# Learning a new language



## PJKCuber (Sep 13, 2015)

Hi world! I'm trying to learn a new language, for the sake of expansion of knowledge and culture. I'm particularly attracted towards Japanese because anime will make it easier to learn, and I just love the culture. This will be the 5th language I'm learning. I'll post my updates and things I learn here. If anybody else has similar goals, they can post here too . I'm currently trying to finish hiragana and then move on to kata kana and then learn the kanjis. I'm using JapanesePod101 to learn. 
If anybody knows Japanese, can they tell me if learning Hiragana,Katakana,Kanji and Romaji is necessary to be able to read,write and speak the language.While writing hiragana characters, is it necessary to put them in between one line or is it ok if they cross the top and bottom?
*Word list : 
1) あい [ai] (love)
2) あう [au] (to meet)
3) いう [yuh](to speak)
*

*Day One: 12th September 2015*
*Hiragana Learned : あ[aaa...], い and う [oooh]*_
*Word(s) learned (1): あい [ai] (love)*_


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## Dene (Sep 13, 2015)

In learning 日本語 you will ultimately need to learn full ひらがな, and preferably full カタカナ, as well as a large amount of 漢字. My advice is to start by learning full hiragana, while picking up some kanji along the way. The katakana can wait but you'll have to learn it eventually.

Seeing as you are already multilingual, learning another language should come relatively naturally. However if you haven't worked with an Asian language before you'll find it's significantly different to anything you've seen before. I found, in comparison to western languages, Japanese is much more obviously structured (and certainly easier to pronounce, given the strict phonetic structure).

I learnt Japanese through high school, and while I eventually got semi-kinda-ok at it, I never really truly got the hang of it. However I've only ever known one language (英語) which makes it harder to learn more later on (according to psychological research).

I'm not sure what you're referring to in your last question, but in traditional Japanese, the writing is down vertically (not horizontally) and goes from right to left (not like western languages, which are written from left to right).


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## PJKCuber (Sep 13, 2015)

Dene said:


> In learning 日本語 you will ultimately need to learn full ひらがな, and preferably full カタカナ, as well as a large amount of 漢字. My advice is to start by learning full hiragana, while picking up some kanji along the way. The katakana can wait but you'll have to learn it eventually.
> 
> Seeing as you are already multilingual, learning another language should come relatively naturally. However if you haven't worked with an Asian language before you'll find it's significantly different to anything you've seen before. I found, in comparison to western languages, Japanese is much more obviously structured (and certainly easier to pronounce, given the strict phonetic structure).
> 
> ...



Sure. With my other goals in mind, it should take forever to learn, but better late than never. The Asian Languages I speak are not related to Chinese or any other languages. By the last question I mean that does the character have to fit between the two lines of a notebook paper like they do in English? Do you really need books to learn, or can you do it all online? I should learn Grammar after I'm done with Hiragana and kanji and katakana right?


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## shadowslice e (Sep 13, 2015)

Dene said:


> In learning 日本語 you will ultimately need to learn full ひらがな, and preferably full カタカナ, as well as a large amount of 漢字. My advice is to start by learning full hiragana, while picking up some kanji along the way. The katakana can wait but you'll have to learn it eventually.



This actually sounds a lot like you're giving advice to cubers on what it is they should learn.

Speaking as someone who knows no useful Japanese I can imagine that this is what it is like for a non-cuber reading advice threads.


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## PJKCuber (Sep 16, 2015)

*Day 2:
Date : September 16th 2015

Hiragana Learned (5): え[eh] , お[o]

Words Learned: いえ [yeh] (house) , あお [ao] (blue) , うえ [ue] (up)

*


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## Dene (Sep 16, 2015)

PJKCuber said:


> Sure. With my other goals in mind, it should take forever to learn, but better late than never. The Asian Languages I speak are not related to Chinese or any other languages. By the last question I mean that does the character have to fit between the two lines of a notebook paper like they do in English? Do you really need books to learn, or can you do it all online? I should learn Grammar after I'm done with Hiragana and kanji and katakana right?



Yea write between the lines. But I mean, if you aren't sitting any exams, you can't lose any marks for not writing between the lines can you? 

