日本語は話せます 🇯🇵

If you download the high quality Japanese Siri voice some apps use it and sound better - not all apps though.

Doesn’t actually sound bad. Just that it’s now obvious why sometimes the reading is off.

Interesting thing I just learned was that the kanji 見,
meaning “see,” was simplified in Chinese to be 见. Of course I knew about the theoretical existence of such differences but hadn’t noticed such a common example until today.

Doing the Duolingo Japanese to English course in order to improve my kanji reading, as I may have told you and I came across 聞 being used to mean “to tell,” which Midori lists as an archaic meaning, it is more usually defined as “hear, ask, listen.”

To be more precise, the kanji itself is not being defined as such, but

きける【聞ける】
 
ichidan verb, transitive verb
to tell (archaic)

Okay, think I may go back to LingoDeer for a while

i feel bad for not helping you guys enough, this should be helpful though

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyGytj1Tirc

this one is meant for japanese speakers, but it might help

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKjaFG4YN6g

Hm. Seems like busuu has tidied up and spruced up their Japanese and Chinese courses.

guys! I am two weeks into my year plan to learn enough Japanese for a little trip, and I have sort of become reasonably proficient in Hiragana. Katakana by the end of the month.... and then what? What next? Apps, the Genki book, Busuu? What say you?

Try LingoDeer, and get a good dictionary app like Midori

tbh soda, you could just go right now! you don't really need to speak any japanese to travel there. and reading hiragana and katakana won't get you very far since there are thousands of kanji characters you'll need to memorize to read things in a useful way and that'll take more than a year. but if you want to learn things to be cool while travelling, maybe just practice some phrases to use at restaurants, when asking for help, stuff like that. generic counters, one more, please, thank you, I don't understand, check please, etc. there are probably good youtube vids for this stuff? midori could also help in a pinch, esp since it works offline.

if you want to learn stuff because it's fun, genki is a pretty good textbook. you should be able to string together some basic stuff after finishing the first one and you'll learn some of the grammar basics. also, I haven't played with it much but tangoristo is a news app with furigana to help you read the kanji words. might help with reading comprehension and maybe even provide some conversation topics too?

Whilst it is possible to have a good time in japan without any Japanese you will have a better time with some basic skills, especially if you get outside Tokyo.

I’ve spent a couple of weeks in Sapporo at language school and a week volunteering on and farm in rural Hokkaido. It’s been great for my japanese and a whole lot of fun. I’m passing through Tokyo today and had a lovely Izakaya experience in Kamagura, able to navigate the menu a little and chat a little with the other people at the bar. My strategy to buy time is to order 日本酒をおすすめください and 漬物 which buys some time to work out what’s going on with the rest of the menu.

My learning for today is あら汁、fish soup made from leftover bits of fish, a very bisque like consistency, very delicious.

I have a question about placements of counters, which seems to be addressed in this thread https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/8136/positioning-of-quantities-using-counters although I feel that there is a fourth option to the ones discussed there.

Namely Q N P V, in their notation.

Although it does seem much more common to see Q の N than just Q N. Of course these are less both much less common then the Q appearing after the noun somewhere.

Just did some more of the Reverse tree on Duolingo, which is really a slog but seems to be very gradually improving my kanji identification, and which also just led me to read Tae Kim’s chapter on conditionals, which was quite helpful.

Level 2 of lingodeer is here.

Right now I’m working on consolidating my grammar and vocabulary learning. I’m using wanikani.com kaniwani.com and bunpro.jp

Of these the last is drilling grammar and really useful, it’s orgnasised by JLPT level but cross references with tae Kim, Maggie Sensei and a lot of different text books.

All three tools integrate together which is good, but aren’t free.

I’m mulling JLPT N4 next June. I should have done N5 this December but forgot about the application deadline.

We had dinner with a Japanese colleague of my wife and I didn’t suck too much, my comprehension is getting really good even if my speaking still sucks.

Most importantly though I should get about 3 months in japan next year.

Ha, I had some pipe dream about doing N5 this year as well.

Thanks for the info about Level 2. Saw the Coming Soon but didn’t check the past few days. Level 2 in some other languages as well.

Still have quite finished their Japanese Level 1.

I'm still looking for something to really drill the hell out of conjugations, it's still a weak area for me.

Yeah, good luck with that

Okay, with this kind of sentence I am starting to sort of see what is going on
もし彼が歩くのなら、私も歩く。

Shouldn’t that be

もし彼は歩いたら、私もあるく。

Subordinate in particular conditional clauses use が not は. Not sure about the の, sometimes it functions to make a verb a noun. In any case this sentence is from Reverse Japanese Duolingo tree, so I assume it is correct. I even took a screenshot. But yeah, I would have said the same as you a little while ago.

Of course if the subjects of both clauses are the same you might could use は for the whole sentence.

Found this example using のなら in both dictionary apps I have, perhaps you will have it as well:

スーパーへ行くのならオレンジをいくつか買って来て下さいませんか。
If you're going to the supermarket, will you please bring me back some oranges?

Hopefully someone more advanced will advise

Also seeing some conditionals ending in と, which Tae Kim also explains.

Ah の adds emphasis in なら as a conditional according to Maggiesensei

http://maggiesensei.com/2015/11/07/how-to-use-%e3%81%aa%e3%82%89-nara/

Not that I’ve studied that form of conditional.

I still don’t quite have it down the difference between が、ので、けれども and all the other ‘buts’

Yup.

Just learned a new use of を. From Midori:
3. indicates an area traversed

Is midori worth 10 dollars more than the free Japanese dictionary on iOS?

Yes

You could also try imiwa? which hasn’t been updated in a year or so I think, but is free and still pretty good.

Also, here is a good write up of something I have been thinking of and we may have discussed before: http://lingwiki.com/index.php?title=On_vs._Kun_readings

actually jisho.org looks pretty good for kanji purposes, maybe one of us mentioned upthread/zing

Still gets me a little stirred up when Midori and imiwa? have strange, rare, kanji readings like the second one here ふみ【文, 書】that I can’t find in any other learner’s dictionary.

So LingoDeer is going to paid subscription model, although prior users are grandfathered out of it for a little bit. Still, this Japanese- and Korean!- 2 course looks really good and seems to be worth it. Another two days to get the lifetime subscription.

I bought the lifetime subscription on the strength of level 2.

Went ahead and did the same for the same reason

My Reverse Duolingo Tree approach has been useful but tedious and laborious

轍鮒

鳩が豆鉄砲を食ったよう

盆と正月が一緒に来たよう, 盆と正月が一緒に来た様

深淵に臨むが如し

Wonder who else if anyone will jump on the LingoDeer bandwagon today

So mildly curious why the beginning of ヶ月 is pronounced “ka” and not “ke”

Also interesting that 図 has two ON readings

Can’t actually find such a character in a Chinese dictionary. Do find the inside, 斗 dǒu, which seems to represent The Big Dipper.

Simplified Chinese “map” is 图, pronounced tú, with old complicated character being 圖. So perhaps another case of different simplification.

Ah, and now I see same words with both the new and old kanji written out in the entry
ずかい【図解, 圖解】
And, even better
ふと【不図, 不斗, 不圖】

Just learned ないといけない【ないと行けない, 無いといけない, 無いと行けない】