日本語は話せます 🇯🇵

A thread for Japanese language learners.

Hopefully I didn't screw up the thread title.

Does anyone have a good resource for learning Japanese food words. Decoding menus and ordering food are my number one priority.

難しいですね。

lots of kanji + non-standard fonts have made menus v tough in my experience. this is something I'm also curious about...

お休みなさい。

I have found this helpful for negotiating Japanese menus.

That is good.

One thing that has been helpful/entertaining has been watching japanese style originator on Netflix. It's a show where they look at classic japanese things, sort of like one of those 'Ilove the ...' programmes on channel 4. 50 things to put on rice was very good and I now need to go through it at a more stop start pace to learn more of the words for the tastiest things.

Just download the Google Translate app and use the camera function.

It's good, but it gets tripped up by a lot of japanese script, especially the more handwritten ones.

Works really well on stuff like this:

http://imgur.com/a/edaxp

Less good on stuff like this:

http://imgur.com/a/2vj96

And not at all on stuff like this:

http://imgur.com/a/3TrB0

Stuff carved into wooden boards on the far side of a bar, forget about it. Besides, having some fluency around this makes one of the best things about Japan a to more fluid and fun.

Damnit

It's good, but it gets tripped up by a lot of japanese script, especially the more handwritten ones.

Works really well on stuff like this:

https://i.imgur.com/t1qGJ8U.png

Less good on stuff like this:

https://i.imgur.com/WjOnVvb.png

And not at all on stuff like this:

https://i.imgur.com/QJxUcGxl.png

Stuff carved into wooden boards on the far side of a bar, forget about it. Besides, having some fluency around this makes one of the best things about Japan a to more fluid and fun.

昼ごはんは おいしい です。

That now makes sense having just got to that bit in duo lingo.

This website looks useful:
https://nihongoichiban.com/tag/first-steps/
https://nihongoichiban.com/home/japanese-grammar-particles/

This one too:
http://www.guidetojapanese.org/learn/grammar

http://st.cdjapan.co.jp/pictures/l/13/27/NEOBK-2071037.jpg

I thought about buying one of the Unko Guide Drill books while in Tokyo last month (I even went to Namja Town and saw the associated "exhibition") but I decided I don't really need to learn to write kanji by hand at this point---speaking, listening, and reading come first.

Honestly, make friends with some bilingual friends... esp. if you're going to restaurants with 150-500 yen menus.

One potential way to get a little more kanji out of Duolingo is to click on an English word, perhaps after you've submitted so it doesn't count against you, to see if it gives you a kanji definition as well as hiragana.

So if you are asked to define "bird," type とり, hit the green button and then hover over the word "bird" and you will see 鳥

Or if it's "cat," type ねこ, hit green button, hover over "cat" to see 猫

Finally, for "dog," type いぬ, hover over "dog" to see 犬.

For extra value, type all that stuff in this thread.

just on menus, i would recommend checking restaurant websites / gurunavi pages before going into a place that might have a confusing menu. you can translate things at your own pace and look polished and professional when ordering!

kanji-heavy menu like that, might be best just to learn to say: "what's this one?" the scribbly menu below it, your basic katakana and some deduction will get you there, you're going to notice everything is ハイ and hey it must be a 酎ハイ menu! you don't need to translate it, just go ahead and order your favorite chuhai and it's going to be okay.

ありがとうございます y'all for the menu tips

would those of you using it recommend duolingo for a vocab builder? I've never touched it but could use something to poke me daily on that front.

Based on other languages, it's not great as a vocabulary builder once you actually know something. If you are a beginner or rusty intermediate it is great for starting or getting back on track.

ah, gotcha. thanks! but sounds like it's not quite what I'm looking for then. 私の日本語はすごく下手ですけど、単語をちょっと知っています。

I just know a handful of kanji really, so I was thinking of just memorizing a new one a day and some words that use this new character. (and since memorizing the 'readings' has been pointless for me because the way they're actually implemented is so inconsistent.) this requires some discipline, unfortunately :-|

My wife is using Memrise as a vocab builder, she did Japanese at university and is filling in gaps whereas I am using duolingo for the basics.

I've been using Skritter for 漢字 learning. I was using the Chinese version for 汉子 and thought is was good, there are less useful lists in he 日本語 version but it's relatively easy to build your own. The Chinese version had some great food lists for example. What I like about skritter is that you have to draw the 漢字 which works really well for me from a learning perspective.