You could learn Japanese without any books, but coming up with a strategy to learn it might be difficult. You're never going to be able to learn all the kanji so I wouldn't worry about that at all. You'll pick up more along the way, but don't focus on kanji, just learn the hiragana to start with. To be honest I'm no teaching expert, but my advice would be to learn the alphabet, increase your vocabulary, and learn basic sentences. After that just keep expanding.


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## OkinawaSolver (Sep 16, 2015)

Dene said:


> Yea write between the lines. But I mean, if you aren't sitting any exams, you can't lose any marks for not writing between the lines can you?
> 
> You could learn Japanese without any books, but coming up with a strategy to learn it might be difficult. You're never going to be able to learn all the kanji so I wouldn't worry about that at all. You'll pick up more along the way, but don't focus on kanji, just learn the hiragana to start with. To be honest I'm no teaching expert, but my advice would be to learn the alphabet, increase your vocabulary, and learn basic sentences. After that just keep expanding.



Wow thanks I'm learning Japanese too!


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## MoyuFTW (Sep 16, 2015)

PJKCuber said:


> *Day 2:
> Date : September 16th 2015
> 
> Hiragana Learned (5): え[eh] , お[o]
> ...


Hmm... Are you sure that うえ　is うえ？ I think you meant うち
You don't really need to know hiragana, katakana, or kanji if you're just speaking. If you didn't know your kanji that would fine for writing too, but you most probably wouldn't be able to read most stuff. I think it takes 2000+ kanji to read a newsletter. But 5 languages already? That's impressive


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## MoyuFTW (Sep 16, 2015)

At the moment I'm learning Japanese at school. Every term we pretty much do a new topic. So last term we did restaurants/food/ordering, this term we did houses/neighbourhood. When we first learnt the symbols (hiragana etc) the way I found it easiest was to use flashcards. In primary school we had a race with the flashcards, one against another to see who was the fastest. It gave us motivation


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## OkinawaSolver (Sep 17, 2015)

MoyuFTW said:


> At the moment I'm learning Japanese at school. Every term we pretty much do a new topic. So last term we did restaurants/food/ordering, this term we did houses/neighbourhood. When we first learnt the symbols (hiragana etc) the way I found it easiest was to use flashcards. In primary school we had a race with the flashcards, one against another to see who was the fastest. It gave us motivation



Sounds more efficient than my learning of random Japanese words daily


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## PJKCuber (Sep 17, 2015)

MoyuFTW said:


> Hmm... Are you sure that うえ　is うえ？ I think you meant うち
> You don't really need to know hiragana, katakana, or kanji if you're just speaking. If you didn't know your kanji that would fine for writing too, but you most probably wouldn't be able to read most stuff. I think it takes 2000+ kanji to read a newsletter. But 5 languages already? That's impressive



Well, Marathi is my mother tongue, Hindi is the national language, English and Sanskrit were learnt in school, now I'm doing Japanese. I'm not really good at Sanskrit(I can read and understand, but nobody converses in it anyway). Japanese is the fifth. It's not really impressive, every person in India has studied up to three or four languages.
No, I want to be able to read too. and yes, I fixed my mistake. うえ [ue] (up) and not house.


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## Dene (Sep 17, 2015)

OkinawaSolver said:


> Wow thanks I'm learning Japanese too!



You're an "Okinawa solver"... and learning Japanese? I take it you aren't a native >.<


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## mark49152 (Sep 17, 2015)

Why do you want to learn Japanese? For conversation, comprehension, or reading? Will you be travelling there?

Reading/writing is difficult due to the large number of Kanjis. Hiragana and katakana alone won't get you far. If you're travelling they can be useful for signs etc., especially katakana as so many words are of foreign origin.

For conversation you don't need any of that and can learn the language much more easily using Romaji.


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## Dene (Sep 17, 2015)

mark49152 said:


> Why do you want to learn Japanese?.



If you bothered to read the OP you would know the answer to that question.


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## mark49152 (Sep 17, 2015)

Dene said:


> If you bothered to read the OP you would know the answer to that question.


Yes I did and the OP says nothing about how he intends to use the language. Why the hostility? Haven't you got better things to do?


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## Dene (Sep 17, 2015)

mark49152 said:


> Yes I did and the OP says nothing about how he intends to use the language. Why the hostility? Haven't you got better things to do?



Hostility?



PJKCuber said:


> I'm trying to learn a new language, for the sake of expansion of knowledge and culture. I'm particularly attracted towards Japanese because anime will make it easier to learn, and I just love the culture.


