[QUOTE=helifreak;50160723]What do the dots above / beside (なぜ縦書き) characters mean?
[t]http://52.62.164.10/image/20160419144055965.png[/t]
Seen it in a novel I'm reading too and the only thing I can think of was it being read slower or something but it just happened on a voiced part and the voice acting didn't seem to change at all compared to the rest of the text.[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE]the dots are kinda-sorta like the asterisks internet English puts around certain words. They denote something along the lines of a) a subtle but important (or legalistic) distinction being made between words (see example below) or b) that the speaker is talking about something or someone in purposefully vague terms (only pronouns, perhaps) of whose idenity the speaker and listener are fully aware, even though it's not explicitly named in the text ("But what about...*her*?" - there's a "you-know-who" sense in the usage).[/QUOTE]
[url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk%3AFurigana#Dots[/url]
[editline]21st April 2016[/editline]
tl;dr: emphasis
Hi, just stumbled in here, but I was wondering how long it takes to get fluent? I've been studying for about 2 years and I can barely communicate. What's your methods to stay motivated? Any tools you guys would recommend?
I've been at it for ~14 months, I know that if I tried to converse with someone I would completely not be able to but that's because most of my focus is on reading.
I stay motivated by having programs with daily streak counters so I feel compelled to not ruin that 196 day Duolingo streak or the 200 and something day Anki streak. Since my main goal is currently reading visual novels, reading visual novels and noticing all the things I'm missing makes me want to not miss things. I also try to watch Japanese versions of movie trailers and such wherever possible as additional input since my listening skills are so bad.
As far as I know the best way to get good at speaking is to just speak lots, I wouldn't be as good at reading if I didn't read lots. You can use something like iTalki (or a free non tutor one, they just have deals with a bunch of YouTube vloggers to put it at the start of their videos so it's all I can remember) if there is nobody local you can speak with.
I know its not a request thread, but I'm curious whats being said at the beginning of this song. Could anyone translate?
[video=youtube;KxYk_bFgo3Y]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxYk_bFgo3Y[/video]
Hello, how is everyone? Welcome to Azizi Gibson's new album "A New Life"! This has been brought to you by Prehistoric. The prediction came true didn't it. Azizi is preparing (something in the music industry, I listened to it like 10 times and have no idea what the word is sorry). The planning is ongoing. hihihi.
Dope, thanks bruh.
How do I say "I am American"?
I know American is アメリカ人 (Amerika Jin), and I is 私 (Watashi). And then "is" is です(des)
But I'm not sure how to order it. I put it into Google Translate and it seems like omitting 私 and just saying アメリカ人です is the right way to do it, but I'm not 100%. Could someone help me out?
[QUOTE=cheesylard;50266355]How do I say "I am American"?
I know American is アメリカ人 (Amerika Jin), and I is 私 (Watashi). And then "is" is です(des)
But I'm not sure how to order it. I put it into Google Translate and it seems like omitting 私 and just saying アメリカ人です is the right way to do it, but I'm not 100%. Could someone help me out?[/QUOTE]
アメリカ人です is correct. If it is not clear from context that you are talking about yourself (say if someone else was talking about their self or it was an introduction) you can say 私はアメリカ人です. Japanese is all about leaving things out where it's obvious from context, in this case it is the default "state of being" removing the need to say it is you that is American. Tae Kim has a good explanation of it [URL="http://www.guidetojapanese.org/learn/complete/stateofbeing"]here[/URL], and I would recommend reading the rest of the guide over time as you need.
nvm yeah that's it, i went on an IRC chan and they confirmed it
if you were to do it with 私, then you'd have to add は to set the topic, so 私はアメリカ人です
[editline]5th May 2016[/editline]
[QUOTE=helifreak;50266403]アメリカ人です is correct. If it is not clear from context that you are talking about yourself (say if someone else was talking about their self or it was an introduction) you can say 私はアメリカ人です. Japanese is all about leaving things out where it's obvious from context, in this case it is the default "state of being" removing the need to say it is you that is American. Tae Kim has a good explanation of it [URL="http://www.guidetojapanese.org/learn/complete/stateofbeing"]here[/URL], and I would recommend reading the rest of the guide over time as you need.[/QUOTE]
damn i got ninja'd. thanks for the link :D
Cross posting this in Japan Chat and Language Learning since it's relevant for both and I'm not sure how big the reader overlap is.
My friend has "wanted to learn japanese since 2008" but he's pretty lazy so hasn't done really anything about it. Anyway I figure I am at a level where I can at least learn him through the basics and offer corrections and stuff. To this end I set up some online learning software so I can fail him on things in an official manner and maybe the deadlines will help him or something.
