宇崎ちゃん

@reverserewind Everyone has their own reasons/motivations to learn a given language. He wouldn't want to learn these languages otherwise.

I just checked it out (not installed, I only have a Windows phone at the moment), my first thought was "could have been better". I see it's just a textbook in disguise, but looking at the screenshots and reading the description, it's lacking so many important elements to help you remember anything. I always recommend to work with SRS + mnemonics, quizzes which you need to answer by typing (NOT multiple choice! We want to master a language, not an exam!), limited use of English/native language (preferably not at all) and speaking with an actual human being (live, not recorded). Besides, you can't just rely on a single app. You'll need to use the language all day long for many weeks or months to come. I don't expect you to only use Japanese though. I must use Dutch, Polish and English every single day and I still manage to make progress in other languages.

Yes and no. Japanese and Mandarin are completely different languages in every single aspect, so confusion is not as much of a problem as if you would learn German and Dutch at the same time for example. Both languages are quite easy to learn when it comes to logic, pronunciation, etc. On the other hand, seeing you're a native English speaker and only have fluency in German (according to your profile), you'll need to learn both languages entirely from scratch. While Japanese has a whole lot of English loan words, not everything will be understood by Japanese natives. Like "キーボード" (kiiboodo) will be understood as "keyboard", while something like "マイオーンハウス" (mai oon hausu) will not be understood as "my own house". But on the bright side: if you're planning to learn Japanese kanji and most of the suggested jukogo words first, you'll notice how much easier learning Chinese will become. I was randomly browsing the Chinese course at iKnow.jp, looked at a couple of words and I was happily surprised by how many Chinese words I already know, even though I've never heard of these words before (in Chinese that is). Like let's say the word for "time". In Chinese, that would be "时间" (shíjiān). In Japanese, that's "時間" (jikan). It's quite possible you won't see any similarities at first, but if you just pronounce the Japanese one first and then you pronounce the Chinese one (or vice versa), you'll see what I mean.

Being someone with a big passion to all things Japanese, I decided to start blogging about just this language, culture and more. I may as well add Chinese to the mix in the future, but I rather see Lingua do this already. URL: http://www.ispeak.jp/ As you can see, the TLD in question is a .jp domain name, just so it would read as "I speak Japanese". And for those server geeks among us, it's indeed being hosted on a server in Japan, that's because I have plans to go to Japan within this year. But it's not for sure yet, I first want to get my Japanese to a similar level as my English, master at least 80% of the jouyou kanji and lose weight to a more acceptable weight. AND for the total geeks among us, it's indeed running on a blog software I wrote myself (source code and download). I'll try to do my best to make a new blog post every Sunday, the first one being this Sunday. Also, you will be able to ask your burning questions about Japanese soon on my upcoming forum. And you can even practise your written Japanese skills there too. I'll reveal more details later.

Once again, I can't speak for those people since I'm not a Frenchman, German or Swiss, so if you say so based on your own experience, I will definitely not deny it. Japanese grammar is easier than Spanish, I agree on this one, but I actually meant to compare the grammar that comes closer to my native languages (which are Polish and Dutch). Spanish grammar is much closer to Polish and Dutch grammar, so in this example that should be easier to learn for me, but in fact it isn't. I don't speak any Turkish apart from knowing that that's an SOV language, but Japanese is an SOV language too, so I assume these 2 are closer related to each other. Oh, and one tip: if you love the enter key as much as I do, but you hate how this forum adds a white space because of that, just hold shift and press enter. That way your text will look much nicer to read.

I've split your question (originally here: http://linguaholic.com/topic/4443-for-beginners-what-language-should-i-learn-what-is-the-easiest-one/) to a new topic. Next time, make sure you make a new topic for questions irrelevant to the existing topic, because next time I will just delete your question.

That's actually quite an interesting thing you just mention, @flovo, not something you normally see. But I can see a bit where you're coming from, since passion to a language is just one element (an important one, but there are more). I was talking about passion to a specific culture, it's perfectly possible you hate the French language, while you still like French food, French movies, French beaches, etc. Apart from passion (and sorry I didn't mention it), another factor that makes a difference is effort. Because you perhaps you really like French or German, you still need to work hard to gain fluency. Perhaps that's the missing factor you have noticed with your student, perhaps French speakers are lazier than German speakers and the effort the German speakers put into French may be significantly higher. Because if grammar would be the real issue, I would have known Spanish much better than Japanese by now right? That's not the case however. But then again, I'm not a Frenchman, German nor Swiss, so I can't speak for them.

I can take a lot, but this just got too rude.

Having English as your native language doesn't make you the sage of everything regarding the English language. I often find myself in situations where I even have to teach Americans or Brits some English, because they "don't care about spelling and/or grammar". In many cases, non-natives can even get more knowledgeable to a given language than native speakers, because native speakers generally never learn super complicated words or rules while a non-native speaker does (unless the native speakers have to, like studying law for example).