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## mark49152 (Sep 18, 2015)

Dene said:


> Hostility?


Dene, my question was whether he's more interested in reading, comprehension (e.g. of movies) or conversation, which isn't answered in the OP. If "expansion of knowledge and culture" is some extra dimension of language skill that doesn't involve any of those then I'm not smart enough to know anything about that and will leave him to your expert guidance .


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## PJKCuber (Sep 19, 2015)

mark49152 said:


> Dene, my question was whether he's more interested in reading, comprehension (e.g. of movies) or conversation, which isn't answered in the OP. If "expansion of knowledge and culture" is some extra dimension of language skill that doesn't involve any of those then I'm not smart enough to know anything about that and will leave him to your expert guidance .



Somewhat of both, but the first one seems easier to do.


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## OkinawaSolver (Sep 19, 2015)

Haha not a native, former Okinawasolver (the Okinawa part still solver
)


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## uyneb2000 (Sep 26, 2015)

I'm practicing Spanish and French, and just started learning Dutch. Oh, I'm fluent in Mandarin when it comes to speaking, but I suck at reading.


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## Berd (Oct 3, 2015)

I'm learning Swedish, does anybody else that I could talk to? Pm me!


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## Myachii (Oct 4, 2015)

Berd said:


> does anybody else that I could talk to?



You might wanna master English before learning a different language 



uyneb2000 said:


> I'm practicing Spanish and French, and just started learning Dutch.



Please check out my most recent thread in this category  I know you're not a native but you would be a great help


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## PJKCuber (Nov 1, 2015)

Ok, so I'm done with Hiragana and almost done with Katakana, should I learn Grammar + Vocab first or learn Kanji? or learn all of them at the same time?


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## Dene (Nov 1, 2015)

I wouldn't worry too much about Kanji. Just pick some up as you go along. You simply can't learn all of them; most Japanese people would only know the more common ones.

I'd focus on learning basic grammar and filling up your vocabulary.


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## PJKCuber (Nov 2, 2015)

Dene said:


> I wouldn't worry too much about Kanji. Just pick some up as you go along. You simply can't learn all of them; most Japanese people would only know the more common ones.
> 
> I'd focus on learning basic grammar and filling up your vocabulary.



There's no way anybody can learn all the kanji, there are like 50,000 of them. I only meant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C5%8Dy%C5%8D_kanji
the standard 2136 kanji.


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## OkinawaSolver (Nov 2, 2015)

I just start with the most commonly used and the basic ones that make up others


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## pjk (Nov 2, 2015)

Good to hear you're learning another language. I'm quite interested in exploring languages now, though still in the early stages. I dabbled in Spanish for years growing up but never really practiced outside of school, and as a result, didn't learn it. I studied German a bit 6 years ago, but never completed. Over the last 3 years though I've taken much more interest in learning language. There is a pretty big community online of polyglots and some of the stuff people are doing today is really impressive. It is fair to say there has never been a better and easier day to learn a language than today. So many resources to get connected.

Anki (http://ankisrs.net/) works great for spaced recognition. I use it almost everyday. It has a good desktop app and mobile app which sync. Normally I use the desktop app to add words and sentences, and then study on my mobile while waiting. If you build a habit out of it the results are really good.


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## Dene (Nov 2, 2015)

PJKCuber said:


> There's no way anybody can learn all the kanji, there are like 50,000 of them.



There would certainly be people who know the vast majority of kanji, but given new ones keep coming along it's not exactly a matter of memorising every last one...

But anyway, trying to learn 2000+ characters before moving into grammar and vocabulary would be a silly waste of time and very demotivating  . Learn kanji as you learn vocabulary, that will make it more interesting as you learn how words are formed, and a bit of the etymology of Japanese.


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## PJKCuber (Nov 17, 2015)

Dene said:


> There would certainly be people who know the vast majority of kanji, but given new ones keep coming along it's not exactly a matter of memorising every last one...
> 
> But anyway, trying to learn 2000+ characters before moving into grammar and vocabulary would be a silly waste of time and very demotivating  . Learn kanji as you learn vocabulary, that will make it more interesting as you learn how words are formed, and a bit of the etymology of Japanese.



