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Lasonax

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Everything posted by Lasonax

  1. 1. Japanese (Currently studying this... so it's kind of self-explanitory) 2. Korean 3. French 4. Latin 5. Chinese My reasons for wanting to learn these are pretty silly if you ask me, hence why I'm only learning japanese at the moment... It's possible that I will learn another language in the future, jsut because I like learning languages and I just want to know more about another country and all... But yeah. As for japanese, I'm learning it to read japanese literature/manga/light novels/visual novels, and watch drama/anime/etc. In other words, to understand japanese entertainment. I'm of course also very interested in their culture, but my "goal" would be to understand all types of entertainment, which is of course a very huge goal... Since I'm certain there are very advanced types of literature in japanese, that would require me to know about 3000 kanji or something. Not a problem though! I love learning languages Either way, since it's so far away that I will reach that goal, I'm not really studying at the moment with the carrot in mind. If I was constantly thinking of how much time I have left until I reach the goal, I would be driven nuts and stop studying, because it would be so far away.
  2. I never even considered the possibility that there would be visual dictionaries out there... Seriously. I'm really just used to "regular" dictionaries, and having pictures/visuals feels a bit like adding extra space for no real purpose. (Instead of making it an encycopedia filled with words and pictures, that size could be used to include more words, instead of pictures!) Oh well, I don't really know if I "prefer" regular dictionaries or not. I mostly use the internet for looking up words, as I'm not really fond of physical dictionaries. They cost money, you know.
  3. When speaking english I usually have a somewhat british accent. It's not "as british" as british people, but when I speak in a formal situation my british tones are clearly noticeable. I'm not from Britain though, so it's a misleading accent... The swedish accent that you sometimes hear when people speak english, is really just an accent that comes from people being bad at english. I have never heard of anyone who is good at english who spoke with a strong swedish accent. People who speak with such an accent usually barely know any english at all, and they tend to speak swenglish (as in, their vocabulary is very limited).
  4. Haha, yeah, that's why I said it was gramatically incorrect. "Feeling"/"Filling" are both correctly spelled words, but the sentences are gramatically incorrect. (Gramatically incorrect = completely incorrect in this case. I think we mean the same thing...) True, although I do have a feeling that people who are on these forums atleast know some english. After all, it's a forum where people speak english... Unless one is here simply to learn more English, I would deem it hard to be here at all without some english knowledge.
  5. If you know of any method apart from the ones mentioned here, leave a comment and I will add it to the list! Classroom method/Repetition: The one that is taught in classrooms across the world, and it is the way the natives learn. Many people will argue that this is a bad method for non-japanese people to learn, while others will defend the traditional way of learning the kanji. If you do use this method, make sure to go from simple kanji to complex kanji. Not from simple meanings to complex meanings! (this is the way japanese children learn. It works for them because of them already being fluent in spoken japanese) Pros: If you have time to kill, use this method: because it will surely take a lot of time. Cons: Quite inefficient for most people. Flashcards This is a method simlar to the one stated above, except that you aren't writing them. Flashcards are arguably one of the best methods of learning, but on it's own it's a bit on the weaker side. There are people who only use flashcards for learning, but for Kanji that is not really recommended. It's a great tool for learning, but not on it's own. Pros: Easily organized. You can easily tell what you have learned and what you have forgotten. Combines well with other things. Cons: Not really a method on its own. Resources: Anki, iKnow.co.jp, Memrise Vocabulary & Experience Again, this is not really a method on it's own, but there are people who uses this as a method on it's own. I would not advise to use this method on it's own either, but I suppose some people may be succesful with it. It's simply so that, you do not study the individual kanji, but you rely on experience and vocabulary alone to learn the kanji. It may/will be quicker than learning the individual kanji, as yu will be learning vocabulary at the same time. But the biggest problem with this is that, the kanji not used often in compound words, you will most likely not learn/remember/see very often at all. Combined with flashcards, it is a working method however. You simply learn the readings and meanings from experience alone. Pros: Learn a lot of vocabulary, learning in context. Cons: Probably not much more efficent than learning