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Posted: Sun Apr 07, 2013 7:16 pm
by Fuzzy Pickles!
"Satus" wrote:It may be a case of mishearing, but I am unsure since I don't know the origin of the phrase. I can't find all the pieces of that vocabulary in my dictionary, but "nani" means what and "baka" can mean things like foolish, absurd, silly, dull, etc. In any case, I don't think it's wise to learn insults before useful Japanese.

Speaking of dictionaries, I recommend getting a physical one. I use Oxford Japanese Mini Dictionary, which you can buy on Amazon. It has no romaji, so you'll need to know hiragana and katakana before it will be of any use. But it's double sided, the front has Japanese words with meanings described in English and the back has English words with the Japanese equivalents for them. Additionally the back half also has example sentences on how to use those Japanese equivalents.

More useful sites to learn Japanese:
Holy Crap Japanese
Nihongo Ichiban - No idea about this one, I don't use it.
Kanji Damage - Haven't used this either.
JLPT Kanji Project
Tim Sensei's Corner


I noticed that the JLPT Kanji Project only has four levels overall. In comparison, there are five levels overall in the JLPT, so the JLPT Kanji Project is a bit outdated for learning 日本語.

As for dictionaries, a good one to learn 日本語 with would be the Denshi Jisho. The dictionary provides a lot of things that you need to know about 日本語 (particularly kanji), such as the English meaning, the radicals, the 訓読み and 音読み, stroke order, etc. Plus its free.

Posted: Mon Apr 08, 2013 9:09 am
by Satus
Whether it has 4 levels or 5 levels doesn't really matter if you plan to learn all of the levels anyway, so it's still a good tool. That said, the reason I suggested JLPT Kanji Project is because it gives you vocabulary words to use along with them like this. I hope that clears up any confusion about that website's usefulness, I don't want people to feel put off by a good resource just because it's "outdated" by something so minor. :( It may not be the best when studying for the JLPT, but it's still great for general learning.

Posted: Tue Apr 09, 2013 4:35 am
by Astro Forever
I'm not studying Japanese, so it's a little odd for me to post in this topic, but believe it or not, what I'm mainly studying German with dates back to the 1960s! :lol: Apparently it's still one of the best methods anyway, this coming from people whose favorite hobby is learning multiple languages. So indeed, just because it's older doesn't mean it's less good. :)

The main drawback is the lack of sound quality, as you can imagine. :unsure: I've learned a couple of outdated words too. :p

Posted: Sun Apr 21, 2013 5:13 pm
by Atomars
I used to learn Japanese in secondary school. At that time I was 15.
But I learned it for only a year. However, I started to learn Japanese again now, so yeah.....wish me luck :)

Posted: Thu May 23, 2013 1:10 pm
by Tetsuwan Penguin
I've heard that some people recommend Manga as a good beginners "reader" for learning to read Japanese and that Tezuka wrote the Astro boy Manga at a Dr. Seuss level.

Posted: Sun Jul 21, 2013 5:19 am
by Fuzzy Pickles!
Well after several months of slacking off, I've finally got myself into 日本語 studying again. Starting right back at ひらがな.

Posted: Tue Jul 23, 2013 9:42 pm
by Tetsuwan Penguin

Posted: Thu Aug 15, 2013 8:26 pm
by the 鉄腕アトム fan
I understand all of Hiragana (ひらがな ;) but learning Katakana and Kanji have been a lot more harder. A good site to learn is also http://www.lingq, I'm a member on there called astro750. Feel free to contact me on their if you ever sign up.

Posted: Sun Dec 15, 2013 4:18 am
by Fuzzy Pickles!
"The 鉄腕アトム Fan" wrote:I understand all of Hiragana (ひらがな ;) but learning Katakana and Kanji have been a lot more harder. A good site to learn is also http://www.lingq, I'm a member on there called astro750. Feel free to contact me on their if you ever sign up.
Weird. If anything, I would consider カタカナto be easier than ひらがな, though to be fair, I did put off finishing my ひらがな a few times, so by the time I actually completed it, I became a lot more prepared for カタカナ. But I swear, the 効用漢字 will be the end of me.

Posted: Sun Dec 15, 2013 10:07 pm
by tailz
I agree. Kanji is hard to read. It's even more harder to write though.Some of the characters are soo small, that I have to scrunch some of them in each character to make it fit. I also have to sqint my eyes just to take a look at one when i'm trying to copy.