Learning a new language

[Mizuchi]

Hi. Recently I started to learn the japanese language but have found some obstacles and am wondering if anyone who is learning or has learned another language has any tips.

I bought:
Japanese for dummies (it's a good book because it explains things very easily and clearly but I don't like the fact that it has no work for you to do to practice what you've learned)
A couple of books on hiragana/katakana/kanji (am not planning to learn until I am decent in speaking japanese)

And I also bought the Rosetta Stone learning software. I heard it was really good but I tried it out and it has me very confused. It shows me pictures and says what they are in japanese and I have to memorize and match them. I really don't understand because some of the pictures they show I am not quite sure what they are showing, and the program doesnt give a translation of what it is.

If anyone has any experience with this software, am I doing something wrong? It feels more of like a workbook rather than a learning software, because its popping up sentances at me and im not sure whats a verb and whats a noun or even what the picture is saying.


I can't take classes as I live in a small town and am only 16, and there aren't any classes around me so i'll have to wait till college. Does anyone have any tips on how to learn this language a little easier?

[darkshadow]

Rosetta is actually pretty good, it has a structure to it that makes you kind of match the words with the pictures, so you understand what is what, you'll start to understand what i mean when you get a bit further in, though i stopped at the colors cause i got lazy ( should pick it up sometime again)

[Mizuchi]

yes but see my problem is understanding what the picture is showing. For example, i dont know if they are saying if someone is jumping or landing. Or if theres a picture of a boy under a bunch smiling, and theres like 8 diff little words, idk what means what, and some pics i dont even know what the pic is about.

[darkshadow]

Well I dunno, there are like 4 pictures I think, and about one sentence, and the software doesnt just drop you in the sentences, first you get single words to match with the pictures, then you move on to combo's and very simple sentences, it gets harder also with the colors.

So unless you somehow jumped in right away to the sentences, you are either incompatible with the teaching method, or its too hard for you atm and you need to go back a lesson, or do the same lesson a couple of times, that helps a lot.

[Mizuchi]

im on lesson 1 and 2... ill give u an example:

it starts out easy, with just 1 word like otokonoko and onnanoko, and thats obvious that it means boy and girl. but later on it gets to things like:

uma ni notte iru onnanoko (this is still the very first lesson).

now i dont get if that means the girl rides the horse or if the horse is being ridden by the girl or if the girl is riding the horse.

another picture has a retarded-looking boy smiling under a table, and it says:

teeburu no shita ni iru otokonoko.

.... i have no idea what any of those words are talking about except otokonoko. Maybe teeburu means retarded and shita means looking, and ni iru means under the table? :(

[darkshadow]

Well teeburu means table and shita no iru is under the, but that aside it comes down to the rest of the pictures.
When you find out that teeburu no shita ni iru otokonoko is linked to the boy under the table, the teaching method requires you to kinda make the link that boy = otokonoko and teeburu = table.

Then you move on and see a boy on a table, which changes the sentence by one word.
This is kinda how the teaching method works, it wants you to make the link between the words and the pictures yourself, so it sticks better i guess, instead of just making you rehearse a list of words and translations.

It tries to make you think "logical" i guess.

[Mizuchi]

What about tenses though, when it shows a girl riding a horse. Is the sentance saying the horse is being ridden by a girl? or the girl is riding the horse? or the girl rides the horse?

Do you know japanese? If so, what methods did you use to learn it?

[darkshadow]

Nah like i said i got lazy and stopped learning it, so yeah I do know a LITTLE, but not enough to really advice you on that matter, the tenses are adressed in the software too though, the first few lessons just focus on expanding your vocabulary in a very clever way.

And the methods I used where rosetta stone and raw anime watching :o, which helps too but very little if you don't know some japanese already.

[Mizuchi]

I think im going to learn grammar first before learning vocab from rosetta stone. I'm using japanese for dummies which is great for explaining structure, but its hard to practice what i learn. Do you know any good workbooks or ways to practice the rules that i learned?

[darkshadow]

Hmm not really, I think Psyke is the best to ask that, or Masa, since he is learning japanese himself atm.

[Assassin]

mizuchi, i think you're focusing too much on the order of the words in english....not being a native english speaker, i can tell you there is a big difference with where nouns/verbs/adverbs/adjectives etc are placed. I can say "i am riding a bike" in another language, and even though the words are 'literally' the same it, if you translate it as is, it mite say "the bike riding i am".....just because each language has its own unique method/order.

That being said, i think as long as you can understand that "uma ni notte iru onnanoko" indicates that a horse is being ridden by a girl (as opposed to a camel being groomed by an elderly man), thats what the software is trying to get accross. As DS mentioned, some later lessons will probably cover the grammatical aspects of the language, but for now they just want you to have a basic understanding of whats being shown/said.

Ps: i think someone like Kitkat mite be able to shed more like on the various differences in languages and thier grammatical orders, since she's studying that stuff. And also, you should get on #tradersnetwork on rizon and talk to masa, since he's currently learning Japanese too.