the other way around. (Kanji first - vocab/experience second) Resources: Various Anki decks, any vocabulary deck, any vocabulary list Mnemonics (Heisig) Arguably one of the most popular ways of learning the kanji in the west-world these days. You will be learning all the kanji extremely quickly compared to many other methods, but you will only be learning one meaning, and you won't be learning any readings. This won't really be a problem, if you count on learning the rest from vocabulary and experience. It may not be quicker in the long run however. Pros: Fastest method for learning the most common kanji. (Short term) Cons: You don’t learn the readings. By the way, the readings are the hardest part, so after you are done with this: you got the hard stuff left. Resources: Heisig’s Remembering The Kanji (A book. Most online bookstores have it, like Amazon) Mnemonics (Meanings and Readings) This is pretty much a branch out on Heisig's method: as it's a community centered around the book. However, instead of just learning the meanings of the kanji, you also learn the readings of them in a simlar way that you would learn the meanings of them. Naturally it will take more time than just using heisig's book, but personally I would recommend anyone using the book to use this website aswell, or some other supplement to the book, even if that requires more time. However, if you are into trying to learn the meanings of all the kanji in just a few months, noone is going to stop you from just using heisig's book. Your choice! I'm personally using this method, as in the book + readings. There are anki decks which has the on'yomi and the kun'yomi readings in them. I would suggest focusing on the kun'yomi, as it's worthless to learn the on'yomi without the corresponding words. (on'yomi is the reading which is used when the kanji is in a compound word. kun'yomi is the reading used when the kanji is used as a word by itself) Pros: Readings and meanings are both learned. Fairly quick learning. Cons: Without vocabulary, these things can get a bit messy. Due to some kanji having a lot of readings, you may end up learning some less common/"useless" ones. Resources: Kanji Koohi RTK + Anki decks/other flashcards Mnemonics (Meanings, Readings and Vocab) This speaks for itself. It will take much more time than the two other mnemonics-methods stated above, and you will surely feel like you are behind in your studied compared to people that has already "learnt" hundreds of kanji using Heisig's book. But trust me, over time: this will most likely be the quickest method of learning. Maybe not for the moment, but in time. Personally I find it easier to focus on one thing at a time, i.e learn the kanji first - then the corresponding vocab. But learning everything at once may work better for some. Pros: Everything adds up, giving you a stronger foundation on which your kanji/vocab knowledge will lie on. Arguably the fastest method over a long-term. Cons: Takes much more time than other alternatives, you may end up learning some "unnecesary"/less-common vocabulary if you do not know what words to learn. Resources: WaniKani, KanjiDamage Radicals Consists of basically learning what every part of the kanji is/means. (Note: Not all radicals have meanings. Asking what one radical means can sometimes be like asking what one letter in a word means in english). There are supposedly 214 radicals at this moment. You could either learn all the radicals before you start learning the kanji, or you can learn them as you study the kanji. The first option could be rather boring in the long run, and it will get you nowhere in your kanji studies for quite a while (but may be faster than any other method long-term) - so I would advise everyone to do the latter one. Atleast then you will have a feeling that you are getting somewhere with your kanji studies. This method is of course not a real method on it's own, since you still need to choose whenever you want to learn only the meaning or the reading and so on... But it can be an extremely handy tool in recognizing the kanji, and breaking them down. Pros: Makes sense, may possibly be the fastest way of learning the kanji. Cons: Could get boring in the long run if you are only studying the radicals first. Not a method on it's own, and could take longer time than other methods. Resources: KanjiDamage , KanjiAlive, WaniKani
  6. I try not to listen to too much Japanese Music. It's just too good, and I'd hate to ruin the music by listening too much to it. But yeah, it's a great way of learning words/pronounciation and all. Of course it's less effective than raw studying, but it's better than nothing for sure!
  7. I very rarely send text messages, I very rarely use the phone at all actually... But when I do, I try not to use a lot of shortcuts, or any at all. But if it's needed to keep the text length down, I will use it. Because ain't no way I'm spending an extra cent on sending a double-text just because I wasn't using shortcuts! But as I said, I really never send text messages. As far as chatting goes, I don't care too much for my grammar and spelling, and I may sometimes use chat-language... But usually I try to keep myself on a normal level of spelling/grammar/etc, so, very few shortcuts if any.
