日本語は話せます 🇯🇵

Sorry, the social aspect is really good, though.

I complained about Buusuu through the medium of App Store reviews and did get a response saying that they were reviewing their Japanese course.

I also signed up for their Turkish course, which seems somewhat unidiomatic to me, based on what little I know, but yeah, as a result three people corrected my exercise and seven people almost immediately wanted to be my "friend," Haven't accepted any such requests yet, do you think that will hurt me?

そです

My writing is far from clear.

― American Fear of Pranksterism (Ed), Monday, November 6, 2017 10:19 PM (two days ago)

そうです

;-)

Okay, Ed, I have two pieces of advice for you.

Also, social aspect for corrections and such on busuu is useful. Corrections can come back within seconds.

I'm thinking of getting the Genki book & workbook when I'm Tokyo in January. I find typing Japanese characters really puzzling so far and I'd rather just work by hand for now I think. But I dunno. Really what I want is to be able to speak, listen, and read, in about that order; writing is less important but should come in time as well.

Standing in front of Kinokuniya. Saw one book I resisted buying and one I will recommend to you soon

nice! that's probably where I'll buy the Genki book in January. at the Shinjuku branch probably so that I can skulk into Kabukicho afterwards. are you in Japan then?

４年間で大学の博士に日本語を学ばれたが、日本に行ったことじゃないし、もうたくさん間違います。教科書に自分を勉強はいいんですけど、本当は大学のコースに入っておいてと勧めます。もちろん、僕の意見だけです。

No, Euler, NYC

shit, so many errors in that. 久しぶりです、すまん

頑張って ください！

Ha. Just used the romaji keyboard to type that (and then used the Linguee thingee to double check the Kanji) instead of the kana keyboard, which I had been using.

So:
One book I have held onto through prior purges is Jack’s Halpern’s Kanji Learners Dictionary, which seems really appealingly organized, although I never really dig into it, and my knowledge of Kanji is still not very good.

Book I looked at in store yesterday was a Japanese verb book which cut right to the chase, as far as I can tell. I may get it soon. Also think Tae Kim’s material could be helpful, it’s on the web but he also put it in a book. There are videos as well.

Finally, I became a recent convert to the Pimsleur approach. They really work you over the coals with their example sentences, so you do get the pronunciation, as well as the relevant grammar, as close to perfect as is possible for you. They also vary their attack, mix up the sentences and give you alternatives so you are in more of the mindset of thinking on the spot instead of just parroting a script.

As far as busuu, as concerned, at first glance there is a lot of stuff in there courses, but it is not clear how well done or well organized it is. For instance when they ask you to do an exercise it hasn’t always taught you enough to do the exercise correctly, at least by my lights. The social aspect does seem useful. Just corrected a lot of exercises and it seems there are a lot of people out there to correct mine.

I forgot to add that I believe Momus got his start in Japanese with Pimsleur, fwiw.

Tae Kim’s material was available in handy app form but it hasn’t been updated to 64bit so it doesn’t work any more.

*sigh*

Is the book Euler wants to buy Kanji in Context?

no, it's GENKI I: An Integrated Course in Elementary Japanese
but I think I heard of it from someone on here!

Just learned from DL that どうぞよろしくおねごいします literally means “Please take care of me.”

Also like how voiced consonants are deemed “muddy.”

Okay, so 75% of the Redd household is now learning Japanese so just went to Kinokuniya NYC and bought hiragana and katakana workbooks for kid and Kodansha Kanji Learner’s Guide for adults.

Ah ee u eh oh

Otm

Kah kee koo keh ko

I’m learning kanji recently and musing on the following.

Why is ごはん almost always spelled out in kana when there is a perfectly serviceable Chinese character 飯。Just one of those things I guess.

I got a bunch of cookbooks in Tokyo and it’s interesting how much is spelled out in kana. I’m getting quite good at interpreting simple recipes, not necessarily able to speak them yet. I know that 手羽鳥 is chicken wings but couldn’t for the life of be say how it is pronounced. (Expect I just looked it up an will probably remember てばとり).

it would be 御飯 in kanji so i guess there's some rule about that, but basically ごはん looks more slick compared to ご飯 or 御飯 and it became a standard? i mean i always wonder about why not just call it カレー飯 instead of カレーライス. just go back to writing everything in 文言文 imo.

all the foreign-isms in kana are half the fun tho

in terms of 御飯 vs ごはん, like most things japanese, it depends on the level of formality

in matters related to law or government, it's:

1. if 御 is followed by a kanji, then 御 is also written in kanji

2. if 御 is followed by hiragana, then 御 is also written in hiragana (ご or お, depending on the word obviously)

some japanese acquaintances have told me ご飯 feels more polite -- there are a handful of words where combining hiragana and kanji sound more polite than writing it only in hiragana, but you just have to memorize which words you can do this with, unfortunately

some other things others might find interesting:

* i've also been told that ごはん is a 和語（わご）term, which comes from a time when rice made up most of the japanese diet, which is why ごはん can mean "food" or "rice"

* another term for food is 食べ物（たべもの）

* ごはん and 飯 mean "cooked rice, while 米（こめ）means "raw rice"

not that it matters, but personally, i have never heard japanese people use 飯（めし） in practice

also, dylan, katakana is used for borrowed/foreign words, right? "curry and rice" as a dish seems to match up with this -- not that i believe japanese is a logical language 100% of the time

Related thread: help me learn japanese

Really came to post
リトル・リカール

And
モンキーハウスへようこそ

Messed up the first one, should be
リトル・リチャード

モンキーハウスは楽しいね ：）

Okay, this paste week started doing Duolingo in reverse, from Japanese to English and gotta say it is really helping me, particularly with kanji.

Paste, although “paste” is kind of amusing.

Perhaps spoke too soon, getting super challenging again

Just bashed my way through Conjunctions lesson - sorry, 接続詞 - and boy that was a workout

For reference: http://www.guidetojapanese.org/learn/complete/conditional#General_Conditional

Also really liking this Midori dictionary app.

midori is dope

and that's interesting about conditionals & duolingo -- was under the impression that DL was more for conversational basics and didn't realize it gets into grammar rules, conjugation patterns, and so on. いいね！

Don’t know if it is teaching the conditional per se, more that I have been forced to confront it when doing the reverse tree.

Another app for perusal is LingoDeer. Like Duolingo but explains grammar and has some of the social aspects of buusuu. Mercifully you can test out of the lower levels.

That looks interesting and doesn’t cost anything. Are there ads?

Almost done with the reverse tree adjectives, I mean 形容詞 lesson.

Looking forward to the present tense, I mean 現在形.

Also, over the years I have picked up and put down several Remember the Kanji book. This round I am giving it a go with Kanji Starter 1, by Daiki Kusuya.

There don’t appear to be ads. I’m not sure how it is supposed to make money, even offline seems to be free

Just came across a new term, aconative verb.

Should I take advantage of Satori Reader cybersale?

Went back to Wanikana for the first time in years

Wanikani

Thinking I should just study one character a day

Wonder if Ed is still around

おはよう。子供が生まれたために日本語の勉強を終わってしまったけど、日本語を話せることはどんどん安いになりました。実は毎日新しい漢字とかぷんぽとか単語とかを勉強はあまり有益くない。日本語で考えてことはのほうがいいよ。

今は雑誌を読むことは続けてにくい。赤ちゃんといしょ図鑑ほんで童謡を歌っては楽しし優ししそれでも、日本語を話せ得ることはどんどんペラペラにならう。

!