Finally Japanese is a useful dictionary with a flash card function; however I just use it for favouriting thugs I look up, creating lists for importing into skritter.

My wife is using Memrise as a vocab builder, she did Japanese at university and is filling in gaps whereas I am using duolingo for the basics.

I've been using Skritter for 漢字 learning. I was using the Chinese version for 汉子 and thought is was good, there are less useful lists in he 日本語 version but it's relatively easy to build your own. The Chinese version had some great food lists for example. What I like about skritter is that you have to draw the 漢字 which works really well for me from a learning perspective.

Finally Japanese is a useful dictionary with a flash card function; however I just use it for favouriting thugs I look up, creating lists for importing into skritter.

My wife is using Memrise as a vocab builder, she did Japanese at university and is filling in gaps whereas I am using duolingo for the basics.

I've been using Skritter for 漢字 learning. I was using the Chinese version for 汉子 and thought is was good, there are less useful lists in he 日本語 version but it's relatively easy to build your own. The Chinese version had some great food lists for example. What I like about skritter is that you have to draw the 漢字 which works really well for me from a learning perspective.

Finally Japanese is a useful dictionary with a flash card function; however I just use it for favouriting thugs I look up, creating lists for importing into skritter.

will check out memrise, thank you!

I briefly tried out skritter but not really long enough to have anything interesting to say. but I def agree about drawing the 漢字, there's something about writing (and, for me, esp. writing on paper) that helps to smash things into your brain. also, I just find writing pleasant and ~relaxing~.

I really like the midori dictionary app. it also has lets you turn your bookmarks into flash cards, which I sometimes flip thru to kill time on the subway. works offline too, which is good for traveling. tho I suppose google translate does that not too.

jisho is also nice for a the web.

*does that now too 😣
*nice for the web 😳

So I finished Duolingo and feel like I have both learned and not really learned anything. Like I said on the other thread it feels like I have beat a game but in doing so I've learnt a bit about the language. I'm doing busuu now which is better as it has more sophisticated exercises, particularly in listening and it has the added bonus of exercises corrected by native speakers; people trade corrections. It does cost though.

What it lacks though is any explanation of grammar so I'm now looking for a good grammar textbook, or textbook that is good at explaining grammar. We have the Japan Times Grammar dictionary which is only useful if you know what you are looking for.

haven't really shopped around but the genki textbooks (eri banno) do a p good job with this. and also have funny cartoons.

Now I have two upcoming trips to Japan! So I need to work again in earnest on my language. I will have a look at the Genki textbooks when I am there, or if I can find them here (don't just wanna order blind online).

But have any of you tried https://minato-jf.jp ? They are run by the Japan Foundation, and are free. I have good experience with online courses so maybe I'll do this instead of duolingo, where I share some of Ed's concerns.

I'm enjoying Buusuu a lot - the social element, having your little texts and speeches corrected is really good.

Question - How do you type the small versions of や、よ and　う?

I wrote this on the train this morning and was very pleased with myself:

毎日六時に起きます。お茶を淹れます。奥さんのために朝ごはんを作ります。今日私たちはスクランブルエッグや海苔や唐辛子七味を食べました。七時シヤワーを浴びます。七時半電車で会社に行きます。

Busuu sent me a limited time half price offer. Wonder if I should take the bait.

I wish I could get the social elements of Busuu without Busuu. The language learning is built on a framework for a european language, even the dialogues talk about Euros not yen. Very little has been done to localise it and I think it is teaching me bad habits in japanese eg. people correcting my japanese say that 彼　and 彼女　are rarely used in favour of name-さん　and その人。I'm worried its not very tuned in to japanese idiom and someone just programmed it with a dictionary. Persevering though because people are very generous with their corrections.

I found another app which solves my grammar guide need for now without paying for Genki - Human japanese which is structured like a classroom course would be with nice explanations of the actual mechanics of japanese. Well written too. $13.99 for both the beginner and intermediate courses as a bundle and no subscription fees which is good in my book. Covering a lot of stuff I have 'learnt' in duolingo and busuu and it's really helping.

I️ can’t tell from what you are saying what the app is called, is it Genki?

Oh sorry, I️ see, Human Japanese, and you bought the bundle.

Must have been using variant keyboard

そです

My writing is far from clear.

Busuu is now really getting on my wick.

It is using ‘May I...’ and ‘Can I...’ as translations for 。。。していいますか。This may be true but passing the test means not only matching true words but he daft pictures as well. Rapidly falling off this wagon.