  8. That's a lot of time you're spending on learning languages! I wish I had the dedication to spend that much time... I'm not lacking motivation, but rather concentration. I keep telling myself that after I've finished Japanse The Manga Way, I'll start studying much more every day... But well, I don't know if that's really going to happen. As I am mostly focusing all my study time onto japanese the manga way, and nothing else, it's not really much to be said about my regimen, as I don't even have one. I try to read one lesson a day (which is between 2-6 pages or something per lesson. The pages are pretty huge though, I think they're A4 sized with somewhat small text), and I certainly don't rush it. I make sure that i understand everything. I may not remember everything, but if I understand it: I will have an easier time learning it again the next time I encounter it. I know, I should probably just drop this book and go straight to Tae Kim's guide if I'm not even trying to remember everything very well... But I feel like, I've started this book, gotten further than half way through it: so I'm going to finish it. I mostly just spend any dead time I can find on reading the book. On weekends where I have all the free time in the world, I try to sit down for half an hour or an hour, or whatever time it takes, to read that lesson. I also make sure I go thorugh the kana atleast once a week, ot make sure that I do not forget them. I use anki for that, of course, and it doesn't take much more time than maybe... 10-20min at max.
  9. Everyone has an imagination. Well, almost everyone... As far as books vs movies goes, I do think there are other reasons than just imagination that makes a book more enjoyable for most. One reason being that the book often offers more information, and so on. I really don't know how to answer this question other than... Of course I have an imagination. I don't see the point in imagining essays though.
  10. Depends on what language it is, but I think no matter what language it is I would use the internet the most. Books are limited in the library, and buying books is not really a good option if you ask me. I mean, the book might not work at all for you, and then you would have wasted a lot of money on that book... As far as Japanese goes, I'm currently reading Japanese The Manga Way (physical book, basic grammar) which I found at the library. (It was literally the only decent book the library had about japanese learning. They also had some very old and used book that the university supposedly used/uses for teaching japanese, but obviously that isn't a book good for self-learners, since it's used in the classroom) After I'm done with that, I will start Tae Kim's guide to japanese grammar. (website) Aside from that, I use flashcards for vocabulary and the kana/kanji (the characters). I use Anki for flashcards, which is a program/app for the PC and the smartphone. I may also use the flashcards for grammar when I start Tae Kim's guide. Tae Kim's guide is also pretty basic grammar, and I know where to look to find more advanced resources, but I don't really know of any right off the bat. I'm not a big fan of classes, since they limit your studying speed. The only good thing with classes is that you get to study with other people, and it's good if you want to learn how to speak the lagnuage in question properly. If you are fine with being able to passively understand spoken and written (insert language here) then I think self-studying is superior. Atleast if you have assistance to get somewhere, like... This forum, the internet in general, or a friend who knows the language. No matter how good books you have, you'll probably need help at some point, and being able to ask for help on a forum or something, is really awesome.
  11. I agree, to a certain extent. I find using words such as "rofl" and so on to be quite annoying to hear in real life, or in spoken speech whatsoever. But a laid back "lol" from the right person can sometimes sound natural. It really depends on who is saying it and when, but generally I'd advise everyone to use regular speech when outside of a chatting room... I also think that forums like these should be considered a step up from "normal" chat rooms. As in, I don't think people should use "lol" and such too much on forums. I'm not someone who complains directly to anyone about it, I'm just saying what I think when I'm asked.
  12. "I don't have filling for you I don't have feeling for you" Are really one of these correct? They both sound gramatically incorrect to me... I got it 100% correct anyway. The answers were pretty obvious, since there were only two choices and one of the choices on every question was just so wrong that it was almost funny.