For anyone who has either taught a language class or participated in them before (I am all self taught, so I have no idea what they are like), what kind of things are good for assignments? I was thinking the obvious stuff like "translate x" and "what is the reading of y" but also wanting to get more interesting things in as soon as possible. Maybe something like having him review / describe the plot of some show he likes or something - obviously this would be many months in to allow a build up of grammar and vocab. These will be accompanied by weekly quizzes on the vocab and grammar points covered and will be repeatable the week after they are marked for review purposes.
He gives up more easily than I would like so I am taking everything a lot slower than I would learn it as a result (2 weeks for katakana, compared to my 5 days). At the current rate I have the first 7 weeks of content loosely planned and don't expect any assignments would be worth doing before then any way.
Hmm, in my class, we mostly focus on grammar.
With kana and such, sensei would introduce it in class, but after that we would be left to do the workbook on our own, with the tried method of writing it 100 times [del]and drinking some beer[/del].
We actually didn't finish learning the kana until 2/3 through the quarter, and it was only in the second class that sensei stopped using romaji. The first book in the series that we use is actually pretty much all in romaji (we use the series "Learn Japanese" by Young and Nakajima-Okano like the Genki-less hipsters we are).
We have 1-2 small quizzes a week, each has 3 sentences to translate to Japanese and 4 random pieces of vocab from the lesson we are doing.
The homework we get is of 2 types, one is a worksheet that we do at the start of the lesson which has a list of words to arrange to get the desired sentence, and a couple of sentences to translate to Japanese on our own. Then we also do exercises, those usually have stuff like "Answer the following questions", "Transform sentences from X form to Y form", "What would you say in situation X", "Carry out the following dialog in Japanese".
How to make it interesting, I'm not sure, actually. It's gonna be a long time before your friend can reap the results from learning (5 months in, and all that I can understand is just how much I don't understand). Still, I actually enjoy learning the language, and I probably wouldn't have started learning if I haven't signed up for the class. If he's truly interested in the language, and you can help him get over the procrastination barrier, he can learn it without the "DUDE ANIME LMAO" effect, I think.
[editline]19th May 2016[/editline]
I can send some shots of my book, and share the OneNote notebook where I copy all my paper notes, if that's of any help. I started learning in January, so this could give you a feel of how the pacing is.
[QUOTE=Ezhik;50355765]Hmm, in my class, we mostly focus on grammar.
With kana and such, sensei would introduce it in class, but after that we would be left to do the workbook on our own, with the tried method of writing it 100 times [del]and drinking some beer[/del].
We actually didn't finish learning the kana until 2/3 through the quarter, and it was only in the second class that sensei stopped using romaji. The first book in the series that we use is actually pretty much all in romaji (we use the series "Learn Japanese" by Young and Nakajima-Okano like the Genki-less hipsters we are).
We have 1-2 small quizzes a week, each has 3 sentences to translate to Japanese and 4 random pieces of vocab from the lesson we are doing.
The homework we get is of 2 types, one is a worksheet that we do at the start of the lesson which has a list of words to arrange to get the desired sentence, and a couple of sentences to translate to Japanese on our own. Then we also do exercises, those usually have stuff like "Answer the following questions", "Transform sentences from X form to Y form", "What would you say in situation X", "Carry out the following dialog in Japanese".
How to make it interesting, I'm not sure, actually. It's gonna be a long time before your friend can reap the results from learning (5 months in, and all that I can understand is just how much I don't understand). Still, I actually enjoy learning the language, and I probably wouldn't have started learning if I haven't signed up for the class. If he's truly interested in the language, and you can help him get over the procrastination barrier, he can learn it without the "DUDE ANIME LMAO" effect, I think.
[editline]19th May 2016[/editline]
I can send some shots of my book, and share the OneNote notebook where I copy all my paper notes, if that's of any help. I started learning in January, so this could give you a feel of how the pacing is.[/QUOTE]
That would be great, really appreciate it.
Class text book will be Genki 1 because I already have it and don't need it anymore. No hipsters here.
[QUOTE=helifreak;50355842]That would be great, really appreciate it.
Class text book will be Genki 1 because I already have it and don't need it anymore. No hipsters here.[/QUOTE]
PM me your email, I'll share the notebook.
Well, as a beginner, i bought this recently.
[thumb]http://i.imgur.com/m6O0Tv2.jpg[/thumb]
I hope to learn alot from this.
I also have an italki account, but i've never made the big step yet to talk with a real teacher. I think i'll just go with the book first and the hiragana and kana parts.
