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How can i learn Japanese?

jamie!

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Hi, i was born and currently live in England and have been watching lots of anime recently and other stuff.
Basically, i want to learn japanese.
Is there any way i can? Any website? anything that could help me? Thanks, James.
 
I've recommended this to so many people, but only because it's worked amazingly for me. Try Pimsleur CD, I got mine for my birthday a few years ago, but it only costed a couple of pounds from Ebay. It's a great course and teaches you so that you can remember things more easily.

Learn the language in the order that you learned your native language; listening and speaking, and then reading and writing. Don't try and learn the three alphabets first like I almost did. :')

When you get to reading and writing, I recommend Doctor Moku's Hiragana and Katakana for the first two alphabets. You'll want to learn kanji last because you need to know at least 2000 characters from it to be classed as fluent in the language.

If you can stay motivated, then you can do it.
 
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If you have a device for streaming podcasts, NHK has a series on learning Japanese.

- - - Post Merge - - -

Here is a link, by the way: http://www.nhk.or.jp/lesson/english/
 
If you're genuinely serious about it , I'll give you my best advice I can.
Start off learning the hiragana and katakana. Try your best to drop romaji. It's hard to progress if you can't learn to read first. Make flash cards, color code them, listen to alphabet songs, whatever helps you remember it best. Kanji can wait once you're comfortable recognizing each letter.

Once you can read , buy a Japanese dictionary. Have people correct your grammar. Search YouTube videos, there's tons. And google had tons of grammar guides. Read children's books. Any words you don't know, use your dictionary. Try to recognize common words. Pay attention to expression in people's voices to grasp how the language flows. Google image words to get better visuals. Learn the history of kanji meanings. It helps visualize better and remember their meaning.

Push yourself to think in the language. Maybe change your phone language to Japanese when you feel comfortable. Surround yourself as much as you can to use the language. Study study study. In time you'll improve ^^
 
I've recommended this to so many people, but only because it's worked amazingly for me. Try Pimsleur CD, I got mine for my birthday a few years ago, but it only costed a couple of pounds from Ebay. It's a great course and teaches you so that you can remember things more easily.

Learn the language in the order that you learned your native language; listening and speaking, and then reading and writing. Don't try and learn the three alphabets first like I almost did. :')

When you get to reading and writing, I recommend Doctor Moku's Hiragana and Katakana for the first two alphabets. You'll want to learn kanji last because you need to know at least 2000 characters from it to be classed as fluent in the language.

If you can stay motivated, then you can do it.

are u fluent japanese speaker now?
 
If you're genuinely serious about it , I'll give you my best advice I can.
Start off learning the hiragana and katakana. Try your best to drop romaji. It's hard to progress if you can't learn to read first. Make flash cards, color code them, listen to alphabet songs, whatever helps you remember it best. Kanji can wait once you're comfortable recognizing each letter.

Once you can read , buy a Japanese dictionary. Have people correct your grammar. Search YouTube videos, there's tons. And google had tons of grammar guides. Read children's books. Any words you don't know, use your dictionary. Try to recognize common words. Pay attention to expression in people's voices to grasp how the language flows. Google image words to get better visuals. Learn the history of kanji meanings. It helps visualize better and remember their meaning.

Push yourself to think in the language. Maybe change your phone language to Japanese when you feel comfortable. Surround yourself as much as you can to use the language. Study study study. In time you'll improve ^^

are there any links you could point me to? to get started?
 
There is an app called Human Japanese for iPhone, Android, Mac, and Windows. It teaches you Hiragana, Katakana, and grammar. The second edition of the app teaches you a little bit of kanji and more grammar.

It's great, but a little expensive ^^.
 
There is an app called Human Japanese for iPhone, Android, Mac, and Windows. It teaches you Hiragana, Katakana, and grammar. The second edition of the app teaches you a little bit of kanji and more grammar.

It's great, but a little expensive ^^.

I used that to learn the kana, myself. :D I used the "Lite" version, though, so while it didn't have all the content, it was free.

Also here's a couple links I had bookmarked for hiragana/katakana:

This site has the pronunciations and animations of the stroke order for hiragana/katakana (on the left-hand side of the screen you can select hiragana or katakana, and then click the character to view the animation)

And this site is good for drilling practice, for remembering how each kana are read.
 
I'm on mobile so I'm unable to send links now , sorry ;.; but from the top of my head if recommend taekim's guide to japanese for grammar.
For the hiragana and katakana , print out a chart from google images or write your own color coded flash cards. For online flash cards, quizlet is great. You can use premade cards from other users or make your own. Some have phrases to study too. Iknow.jp used to be free but now it's not. However it helped me the most. You can learn thousands of vocabulary words and quizzes you on them in audio, writing, and reading. Some user made content, others not. Rosetta Stone is not helpful. And some YouTubers if recommend are gimmeabreakman, and namasensei. (He cusses a lot but he has pretty great lessons actually. And He's funny). There's many more but I can't think of them atm. It never hurts to buy textbooks at the store. Also, lang-8 is an amazing website. Type your thoughts in Japanese and native speakers will correct any problems and explain why it's wrong. It's a good way to make pen pals too while improving from mistakes . The best way to learn a language is having many options I think. I hope this helps ^^. Good luck! If you need help feel free to ask.
 
There is a freeware program that you can download called Byki Express that offers Japanese as one of the languages you can. You download vocabulary lists and then test yourself with the program. You can also download a complete version of the software for about $40. There is also a pen pal website called interpals.net, which offers something called a language exchange. That is where you can find a pen pal from any country in the world that will teach you their native language in exchange for you giving them, like, English lessons. Which you do by writing letters and they pick up on your grammar, spelling, etc. and vise versa. My advice to you would be to join Interpals, but avoid any mention of manga, anime, video games, or anything that could be associated with an otaku. A lot of native Japanese people hate dealing with foreign otaku because the word means "nerd" and still has a negative association, even though things that are nerdy or geeky have become quite popular in America and elsewhere. It's also because, I imagine, most of the pen pal requests they get are from otaku, who want to do nothing but talk about anime and manga.
 
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If you have a basic knowledge of hiragana and katakana then an online Japanese course, Yomuzoku, can help you learn Japanese easily.
 
Learning hiragana and katana first, is most important.
Also using social media is a good way to recognize a lot of words and watching a lot of Japanese shows whether it be anime (but be very aware that a lot of anime uses exaggerated Japanese, so some words are considered childish in real life) or Japanese shows and dramas.


But nothing beats making Japanese friends ;-;
 
Definitely be careful if you decide to learn Japanese from anime as it can be ruder or more casual. Japanese people stick to more formal Japanese, especially to strangers so be aware of that. XP

But otherwise I find that the comment someone said on the first page about listening to languages first to be interesting. That is how we all learned our native language when we were children so that's how we should learn other languages too, right? I would practice speaking the language first and then writing after. That's how we were taught French in school.
 
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