  13. I don't really think that there are "easy" and "hard" languages. I suppose there may be some languages that many would consider to be simple in nature, but many languages have simple parts to them: and some more complex parts. It depends on a lot, I mean... No matter how "hard" the language is, if your parents tought it to you from birth you wouldn't really have a hard time with that language. I think English is quite simple, but I've studied english for so many years that I can't even begin to think how I thought of it when i was new. I've been exposed to so much english daily, that I feel like I've spoken and written more in english than I have in my native language. With that being said, English does have some more complex parts to it, as with every other language. Take german as an example, for a swedish person like me: many of the german words are very easy to learn due to swedish similarities. And thus, a lot of people consider german to be an "easy language", but if they were to start studying it... They'd realise that it really isn't. While vocabulary would be easy for us sweidsh people, the grammar is quite complex. I found the grammar to be very enjoyable, but I know a lot of people who cursed over how hard the grammar was. In the same way, do I think that some parts of english is very simple, but there are also quite complex/hard parts with english. It's a very subjective question though.
  14. You don't. Well, to be honest as far as languages go... A lot of people hate being corrected, no matter how bad they are: they feel like you're hitting them in the face if you are correcting them. No matter how polite you are, chances are they will still get pissed, and call you a besserwisser. As it is a friend you're talking about and all, I would assume that this person may have some respect for you, and thus can handle you correcting him/her. I don't really think there is some certain phrase you shoudl use to correct him/her or anything, just try to be nice, and point out that "Maybe you could try to say it this way instead..." or just pointing out politely and nicely that... The pronounciation of your speech is a bit off, you could spend some time practising on that. No matter how polite of a phrase you will have, it will be very hard to say it, because it is almost like insulting someone to correct their speech. Good luck!
  15. I suppose five minutes a day is better than nothing, but personally, if I had learned 100-200 words in a year, I wouldn't really be happy about it, even if it was just five minutes a day. I know I could have done more than that, time is rarely an issue for anyone to be honest. It's just a matter of sacrifising more of your free-time used for fun things, and using it on studying instead. A lot of days I don't have a single minute for fun, and most weekdays are like that. I have some time on weekends to watch anime, or do something else just for fun, but besides that: I tend to spend a lot of time trying to learn more Japanese, earn money, study school-related subjects... and so on. I'm not saying that everyone who claims that they don't have time "does in fact have time", but rather so that... I think that many, but not all, people have more time than they think. Five minutes a day could easily be doubled to ten minutes a day, or maybe taken to 20-30 minutes a day. If you have a physical book that you use for studying, or just some printed out pages of whatever study material you have, you'll see that there are lots of "dead-moments" during your day that you can spend on studying your language. In total, you'd probably have studied for 10-40 minutes a day this way, even if it was very short moments at a time. As long as the concentration is very deep for those few minutes, it's very effective. Personally I tend to read Japanese The Manga Way (A basic-level grammar book. Not the best out there, but I found it at the library, and it's quite good for dead-time studying) when I have a short break, I sit on the bus, or I happen to eat lunch alone. I probably spend over half an hour a day reading that book, without actually thinking that I'm spending so much time on it. But yeah, five minutes a day is still better than nothing. Especially if you already know a lot, then you could easily have just five minutes a day to make sure that you will remember most of what you have already learned/reviewing the knowledge you already have.
  16. Actually, learning two languages at once isn't more complicated than reading two books at the same time. People who have not tried it before will say that you're probably going to confuse everything, but it's really not a problem that most people will run into in practise. Unless you're trying to learn Swiss german and "normal" german at the same time, or something like that, I don't think you'd risk confusing things. Chinease and Japanese at the same time might be confusing due to the chinease characters and everything... But everything is doable, and I haven't tried learning two very closely related languages myself, so I shouldn't say anything about that really...
  17. Getting laughed at is always embarrasing, no matter what the reason. I don't think I've gotten laughed at for my english accent though, since I speak a fairly british type of english. I've had british people that said my accent wasn't completely british though, even if it had some british undertones, but that's about it. Most non-british people always thought I was british though. I may have gotten laughed at, but I can't remember it.