And i also have been using this app called, TenguGo Kana
[img]http://a3.mzstatic.com/eu/r30/Purple69/v4/48/1e/a4/481ea472-809e-51c7-0946-6c61e4ba927a/icon175x175.png[/img]
So, am i good to go with this?
[b]Edit:[/b] Hiragana part is coming along fine though. I am at the 50% of basic's on that for sure.
[QUOTE=snijboer;50369823]Well, as a beginner, i bought this recently.
[thumb]http://i.imgur.com/m6O0Tv2.jpg[/thumb]
I hope to learn alot from this.
I also have an italki account, but i've never made the big step yet to talk with a real teacher. I think i'll just go with the book first and the hiragana and kana parts.
And i also have been using this app called, TenguGo Kana
[img]http://a3.mzstatic.com/eu/r30/Purple69/v4/48/1e/a4/481ea472-809e-51c7-0946-6c61e4ba927a/icon175x175.png[/img]
So, am i good to go with this?
[b]Edit:[/b] Hiragana part is coming along fine though. I am at the 50% of basic's on that for sure.[/QUOTE]
Textbook seems fine from the contents pages. [URL="http://guidetojapanese.org/"]Tae Kim's guide[/URL] (for the rest of the grammar) and [URL="www.ankisrs.net"]Anki[/URL] (for not forgetting things) are amazing too.
So uh, what's the chick saying at the start of this song? I assume it's jap
[video=youtube;_vZRFt2s_Dc]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vZRFt2s_Dc[/video]
[QUOTE=Exploderguy;50375486]So uh, what's the chick saying at the start of this song? I assume it's jap
[video=youtube;_vZRFt2s_Dc]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vZRFt2s_Dc[/video][/QUOTE]
彼はひどく血飲みされてた。助けなどいない、強くなった。立ち上がるしかなかった。運命を求めて、神に出る。それが彼の伝説。
He was choking on his own blood.There is no one to help him. Becoming strong, the only thing left was to stand up and take action. Seeking his fate he appeared before god. That is his legend.
Going to Japan for 3 to 6 months next summer, hype.
Part of me is really going to miss how I could go just about anywhere by train.
....and there's still 2600 yen on my Suica card.
All of me is sad you can't buy watermelon with it.
[QUOTE=peterson;50375583]彼はひどく血飲みされてた。助けなどいない、強くなった。立ち上がるしかなかった。運命を求めて、神に出る。それが彼の伝説。
He was choking on his own blood.There is no one to help him. Becoming strong, the only thing left was to stand up and take action. Seeking his fate he appeared before god. That is his legend.[/QUOTE]
彼はひどく打ちのめされていた。助けなどいない。強くなった。立ち上がるしかなかった。運命を求めて、旅に出る。それが彼の伝説。
He had been brought to his knees. There is no help. He became stronger. His only choice was to stand up. Seeking fate, he set out on a journey. That is his legend.
[QUOTE=DEG_fan;50835709]やっと！たった今このスレッドを見つかった！
みなさん、おひさしぶりです。長い間FPで見していません。
このスレッドはいい練習だ。私は日本語で話す時不安になるんので、もうすぐ話さないことにするん。(╯•﹏•╰)
秋の学期に私は日本語レベル４を取るんので、毎日この夏休みに日本語を勉強しておく。習った日本語が忘れたくないんです。／(￣ロ￣;)＼
私の日本語を間違えば、直してくれませんか。:worried:[/QUOTE]
more than anything else is you're mixing polite form with casual with spoken casual
見つかった: casual
みなさん: polite
お久しぶりです: polite
いません: polite
練習だ: casual
なるんのでー＞なるのでORなるんで: casual written OR casual spoken
~ので　is annoying to properly enunciate and becomes ~んで in casual speak
するん: casual spoken slang thats kind of cutesy
ないんです: casual spoken
くれませんか: polite
man i'm probably gonna mix polite and casual all the time because my classes only really focus on polite speech and that's that.
[QUOTE=Ezhik;50841455]man i'm probably gonna mix polite and casual all the time because my classes only really focus on polite speech and that's that.[/QUOTE]
Which is dumb because polite speech conjugation is ezpz compared to the nightmare that is casual speech conjugation. Can't believe it took until JAPN3 to learn past dictionary form, that's heresy.
Hahaha, you're still reading my notes? :V
Nah, just looked then - my friend gave up two months ago so I hadn't looked at them for ages.
Ah, gotcha. Yeah, dictionary forms are pretty painful, especially since I'm stuck self-studying the third class because my college's scheduling is really dumb and won't offer the class until winter.
[editline]6th August 2016[/editline]
But on the bright side I started on one of those huge Anki vocab decks, and I can already see it make a difference.
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