Japanese Society

Omg finally!　ここで長い間日 本語でしゃべられなかtta…

今朝、私はJASSOの奨学金 について確認の手紙をuketoriました。本当にureshiiよ!
試験のために勉強しなgaら、日本語を練習しまseんが、今ちょっと心配 しています。全部忘れtaような気がします。

じゃ、みんな元気でね!

奨学金おめでとうござ います！！
全然忘れてないじゃな いですかｗ
これだけ話せれば十 分だと思いますよ＾＾
ちなみにscreenager2004さんはどうやって日本語覚 えたんですか？

by the way, try putting an english space before the messed up letter.
（文字化けした文字の 前に半角空白を入れる ことで文字化けを防ぐ ことができます）　← 日本語変？ｗ

本当にありがとうござ います！　＾＾
私にとって、単語と 漢字 は忘れやすいようです ね!
単語のリストを繰り返 すと、できるだけ思い 出すようにしています 。

Anyone here doing JLPT level 3 ? I am hopefully taking it in London in december although I doubt Ill pass it at this rate....grrrr

I'm planning to take it this year. Have you started studying for it yet? I'm not too sure about which textbooks I should buy since the new exams seems to have affected N3 the most. My grammar seems to have gotten so much worse over the two months I've stopped practising, I've got a lot of work to do this summer!

I love how we're able to write in Japanese just as my language bar decides to die on me

I've only just realised quite how easily you forget everything if you don't practise every day. I hadn't really touched Japanese for 6 weeks while I had my exams at uni. I've nearly got back to where I was before now. I'm really concerned about building my vocabulary - I think that a wide vocabulary will really aid you in comprehension and conversation. It's definitely my biggest flaw. But it's really hard to work out which words are really commonly used in every day conversation that are really useful and powerful.

The most important thing is actually integrating Japanese into your everyday life.

For this, I think Twitter is a really good option. Ever since I started following Japanese people, my Japanese has improved significantly. You pretty much cover all bases at once: grammar, how natives converse, vocab, idioms, etc. This combined with Rikaikun (if you don't know what it is, Google it and get it ASAP ) makes the process really nice and enjoyable.

It obviously depends on who you follow. I generally follow Japanese game developers and Street Fighter players so I tend to get topics on those, but they also post alot of random news, good places to eat, etc.

Lang8 and Youtube are also really good; You've got Lang8 But for others who don't, I really recommend it. In a nutshell, you create a blog and natives come and correct it for you, give you more natural options for what you wrote, etc. It's really, really good. Problem is finding a topic to blab on about, haha. YouTube pretty much covers all the speaking side of things.

I always used to worry about vocab, but really, you more you read/listen to Japanese, the more you pick up. What I do now is that everytime I hear I word I don't know the meaning of, I'll check it up on NihongoDict, Denshi Jisho and then make a mental note of it. I used to write it down in a little notepad but I never checked it though I might start doing that again since I'm starting to forget some, haha. Whatever works best. =]

It's kinda funny, one of my friends got a really high level of Japanese without picking up a single textbook. I can kinda see how now.

Random: 今日は不毛すぎたなー

It's kinda funny, one of my friends got a really high level of Japanese without picking up a single textbook. I can kinda see how now.

Hehe thank you! I haven't taken advantage of twitter yet, I'll definitely start that.
The thing that worries me is you don't know what kind of person you're picking up words from, they might speak like a gangster or in a twee way, or like a preppy type. It's a bit weird being a completely blank slate!

Yeah, I've never used a single textbook either. I don't see the point of learning from textbooks when there's a whole wealth of native Japanese media etc available on internet which you can use. I basically just spend my time now watching Japanese TV programs, reading Japanese websites/manga/books and talking to natives on Skype. I think just surrounding yourself with the language all the time like this is a great way to learn.

Would memorising all the kana before you start to learn grammar and vocabulary and all of that be a good idea? I really want to learn Japanese, but I feel a bit unsure on how to start. And I don't really want to spend money on classes (yet) when I don't know if they'd even be necessary to learn the language.

I'm reading through this thread at the moment. Will take a while, but I'm all interested in learning about Japanese culture too. I might want to go to Japan for a bit when I have finished uni or during summer. Although I'd like to go to soooo many places. And it all costs money. And I need a job sometime.

Anyways... yeah, it'll be a long way until I can speak/write/understand Japanese, but my mind is set on it now.

Konnichiwa to all of you.

Yes. A thousand times yes. Romaji = bad.

There was a thread not long ago made by somebody who wanted to start learning Japanese too. There are quite a few suggestions of websites, books and stuff to get into it.

edit: I've reported the � bug in the thread in which the non-roman character support bug was reported, so hopefully they'll find out what's happening and fix it.

Japan Centre/Rice Wine Shop if you live in London and maybe Japanese food shops if you don't?

キタ！僕たちの日本語だ！　＜3

皆さん最近はどうだ？