  18. Being exposed to a language is definately the best way to learn, and surely the same would go with writing and reading aswell. Unless you were studying an asian language and knew no characters whatsoever that is... It would probably be possible to learn anyway, but considering there are several thousand of characters in Japanese/Chinease, it would probably not be possible to learn their writing system just by living there. If it's a country that uses letters that you are familiar with however, I think it could be possible. Eventually you would make the connection between the spoken word and the script, and it would thus all connect. All parts of a language are connected, reading/listening/speaking/writing, are all connected. Learning to do one of them will help you out in the other ones aswell. I'm personally focusing only on passive knowledge in japanese (reading/listening), but even so: I still learn some writing and speaking, even if i do not try to do so. It's because it's just so that, you would have to actively try not to learn how to do the other things to not learn atleast some of them.
  19. Very much depends on what your goal is (see my thread "When do you consider yourself to be "done"?"), how fast of a learner you are, how close the language is to other languages you already know... and so on. I spent three years studying German, and I still didn't really reach some kind of fluency even though I were pretty good at it. But, that was in a school class. Meaning I had to adapt my learning speed to the rest of the class, and to be honest: my classmates were terrible. I'm currently studying Japanese on my own, in my own speed, and I think it will take me ATLEAST 3 years before I can read and listen to some basic things. In 4-6 years, I might be able to listen and read somewhat fluently, but i would not be surprised if it took up to 10 years before I became fluent in reading and hearing. It really depends on how much time I will have in the future. At the moment my studying speed is VERY slow, but I expect it to go up in the future, when I am done with the grammar book I am currently reading. I'd rather expect too little from myself, in that it would take a lot of time, than think that it would go quickly. Because if I think it will take a lot of time, I'll just be happy if it took less time. Thinking that I "will probably make it in a year" would more or less put pressure on myself that I "have to" make it in a year. Something that I would not be able to do, for sure. Months fly by so quickly, and even if I'm sure I will have gone a very long way in a whole year, reaching fluency, or even semi-fluency in a year: is out of the question.
  20. I find that it doesn't really matter for me. The only language I have not taken classes in that I am/have studied, is Japanese, and I'm doing pretty well all on my own to be honest. It would be superb to have a teacher to ask and all, but there are usually enough helpful people online that can help me if I run into a problem. Of course, practising with other students is crucial if you want to learn how to speak well in a language. It's hard to practise speaking all on your own... German class for me was mostly learning on my own, since I was pretty much the only one in the classroom that was on my level. I was very good at languages even then, and I had a very easy time learning things. My classmates in the german class did not however, and most of them were insanely bad at German. So, because of that, I often had to study something on my own while they were working with something else, that i had already learned a good while ago. I may be exaggerating on how often that happened, but it wasn't strange that I already knew what the teacher was teaching us, and I was just there because i had to (repetition is never bad... and of course, I HAD to be there) and to answer all questions if there were any. Eventually i stopped answering the questions though, as my teacher realised that I always knew the answers... And she wanted the others to answer aswell, of course.
  21. EDIT: Since no answers were recieved and I had to desperately find answers elsewhere, here is the result of my searches. A sentence modifying a noun that is modifying a noun, like this example: これはそんな雪国で強くたくましく生きる男の物語である。 ( Kore wa sonna yukiguni de tsuyoku takumashiku ikiru otoko no monogatari de aru ) Can be split up in pieces to better understand the meaning of the entire sentence. Like this: 雪国で生きる男 - man who lives in snow country (Yukiguni de ikiru otoko = lit. Snow country in live man) 男の物語 - story of man (otoko no monogatari = lit. Man (modifier/of) story) 雪国で生きる男の物語 - story of man who lives in snow country (yukiguni de ikiru otoko no monogatari = lit. snow country in live(s) man of story) "As for how you will start to be able to comprehend these while reading, it's down to context and familiarity. The sentence starts with これは; once you're reading at some level of comprehension you should already have an idea that the これ they are referring to is the story. (は cannot occur inside sentence modifiers so you know this part is standalone and setting up the topic for the sentence). So you can expect that the sentence is going to end with something like 物語. If you start from the end of the sentence and work backwards you can see what the modifiers are, but of course when reading you want to be able to do it without having to go through the sentence twice. This is one of the most difficult aspects of Japanese comprehension, in my opinion. Fortunately you have an advantage in that your brain is already trained in your native language to anticipate what can or should come next in sentences, and in time you will pick this ability up in Japanese as well. I'm not sure I can really answer any better "how to think," unfortunately it does take time and experience with the language." /yudantaiteki I hope this may be of use to someone else aswell. I can't stress how useful these tips were for me, I'm very happy for finally understanding this.