[Mizuchi]

not quite sure how to work IRC, i used to use it for counter-strike but i completely forgot how, i have the program mIRC, could anyone explain how exactly i can get on the channel?

[Assassin]

Take a look at the IRC:FAQ (http://forums.gotwoot.net/showthread.php?t=10469) thread.

[David75]

Hi there.
I'm starting japanese with Tell me More from Auralog.

I have to say that their speech analysis seems great, that helps you having a nice pronounciation. Maybe not top notch, but at least clean engouh for being understood.

What is a let down to me is that too few kanjis are available in the method:1000
and there's nothing that helps you knowing the stroker order. It also seems they don't show you the basic "kanji keys" or whatever.
For that kanji problem, I'm currently trying KingKanji for 30 days. it has 2100 kanjis, but at least you have stroke order and you can write them and the soft tells you your wrongs with simple hints. It works on palm and other things of the sort, on windows too, but then you need an appropriate input device (pen+tablet around 50$) because the mouse isn't your best friend in that case.

The image+text methog is called "Global method" in France.
I escaped it by a little when I entered school. And all the friends that learned with it
are just so bad at writing French :eek: Eventhough some became engineers, their writing
is so crippled.
Anyways, this method isn't for me. At least I can't have bare kanjis and pictures+audio.
I need more than that.
There's still a kind of dictionary with pronounciations and so on, but it's a bit too long to start this way. And no stroke order again.

So Rosetta is the same...
At least I know I made no mistake in my choice.

[Psyke]

Assassin is correct. You need to break free of your English language mental models in order to learn a new language. It's not easy, but the more lanuages you pick up and the more you speak, it gets easier breaking free of these mindsets.

Anyway, just to help you out in the 2 sentences above.

uma　 ni 　notte iru 　onnanoko
馬　　に　乗っている　女の子。
horse (particle) riding girl.

'Uma' means horse, 'ni' is the particle, 'notte iru' comes from the verb 'norimasu', which means ride. 'Notte iru' means riding. 'Onna' is woman, 'onna no ko' means girl.

teeburu 　no 　shita ni iru 　otokonoko
てーブル　の　下にいる　　　男の子
Table (particle) under (particle) boy.

'Teeburu', written in katakana, means table obviously. 'No' can be translated to 'the', 'shita' means under, 'ni iru' comes from 'ni imasu' and refers to the place the person is at. 'Otoko' means man, 'otokonoko' means boy.

Japanese isn't easy, but you get satisfaction when you can understand anime without the need for subtitles, or go shopping in the Japanese section and understanding exactly what's written on the packaging.

My advice is start with memorizing the hiragana and katakana first. Kanji is inevitable but there's too much to memorize so don't get confused by it. You'll be surprised at how much you can read just with the Katakana alone. And of course, don't give up!

[Mizuchi]

hey psyke do you have an AIM screen name so i can talk to you easier? I have a lot of ?s and you seem like u could really help me a lot. thanks for the help man i appreciate it, this language is pretty hard...

[Ryllharu]

Mandarin Chinese is hard (Cantonese is worse). English is hard (the homonyms and homophones get most ESL learners).

Japanese, not unlike most romance languages, has specific grammar rules, and specific forms. You can't just learn Japanese from the vocab, you need to understand the grammar first. That makes the learning easier and faster, as it is dramatically different from English with its utterly rigid sentence structure.

Assassin covered a lot of this already, but it is the method I was learning Latin in high school. From my own experience, if you combine the grammar rules with Rosetta Stone or something similar, it goes much faster.

[Psyke]

hey psyke do you have an AIM screen name so i can talk to you easier? I have a lot of ?s and you seem like u could really help me a lot. thanks for the help man i appreciate it, this language is pretty hard...

I think asking through AIM/MSN will only confuse you further. It's not easy explaining in person, and even worse explaining through text only. Try and search for a few Japanese ebooks online. I've got a few recently and thought they were pretty good.

[Mizuchi]

have you tried japanese for dummies? Its what im using now and its pretty good, i just dont like that it doesnt give you work you can do to practice what u learned..

[darkshadow]

Mandarin Chinese is hard (Cantonese is worse). English is hard (the homonyms and homophones get most ESL learners).

Japanese, not unlike most romance languages, has specific grammar rules, and specific forms. You can't just learn Japanese from the vocab, you need to understand the grammar first. That makes the learning easier and faster, as it is dramatically different from English with its utterly rigid sentence structure.

Assassin covered a lot of this already, but it is the method I was learning Latin in high school. From my own experience, if you combine the grammar rules with Rosetta Stone or something similar, it goes much faster.

with latin and greek we did vocab first, translating little stories and such.

[bagandscalpel]

Mandarin Chinese is hard (Cantonese is worse).
This's piqued my curiosity, but how so? As far as Chinese goes, the written language is all the same; shouldn't the spoken dialects simply be different pronunciations for each character?