Since there's no way that I can buy Japanese grammar books, is this a good resource?
http://www.guidetojapanese.org/learn/


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## CuBouz (Nov 17, 2015)

PJKCuber said:


> Since there's no way that I can buy Japanese grammar books, is this a good resource?
> http://www.guidetojapanese.org/learn/



Wow, quite an amazing site! I can't really tell whether the site is effective or not but for something provided for free, it looks really good. I think I'll read through the articles as it might actually help me improve my English.


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## Dene (Nov 17, 2015)

PJKCuber said:


> Since there's no way that I can buy Japanese grammar books, is this a good resource?
> http://www.guidetojapanese.org/learn/



I didn't look around too much, but it certainly looks good, and the video guides will be super handy. I must say though, the guy sounds really boring >.<


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## Godmil (Nov 18, 2015)

One of the best things I found about japanese is the Japanese Language Proficiency Tests (JLPT), which is an official grading system for foreign learners, as it provides a clear guide to what is the most important things to know (like the most popular words and phrases), so JLPT 5 starts with ~600 words and ~20 Kanji, which is totally manageable... Then when you think you're comfortable with those, you move up to JLPT 4 which adds so many words and kanji.... then if you can get up to JLPT 2 then you should essentially be comfortable living and working in Japan (JLPT 1 is supposed to be exceptionally hard and only really required if you wanted to go to a Japanese university).
There are some great apps for drilling words and Kanji... I found these ones to be brilliant:
Scribe Origins (for kanji - https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/scribe-origins-learn-kanji/id616678052?mt=8 - in a couple of months of playing with this I was comfortable recognizing and having a basic/rough idea of the meaning of like a thousand kanji)
Scribe Japanese ( for words - https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/scribe-japanese-master-vocabulary/id640052740?mt=8 - this is great for learning new words, I'd recommend turning off the Romaji as soon as you can to help practice your hiragana)
There is another in that series for grammar, but it's not quite as fun to use.

The thing I like about Katakana is that once you know it you can instantly read some japanese words, because a lot of the words that would be spelt in katakana are of English origins so are relatively easy to understand in context... like if you see a big building with ホテル written on it.. you go ho te ru... hoteru.... Hotel! It feels great when you pull off a few of those


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## PJKCuber (Nov 19, 2015)

Godmil said:


> One of the best things I found about japanese is the Japanese Language Proficiency Tests (JLPT), which is an official grading system for foreign learners, as it provides a clear guide to what is the most important things to know (like the most popular words and phrases), so JLPT 5 starts with ~600 words and ~20 Kanji, which is totally manageable... Then when you think you're comfortable with those, you move up to JLPT 4 which adds so many words and kanji.... then if you can get up to JLPT 2 then you should essentially be comfortable living and working in Japan (JLPT 1 is supposed to be exceptionally hard and only really required if you wanted to go to a Japanese university).
> There are some great apps for drilling words and Kanji... I found these ones to be brilliant:
> Scribe Origins (for kanji - https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/scribe-origins-learn-kanji/id616678052?mt=8 - in a couple of months of playing with this I was comfortable recognizing and having a basic/rough idea of the meaning of like a thousand kanji)
> Scribe Japanese ( for words - https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/scribe-japanese-master-vocabulary/id640052740?mt=8 - this is great for learning new words, I'd recommend turning off the Romaji as soon as you can to help practice your hiragana)
> ...



Wait, then are there any specific guides for the exam. I probably won't give the exam, but for the sake of studying.


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## Godmil (Nov 19, 2015)

PJKCuber said:


> Wait, then are there any specific guides for the exam. I probably won't give the exam, but for the sake of studying.



I'm not sure, I'm sure there must be, but I'm like you, I'm not that interested in sitting it, but the fact the Japanese government has come out and said "This is the most essential 600 words for everday use.... and then after that these are the next most important...." Makes it super convenient for knowing where to start 
It's like have you heard of Basic English? It's like a super stripped down version of the language (<1000 words) for easy learning (as a second language). I like to think of JLPT 5 & 4 as being like that.
Having said that though... I'm essentially still a beginner with Japanese so I'm not an authority on the subject.


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## Filipe Teixeira (Aug 16, 2022)

(I know it's an old thread but I decided it would be better to continue this instead of creating a new one)

I'm practicing japanese, spanish and english at the same time.