  22. "Love" is a powerful word, but I do enjoy writing in Japanese for sure. Can't say that I love it though. Truth be told, I am very bad at writing it, and I don't know how to write very much at all. My studies are focused entirely on passively understanding japanese (listening/reading) and not at all on writing/speaking. I do however know how to write a few hiragana and katakana, and I can write a few simple words with the limited amount of kana that I know how to write... And it's definately fun, but it's not fun enough for me to learn how to write all of the characters. It would simply take a lot more time to learn how to speak and write it aswell. Not just having to learn all the characters, but I would also have to focus entirely different when it comes to learning grammar aswell. It would not be enough to just recognize particles and grammatical structures, I would also have to remember them good enough to use them myself. And there is actually a very huge differance between those two. So considering everything, it would take way too much time to learn how to speak and write, and I would prefer to spend that time on improving my passive abilities instead. After all, the usage I will have for the language, when I know "enough", will be entirely passive. I will "never"/barely have any use for being able to write and speak it, other than a few visits to Japan in the future. And for that, I have heard that most japanese natives speak english very well. Besides, I will most likely be able to speak atleast a bit even when I'm only focusing on passive knowledge. And, uhm. FYI: I do know how to pronounce japanese words myself, maybe not perfectly, but good enough if you ask me. Knowing how to pronounce all the kana is crucial even if your goal is 100% passive knowledge.
  23. I personally hate the fact that slang words are being put into the dictionary, simply because I find slang words to not belong there. I think that slang words should be kept as slang, and not be put into the dictionary. By putting them into the dictionary, they are basically allowing the usage of slang terms in somewhat more formal situations. Even if the world will have an informal/slang-y reputation, it will be allowed to use it in essays/school reports/etc. I know, they are simply putting new words into the dictionary, and they are adding words which a lot of people use. But personally I'm more for the controlled type of language where something needs to be more than just a popular word to be added to the dictionary. I suppose I am not very liberalistic when it comes to thigns such as these. The same phenomenon happens a lot in the swedish language, and there it is even worse if you ask me. A lot of words that has been brought here by immigrants are being added into the dictionary because they are used so much by youngsters around here. We do have a pretty high amount of immigrants, and it's not surprising that such words gets popular with youngsters, but I still do not like that they are added to the official dictionary. I just don't see any point with it. To a certain extent, I would prefer the language to control us, and not the other way around. We do of course need to change things every now and then to adapt to how people talk and everything, but addings slangs feels like a step too much, but I am certain many will disagree with me on that. I feel like I have repeated myself a dussin times now...
  24. You turn on "japan mode" on your computer. It sounds more fun than it actually is, and I only did it so that I could play a visual novel... Which was translated, by the way. Still feels pretty cool to have "Japan Mode" on my computer. The only differance is that some websites sometimes think that I live in Japan (and I am then redirected to their japanese page...) and that Word looks different. (Word in "Japan Mode" has ingoing corners on the sides. I'm bad at explaining it... Anyway it's obvious that those are there for japanese writing to look better. It looks somewhat odd when you don't write in japanese though) On a more serious note, I don't really know. Maybe when you chose to start learning a fourth language? I've studied German for three years, so I'm now on my fourth if that counts... I was very good at german, but since I don't really need it, I'd rather spend my energy on learning japanese instead. And FYI I don't really know how to write in Japanese, nor do I have a very good vocabulary... Yet.
  25. Here are 16 children books, they're 100% hiragana though, so it might be a bit challenging to read it. But well, all/most children books are bound to have mostly hiragana anyway, and I suppose you already know that. http://life.ou.edu/stories/ Good luck!
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