Call-Me-Captain wrote:Thank you all so much for the answers. I truly appreciate it !AndyMeg wrote:I think that depends on your objectives with the language. What is the one thing you want to do the most in japanese? (Talking to natives? Watch japanese TV or movies? Read mangas or even novels?, etc.)
I know this will sound really far-fetched, but I'd love to learn the language up to a point where I could do all of the above.
I understand. I have the same goal.
Call-Me-Captain wrote:However, my first goal would be to be able to properly be able to read. The second objective would be to understand a conversation between natives. Third objective would be to be able to talk as well, and final one would be to be able to write.
Yes, it may sound like I'm just saying that I want to learn it all because I don't know anything about it, but here's the thing: I may not have a lot of free time per day, but I don't need to be able "to do X in Y months", either. I have time - Years, if needed.
I set myself a schedule that allows me to approximately study for 30 minutes a day. I know that this isn't much, but I do plan on keeping at it. Obviously, I may have some more time to spend on some days, but that means that there'll also be days I won't be able to do those 30 minutes, even though those days should be rare.
If you are in for the long run and as long as it takes, I think you can do it if you are consistent, even with only 30 minutes a day.
Ok. Your first goal is being able to read. What is the kind of reading you want the most? Mangas? Novels? Non-fiction books? Blogs? Other?
Call-Me-Captain wrote:AndyMeg wrote:So that you can focus only in pronunciation and listening at the beginning, I'd recommend to practice reading text in kana and listening to the corresponding audio. Here is a website you could use for that:
福娘童話集 Hukumusume Fairy Tale Collection
Not every story has a kana transcription. Here are some that do have it:
おいしい おかゆ
にがつ の さくら
カッパ を つろう
おじいさんとおばあさん
テング を ときふせた おとこ
おどる みけねこ
If you want, you can choose one of these options for the transcript, just right below the audio player:
にほんご ←→ にほんご & えいご ←→ えいご
にほんご --> japanese
にほんご & えいご --> japanese and english
えいご --> english
I would recommend to work like this:
1) Listen to the audio and try to follow with the text (reading in your mind). If it goes too fast you could use a finger to follow the text. You can even copy the text to Word and print it so it is easier to follow.
2) When you can follow the text with ease, listen again to the audio without reading.
3) Try to read out loud with the same speed as the audio. Practice as much as necessary until you finally match the speed.
4) Listen to the audio and, without looking at the transcript, try to transcribe it by yourself (pause and go back as many times as necessary). You can try this by hand and also with your keyboard (both train different skills, besides the basic recognition of sounds). When you finish, compare your transcription with the official one and mark with red any differences you find. Try again until there are no differences.
Two characters may give you trouble:
は--> sounds "ha" normally, but "wa" when used as a particle.
へ--> sounds "he" normally, but "e" when used as a particle.
Thank you for the advice and the links! I'll definitely do that.
However, won't it be a problem if I don't really understand basic grammar and vocabulary (I'm not sure if I made that clear in my original post, but I literally don't know anything other than the Kana<->Romaji equivalence.)? Shall I do this practice before practicing vocabulary, or afterwards?
No, I actually think you are at the perfect time to do that kind of practice. The focus of those exercises is on learning to distinguish the sounds of japanese language and associating them with their written counterpart. For now, actual meaning of the words or grammar is not important. It also helps you to get a sense of how japanese flow in sentences. I told you about the は and へ because not knowing grammar could make you confused as why sometimes you hear "e" but it is not written え but へ, or when sometimes you hear "wa" but it is not written わ but は. One I forgot is this:
を--> sounds the same as お, but is written like this when used as a particle.
If you can go through all the four steps for at least 10 stories, I think you'll be ready to move on to the next step in your language journey. Doing this may be really slow at the beginning, but if you keep at it, it'll become easier and faster to do. If you tackle pronunciation and listening first (here I'm not talking about understanding the actual meaning of the words or sentences, just being able to distinguish each sound and associate it with the corresponding kana) you'll have a lot of ground covered that will immensely help you later on (and it'll also prevent you from forming bad habits early on).
Don't worry if you write everything together and can't distinguish when a word ends or begins. That understanding will come later in your studies. For know the most important focus is just on the sounds. Also, If you feel bad about not knowing the meanings at all, you can use the (にほんご & えいご --> japanese and english) option so that you can see the english equivalent of each sentence.
After working with the stories, I think you could read this book:
Japanese the Manga Way: An Illustrated Guide to Grammar and Structure
It gives you a great overview of the japanese language (and it also comes with examples from manga!). I would suggest that you read this book attentively and trying to understand it, but without trying to remember everything. The main focus here should be comprehension and not memorization. The goal with this book would be understanding how japanese language works, even if you don't remember the particulars of it.