Nice video @Richard.H. One question: why do you recommend stroke orders over radicals? You don't literally mention "stroke orders", but the explanation suggests this. The radical way is much easier to learn, much more Anki-friendly and most importantly: much more western adult friendly. For example: 語 What's easier to remember in this case? 14 strokes or 3 radicals?

I don't think you will find a Fijian here, but we do have lots of Filipinos and Americans around here. As for your last paragraph, sounds good to me. Both my LINE ID and Skype ID are the same as my forum username. However, I'll always ask you "who are you" if you add me on Skype before I accept your request. It's not meant to be rude, it's just to make sure I won't add any "sex bots" to my list.

Because as I already said before, it's an example of 1 day based on how I do it, it's not my exact daily routine. Besides, this example shows 1 hour and 30 minutes of listening (or even 2 hours if you count the "review" part, or even 2 hours and 30 minutes if you count the "watch news" part, or even more if you add up any empty 'on-the-go' spots).

@Mameha Yeah, I heard that Italians eat really late before (although it's still early compared to Spaniards). That schedule is just for demonstration, you don't need to follow it literally like that (knowing not everyone is learning Japanese, and knowing not everyone is a web- and game developer), In your case you could just swap "ask friends about ... based on what I found that day" and "dinner".

I used to have problems with time, but all I did was taking Google Calendar and scheduling all my activities there. It'll take lots of effort at the start, but it became a habit to me now. Also make sure your activities are described short, but specific. I won't show you my calendar obviously since it's highly confidential, but I can give you an example schedule based on how I do it. All day long - Go through the kanji on WaniKani. 7:00 - 7:30 - Wake up, shower, put on clothes, etc. 7:30 - 8:00 - Listen to a podcast at JapanesePod101. 8:00 - 8:30 - Breakfast. 8:30 - 9:00 - Flashcards. 9:00 - 12:30 - Web development job. 12:30 - 13:00 - Read or watch news in Japanese. 13:00 - 13:30 - Lunch. 13:30 - 17:30 - Game development job. 17:30 - 18:00 - Dinner. 18:00 - 19:00 - Ask friends about Japanese based on what I found that day. 19:00 - 20:00 - Listen to the same podcast again. 20:00 - 21:00 - Fitness. 21:00 - 22:00 - Review what I've learnt. 22:00 - Go to bed. Everything in bold is related to language learning. Try to fill up as many blank spaces as possible, every 2 minutes you're waiting for your train to arrive, every 5 minutes you wait for the waitress to give you your order, even that 1 minute you're waiting for the traffic lights to go green, it can all easily be used for language learning (like going through flashcards, apps, etc. on the go), because it adds up a lot in the end.

The biggest problem by far is context. Most apps won't teach you how to use vocab in the right context and the grammar is super simple forever. The second thing is that language apps never teach you how to speak (and if they do, they will never correct you). As for "traditional language learning", it depends on what you mean by that one. Traditional as in going to school, taking exams, cramming your new vocabulary into your brain by brute force? Or traditional as in learning with easy mnemonics and spaced repetition combined?

Background I honestly didn't accomplish as much as I wanted because I'm continuously moving from one desire to another. Sometimes I want to learn 11 languages in the coming few years, sometimes I only want to learn 4 of them, sometimes I only want to learn Mandarin and improve Japanese, and sometimes I only want to specialise in Japanese as much as I've specialised with English. Japanese But moving away from the pessimistic thoughts, I have accomplished a lot with Japanese myself. Over the time from 2008 to 2015 I couldn't manage to get any further than 100 vocab words and 1 grammar rule (not to mention it took me forever to speak it out). Then in mid-2015 I hired an online Japanese teacher via Skype and that's the point I actually started learning Japanese. My vocab range finally started to grow at a rapid speed, I discovered more grammar rules exist than just the basic "subject + object + verb" rule, my speaking ability improved a lot, my listening improved, just to name a few. Last November I started learning Kanji and even more vocabulary through WaniKani and a few days ago I gave JapanesePod101 another try (mainly for grammar and listening). However, I temporarily stopped arranging Skype lessons for budget reasons, and I feel confident enough on the speaking part for now. English Of course I made lots of progress with English during the second half of my life too (although I'm 4 years passed this half now). I started learning English at school at age 10, it was quite easy for me. After school I played lots of video games and I've been browsing on the internet a lot, which improved my English reading by a whole lot. Once I joined some forums, I was initially being mocked about my grammar, but I learnt how to write properly over time. Then YouTube came, product reviews popped on that platform and at first I couldn't follow it at all, but the more I watched, the more I could understand. And then I went to an international bachelor course where teachers mostly could only speak English. I could hardly say a word there, but after a few months I was perfectly able to speak. German I learnt German at school too, but I always get insufficient marks for it. After spending a single month learning German on Skype back in October, I became able to speak German. However, I didn't practise German after that at all, so when I went to Germany last month, I tried to speak German but others replied to me in English. Quite embarrassing at first, but it turned out to be a relief in the end, because when I tried to order something at the Subway in German, I ended up mixing German with Dutch and continuously saying "WAS?!" ("what" in German) because the employee spoke way too fast.

