the same as " it has been so helpful for me learning Japanese", and neither could you claim that OP is stating that he/she WANTS to study japanese because of manga. He/she clearly states that manga is helping him/her in learning japanese. Manga translated into english/other languages doesn't help you with learning japanese...
  24. Lol, you're not currently studying japanese, you're not fluent nor semi-fluent in it... But you say that you are addicted to manga and it's been helpful for your learning of the language? I'm smelling weird spam here Anyway, I do wish I could read manga, but that's a bit too hard for me as of now. My vocabulary is limited, I only know about 20 kanji... And so on. I'm not even on JLPT N5 as of yet, and it will probably take me several months to reach N5 level anyway... But when I get better, i will read japanese manga for sure! After all, one of my goals with japanese is to be able to read manga. (and other books, and visual novels, and understand dramas/anime... all without translations of course). But well, it'll take a few years before I can do all those things, but eventually it will happen!
  25. I'm not really sure what you mean by this question... "FOR" a new language? If you mean the last time I studied the language I am learning... It was yesterday evening. I was doing flashcards with kanji (after reading about them in Remembering The Kanji). Yesterday was all repetition though, because I felt like I needed to repeat all the 20-ish kanji I've learned so far, because I had forgotten a lot of them. Flashcards are the most effective for everything. Flashcards will rule the world...
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