I'm using duolingo, and that's what I do: 2 timed english lessons, 2 spanish stories, 2 japanese normal lessons

By september I'll be done with all duolingo achievements and will move to another method

I have other apps that I want to use too, and reading/watching random stuff mainly in spanish but I want to imerse myself in japanese too when I'm more proficient

I'm happy with my english even though I make some dumb mistakes now and then.

But I'd say my languages from strongest to weakest at the moment are: english > brazilian sign language > spanish > japanese

I really recommend for everyone to use duolingo, I want to keep using it forever because it's a good use of time, instead of wasting time i'm investing in a language

And you guys? Are you currently learning a language? which one and how?


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## Imsoosm (Aug 19, 2022)

Filipe Teixeira said:


> And you guys? Are you currently learning a language? which one and how?


I know Chinese and English and I'm taking a French elective next year to prepare for high school language classes (which I'll probably also pick French)


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## abunickabhi (Dec 28, 2022)

Learning a new language just for the sake of having more letter quads for your BLD memo prep is cool.

I do it a lot.


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## Filipe Teixeira (Dec 28, 2022)

abunickabhi said:


> Learning a new language just for the sake of having more letter quads for your BLD memo prep is cool.
> 
> I do it a lot.


I'm still practicing spanish and japanese daily

I have a 450+ days streak in duolingo

For japanese I like to dedicate 1 hour a day

I do duolingo japanese script training, done with katakana for a long time, now I'm finishing hiragana. my reading improved a lot
I started a while back with graded readers. done with level 0 of tadoku now I'm reading a chapter a day of a book that has excerpts of bible stories. the vocabulary is pretty basic but I have to look up words and I'm putting them on anki for revision

also I'm doing renshuu for jlpt n5 vocab and kanji revision

I'm doing pretty great and my goal is to get past n5 and getting into n4

for spanish I'm doing babbel app, I got 6 months subscription and I do 1 or 2 lessons daily, with a goal of 9 lessons in a week
and some duolingo lessons
for immersion I'm watching netflix, I'm watching sonic boom and I'm yet to decide what to watch afterwards but I'm thinking in lost space, a show that I love to death

spanish is pretty easy for portuguese speakers but I have a hard time creating phrases. for japanese my goal is to get good at reading and in a distant future get better at conversation, my main goal is to immerse the most I can.

I try to dedicate 1 hour for each language but I'm not achieving that for spanish, I get bored. But I love to study and read in japanese, that's why I tend to study more than 1 hour a day, but I want to improve my spanish faster


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## Filipe Teixeira (Dec 29, 2022)

I want to share that I finished the hiragana course today.
I've 100% the duolingo characters drill
so proud of it!


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## Filipe Teixeira (Tuesday at 4:31 PM)

Okay so a quick update, I quit from duolingo. here's why:

it was fun for a while, it kept me studying everyday until it became unpractical and toxic
it is a game after all and they are excellent at making you stay. I got a 460 days streak before giving up, and here are some reasons:
1. I don't care for some of the phrases it teaches. 
2. after the update it became a mess. maybe they will fix it but I was at the middle of finishin the course and now it put me on lesson 79 of 211 that's extremely demotivating and I was doing pretty boring lessons I had finished before (mr tanaka's team lost, I win at rock paper scissor, rocks beats paper, our team won the last match... things like that, that I don't give a damn)
3. making mistakes is discouraged - This is important. When you're learning a language, you are expected to make mistakes, but duo want you to be nearly perfect. as english is my second language I make even more dumb mistakes and that is pretty frustrating. if you are talking with someone in their language and you say something weird he will possibly understand it anyway and that will encourage you of keeping trying, if he corrects you, that's great. but duolingo penalizes you by removing one out of three hearts. if you lose all of them you can't study anymore at less you wait for a time or do some practices. that is pretty harsh because it demotivates you from learning, making you want to be perfect

Now I'm continuing to read that book I said before and using other apps, mainly ninohoari (an open source mobile app to practice the script) migii jlpt (to practice for the proficiency exam, I'm practicing for jlpt n5 and I'm doing great, I want to subscribe for a year after trying it out but I'm pretty positive with its results) and renshuu (for vocabulary and kanji studying. I'm studying jlpt n5 vocab and jlpt n5/n4 kanji) also I got the kanji study kanji in sentence pack and i'm doing it sparingly.

for spanish I'm not doing it often but I want to finish lost in space and sonic boom on netflix, in spanish


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