It's a common bullshit people massively believe in. Those are the same people who learnt everything through rote memorisation at school in 15-24 years and never heard of things like SRS or mnemonics. When I speak of the languages I speak, people always seem to be surprised 'about my abilities' and even start becoming jealous at me. I always say: "it's not a natural ability, it's just a self-created habit", but they never believe me when I say that.

That's Korean indeed. I don't know any Korean, but I can read it at the very least. Don't blame me for using spaces on the wrong spots, as I said I don't know any Korean. I yeong ae (cheon sam do seong) 1969.7.16. Dae hanmin geuk kaen jusi Bang mun ginyeom ---------------- 이 영 애 (천삼도성) 1969.7.16. 대한민극 킁추시 방문기념

I have split your post to a new topic and deleted your clone post. Next time make a new topic for such things.

NOTE: THIS IS NOT MY OWN QUESTION, THIS TOPIC IS MEANT TO CUT THE AMOUNT OF "WHAT SHOULD I LEARN"-TYPE OF TOPICS! Even though the best answer is obvious and applies to literally everyone, I understand beginners to language learning don't know the answer. You can see this throughout this entire forum, on other forums, on social media, even in real life this question seems to be a big struggle to everyone. With this thread I'd like to give you a solid answer to both questions: "What language should I learn"? and "What is the easiest one"? The answer is: follow your heart. Take an honest look at the culture of all languages you consider to learn, research each of them throughout. Which culture did you like most? That's the language you should learn AND that's the easiest one. Simple enough ey? Languages are closely tied to cultures. The golden rule is: if you don't like the culture, it'll be very difficult to learn. And if you manage to learn it any way, you'll forget it quickly. This goes for all languages, from Romance languages to Chinese. From Swahili to Slavic languages. That's all. Any complaints, doubts, disagrees or similar? Feel free to ask or comment.

Good luck! I'm currently running through the Kanji characters (Chinese characters in Japanese) through WaniKani. I can say that website helped me a lot in a very short time already (level 13 out of 60 at the moment of writing). I hope to find a similar website for the remaining Chinese characters not used in Japan. I recommend that site to all learners of Japanese. It's quite useless for Chinese learners (especially because of the vocabulary), but my reason mentioning it is simply because I wonder if something similar exists for Chinese too.

I ordered a PS Vita capture kit from Japan at one point and the manual made me laugh a whole week: (I made everything that's extra funny bold, because it's a lot of text.) Thanks for purchase and explanation about how to use Thank you for having you purchase a false fatty tuna capture kit. It is Katsuki in charge of the support. The driver installation is not automatic. I become hand-operated. Please download a driver and the viewer from the following URLs. (CENSOR) serial number is (CENSOR) Please perform the exclusion and adding of the miniUSB cable carefully. I do not recognize that I treat it violently. It is broken when I let you reverse it. I look well, and please shine. When it breaks down, please apply for repair. When I disintegrate by oneself, I become out of repair, a guarantee object. [1.an installation method] Please look for a not clear device in device managers. Or please look for the device which I skip USB and shine and do it, and is recognized. Please defrost device driver from the URL that I contacted. When I connect USB, I click the right button of the not clear device I appoint driver folder, and please update the driver, The device appoints a universal birth control troller not an automatic search Please appoint the folder which the driver downloaded. [2.a way of the capture] Please start nPSV_view.exe. When an error is given, I search DirectX run time from the site of Microsoft, and please download it. The sound a mini-plug cable from earphone Jack of Nintendo3DS Please be connected to LineIN of the PC. It becomes the full screen by double click. [3 does not start] Please exclude capture board, all the peripheral devices. When a screen it distracted, only an upper screen chooses only a lower screen, and it list persuasion with an error frame; please do it so that there is it. Please join the connection together to a PC without a USB hub directly. When it is recognized to be other apparatuses by mistake, I display the non-indication device in device managers, Please delete the misrecognizing hardware. [4 cannot install it] Look at wiki for http://katsukity.blog123.fc2.com. In addition, I write it on the following pages in detail. When http://katsukity.blog123.fc2.com/blog-entry-443.html never goes well; ... Please send a contact to "(CENSOR)" of Skype. I cope by remote installation. The support free on the same day only at the time of the first purchase. The reinstallation by the PC replacement by purchase has a case to take time.

Now I look at it more closely, it may possibly be Hebrew? http://www.omniglot.com/writing/hebrew.htm Hebrew is the language and writing system of Israel (and the Jewish people in general).

I have decided to flip things around and remake this app for Windows 10 (phone and PC) and Android. I'll make it a paid app and will offer vocab training into each alphabet. So you'll not just learn to recognise alphabets, you'll also learn to get used to actually reading those too. I already started building the Windows 10 version, the Android version will come right after I'm done with the Windows 10 version. Maybe iOS too, but that'll be after release (because unlike the other 2, the iOS license costs money). And I'm considering a Nintendo 3DS version too, but it's at least trice as hard to program on than on any mobile platform (as far as I have experienced myself).

Perhaps you can find it on your own here.