Anyone tried to learn Japanese?

[Juventus3]

I'm considering taking Japanese in school this year to fill my second language requirement. Anyone input would be helpful...How was it?

[Incinerator]

University Japanese is not that hard, just don't think you can have a fluent convo with a local in Osaka after taking Jap 207. It's not exactly similar to English.

[gallione11]

It can be tough, but not too bad. I took 4 years in HS and another year (more a refresher course than anything) in college. It takes awhile to get decent with it. Part of that, is because unlike latin based languages (English, Spanish, French etc.) you have to spend considerable amounts of time learning the Japanese character set. 46 Hiragana, 46 Katakana and over 2000 commonly used Kanji.

In my classes we did the Hiragana and Katakana the first year and about 50-100 Kanji each year after that. Ganbatte ne!

[Ozy_Flame]

I've been teaching myself for about two weeks now, and I am going to take Japanese lessons over the next year before I travel to Japan again. It is fun, and rather easy to pick up on once you understand how the nouns, verbs, and particle usage works.

But the writing is definitely the hard part about learning Japanese - like what gallione11 said, there is so many letters and symbols to learn, that's the biggest challenge.

GREAT language though, and it sounds awesome when people speak it in conversation.

[Juventus3]

thanks guys...appreciate it. I've signed up for a fall intro course...Should be interesting, but I'm excited.

[JerzeeGirl]

It's a cool language and if you like learning languages definitely one worth picking up. There are some real grammatical differences tho between Latin languages and Japanese tho that can make it hard at first to get your mind around. For instance, they count slightly differently depending on the object being counted and they have roaming particles that designate which item is the object, subject and verb so word order & phrasing is a little more tricky.

It's worth pursuing tho and definitely fun once you begin to get it and start getting the writing down too - always a fun party game to write your friends' names in Japanese characters.

Good luck!

[Incinerator]

Originally Posted by Juventus3

thanks guys...appreciate it. I've signed up for a fall intro course...Should be interesting, but I'm excited.

I guarantee you'll get an A if you watch about 3 hours of Hentai a week during the course.

[TheCommodoreAfro]

I'm not sure who is teaching the Japanese classes nowadays if you're referring to the U of C (I finished up uni in 1993) but I enjoyed my classes enough to make a life out of it...

Tips on Japanese learning:
- Get a base before coming to Japan.
- Go to Japan. Live in an environment where you have to use it. Ask lots of questions and make lots of mistakes.
- Continue studying - you cannot pick up more Japanese simply through being there.
- Take the proficiency tests to continue to increase your level and keep your reading and writing up.

In my experience, it took me two years of university (as an option) and two and a half years working and living in the mountans to pass the 2nd level proficiency test, and another two of working while studying after that to pass the 1st level test).

In terms of texts, if you can, get some texts from the Japan Times series - they provide the best mix between the skills once you have a foundation.