Current Events > Ok so how can I learn Japanese on my own

(+) Yeah! (+)

I really enjoyed the small amount of Japanese I took in HS/college but wasn't able to continue due to various things out of my control. I want to continue, but I feel like it's difficult to know what to focus on without a structured classroom environment.

I guess my goals are mainly to read untranslated manga/play video games lol >_> I can read hiragana/katakana fine and have the Kanji literacy of like a 1st grader, but I still can't understand much in media. Any recommended resources or techniques? Iirc there used to be some Japanese learning topics on here

Play games in other languages. Pokmon Red is a good one.

Download Duolingo. Its a pretty good language learning app.

SomeLikeItHoth posted...

Play games in other languages. Pokmon Red is a good one.

Yeah I've heard that, but I'm not even at the point where I could understand most of it. I could read it phonetically, but I don't know the grammar. Should I just try that armed with a dictionary/translator?

Duolingo?

its hard to do without someone to practice with. I was studying it in community college, 20 years ago, but as soon as I stopped taking classes, and stopped hanging out around others who were trying to speak it like me, I lost most of what I learned (which wasn't much. I never really could even hold an adult conversation, probably)

If you can, find people to talk to in Japanese

It depends on what you want to achieve
for manga or any text you could just do the route of using a dictionary and translation online or on your phone or whatever until you're better
but for actively hearing or speaking, you'll need to practice with people

Noname12 posted...

Duolingo?

duolingo isn't anything other than vocabulary drills from what I've seen. My bf has been doing Japanese duolingo for over a year and I already know almost all the vocab. It also doesn't teach you to read or anything, just kinda throws new stuff at you and expects you to recognize it via process of elimination.

TeaMilk posted...

duolingo isn't anything other than vocabulary drills from what I've seen. My bf has been doing Japanese duolingo for over a year and I already know almost all the vocab. It also doesn't teach you to read or anything, just kinda throws new stuff at you and expects you to recognize it via process of elimination.

This isnt true at all. Your bf probably isnt doing all of the material and features. You are tasked with reading, speaking, and writing.

If you just do the basic lessons, sure. But Duolingo links you to podcasts, has you listen to conversations, and breaks things down by category.

If you dont have anyone to practice with, I highly advise trying it before dismissing it.

Maybe Japanese is different, to be fair. I use it for French.

cuttin_in_farm posted...

This isnt true at all. Your bf probably isnt doing all of the material and features. You are tasked with reading, speaking, and writing.

If you just do the basic lessons, sure. But Duolingo links you to podcasts, has you listen to conversations, and breaks things down by category.

If you dont have anyone to practice with, I highly advise trying it before dismissing it.

Maybe Japanese is different, to be fair. I use it for French.

Wait what?? When does this happen... I've not experienced any of that

Some games will mix Japanese voices with English subtitles. The only problem being

what someone would say who lives in Japan may be different from what someone would say who lives in the states:

You really need to have opportunities to speak it. As in actual conversation (even if it's very basic), not just listening or repeating phrases.

Think of it like pgoramming
you can follow a tutorial and make your own websites or whatever but unless you're putting what you've learned to use you're just rotating though the same stuff and never expanding