Dude! I just hitched onto it last night based on your prior recommendation.

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.

weird that a bunch of radicals I got today only appear in exactly one kanji.

Oh but then those kanji may have multiple vocabulary words

These:
案
委

i learned this word today 「お尻」

it's always a fun moment when you get to learn a word that has been adopted into English from Japanese and see what the kanji that make it up are - drawing letter = emoji, of course it's a letter that's also a drawing!

seems like the person behind Cure Dolly has died, RIP
https://www.patreon.com/posts/r-i-p-cure-dolly-57100247

the person who i'm pretty sure is behind the account was posting on their facebook on the day the patreon post got put up so i think the android sensei is just being retired. bummer though, i had grown quite fond of her quirks

Do people really do Wanikani and never bother with the vocab? I just don’t see the point of that at all.

Anyway, today they added a new kanji to my level!
https://community.wanikani.com/t/wanikani-content-additions-ongoing-from-april-29-2021/51058

Wanikani sale almost over. (Guess I am in for the long haul now)

Still a day or so left.

wish I could afford it.
took a couple of weeks off over xmas and now have 668 reviews. welp.

as many kanjis as i've learned i can't for the life of me read a single handwritten or "handwritten font" one

i'm thinking of writing an anki plugin to randomly cycle the font for my cards between gothic, mincho, and handwritten

I could sort of start to recognize most of them except the most outside one on Wanikani.

i assume knowing how to write makes reading handwriting easier, thats obviously the big thing missing from the wanikani approach

True, but writing properly is even more work. Had I but world enough and time etc.

There are plugins for Wanikani and it’s apps to cycle through fonts.

Armed Banana by far the hardest font on Wanikani to recognize. Just put it back into rotation, we’ll see. Easy enough to click and see the regular font.

Took it back off, still too hard.

haha yeah I hacked together an Anki plugin and quickly took armed banana out of the rotation. might set up a separate deck of my mature cards to practice with that font though

上手の手から水が漏れる

HI DERE. Trying to restart my wanikani after pretty much a year layoff. Think I have an approach that might work.

timely revive since this friday will mark 1 year of anki daily flashcards without missing a day. i'm very happy with my progress and i think my approach of focusing on reading and just getting japanese text in front of my eyes is working great.

at this point, while reading manga i could probably only translate 50% of what i read, but feel like i understand the gist of 90% of the text. playing games is a lot lower since there aren't picture cues for nearly every sentence, but it's coming slowly but surely.

as for speaking.... yeah i can't really do that but i've definitely picked up the pronunciation of a whole lot of kanji just from doing the flashcards.

皆さん、お疲れ様です〜、頑張れ！！

Cool. What deck(s) do you use?

i use the core6k deck + a deck of katakana words

Cool.

Found something weird about the etymology of 馬鹿 (ばか)

なんですか？

Supposedly some transliteration from Sanskrit?

直

this is weird. I was trying to type a different kanji

直

Again. Shows up okay but after I post

It’s because of Chinese, which doesn’t have the L shape on the left.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E7%9B%B4

Still going on the Wanikani restart. Have a mountain of reviews it will take me many months to get through.

Try not to look at it all after a certain hour at night. Also tinker with the review order preferences.

One thing that can be crazy making is all the things that have similar definitions, all the single kanji and kanji strings that mean law and rule for example.

Also, to return to this thing from earlier:
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E9%A6%AC%E9%B9%BF
Japanese
Kanji in this term
馬 鹿
Etymology
Probably originally a transcription of Sanskrit मोह (moha, “folly”), used as a slang term among monks.[1][2][3]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiHp7TSgjIY

https://www.tofugu.com/japanese/baka-meaning/

it's such a useful word that i've come to use in english too. nice to have a non-ableist light insult word

My wife thought that the Chewbacca character in Star Wars was named with this in mind.

Still back on wanikani, trying not to get overwhelmed.

I’m trying it but the site seems really hard to navigate and use

Don’t use the site! Use the app instead. Oh but you need an iPhone, I think.

Where the app is called Tsurukame.

Ahh thx

apparently i have a complete inability to remember these:

引き取る
引き返す
引き受ける
引き止める
取り上げる

generally i've been able to pick up words over time without having to single them out and come up with mnemonics or whatever, but i'm so sick of getting these wrong for months

Should I take advantage of Satori Reader cybersale?