[Psyke]

This's piqued my curiosity, but how so? As far as Chinese goes, the written language is all the same; shouldn't the spoken dialects simply be different pronunciations for each character?

The written language is largely the same, but there are differences enough to confuse people who don't understand the different dialets. Just in Singapore alone, there are already 4 different types of dialets, which are generally used by the elders and senior citizens. The younger generation mostly only understand Mandarin, and perhaps 1 more dialet used within family members, such as Teo Chew, Hokkien, or Cantonese.

As for Mizuchi, the text books I'm using now are completely void of English, and I haven't seen the Japanese for Dummies book. I'm sure it's a good starting point to understand the basics as well as the character sets.

[Ryllharu]

with latin and greek we did vocab first, translating little stories and such.

We almost entirely switched to grammar after one set of first and second declension nouns and the first and second conjugations. We only learned vocab as we went through the declensions after that. By the time we got to poetry, it was a piece of cake.

Subsequently, I have forgotten nearly all of it in the four years since. Non-use will do that.

--------------
Which brings up the next important point. Immersion. Since we're already here, most of us watch anime. Granted, much of it is very simplified, or twisted into "cutesy" ways of speaking, but it helps far more than you think. That's how you can maintain (or retain) what you've learned.

Immersion is absolutely key to learning any language with any amount of actual fluency.

[Idealistic]

Every language is hard to learn if you weren't taught it as an infant.

[XanBcoo]

Every language is hard to learn if you weren't taught it as an infant.
I dunno, Esperanto is reasonably easy to learn if you know any romance language.

Also re: Cantonese and Mandarin, I would have thought learning one would be really easy if you already are proficient in writing the other. Maybe a bit confusing at first, but it seems like it'd just be a matter of assigning similar words to the same concepts. But then again I really have no idea how mutually intelligible the two are.

[Animeniax]

I've seen enough Star Trek to know that English is the only language you need to know. If space creatures from 2 parsecs away speak English, what do you need these other languages for?

[masamuneehs]

Good sites for teaching yourself Japanese:
http://www.guidetojapanese.org/ - Good basic overview
http://www.sf.airnet.ne.jp/ts/japanese/ - Another good basic overview with some audio files

http://www.realkana.com/ - Flash site to learn the Kana alphabets
http://www.realkanji.com/kanji/ - Same makers, for Kanji

[Psyke]

Also re: Cantonese and Mandarin, I would have thought learning one would be really easy if you already are proficient in writing the other. Maybe a bit confusing at first, but it seems like it'd just be a matter of assigning similar words to the same concepts. But then again I really have no idea how mutually intelligible the two are.

It's not really that easy. My mum's cantonese while my dad's hokkien. However, I can't speak both dialects and can only speak mandarin, which is the official chinese dialect for use in schools, media, etc. I can understand both dialects, but can't speak both of them. I was struggling to speak in cantonese when I was in Hong Kong for a trip a few years back. No problems in Taiwan because we share very similar spoken mandarin (but different writing), but I'd expect some problems in China due to slangs and certain native phrases.

[Mizuchi]

Good sites for teaching yourself Japanese:
http://www.guidetojapanese.org/ - Good basic overview
http://www.sf.airnet.ne.jp/ts/japanese/ - Another good basic overview with some audio files

http://www.realkana.com/ - Flash site to learn the Kana alphabets
http://www.realkanji.com/kanji/ - Same makers, for Kanji

Domo masu-chan ;)

[Psyke]

Domo masu-chan ;)

Masu......chan?

[Koyuki]

Masu-san.

Anyways. It's easier to learn if you're more people, get some of your friends with you. Also watching anime without subs are a nice way to learn somthing, you'll catch some words here and there.

Don't give up, hang in there. Gambatte Mizu-kun!

[Animeniax]

I'd have said "masa-sensei" since he's instructing Mizuchi, but how much bigger a head can we give masa than he already has?

@Mizuchi, the entire -chan -kun -san honorific titling scheme is very important to the Japanese. The point at which people start calling each other -kun or by their first name is serious business. Do it too early and you risk offending them and completely ruining the relationship. If you're serious about learning their ways and culture, that's one of the first lessons you need to understand.

[Koyuki]

@Animeniax: Masa just gave him some links, but ok. I remember the -kun, -chan, -san. It was the first chapter in my "Learn Japanese" book. It's really important.

@Mizuchi: You should read about Japanese culture (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_of_Japan) on Wiki. It's good to learn about the culture to understand them.

[Animeniax]

Well it's more than just the links. masa lords overs us from on high with his infinite wisdom. We really should refer to him appropriately as masa-sensei or masa-sama, lest he take offense and smite us.

Are you planning on college, Mizuchi? If so, you should take Japanese classes. They'll fulfill any foreign language requirements for your degree, plus it's Japanese, so its win-win. It would be good to get a head start before taking Japanese classes in school. The only concern is learning things wrong. Like I'm learning to write kana on my own now, and a lot of my characters would never pass a teacher's grading, though they are legible and you can figure out what they are. And then there's that time at a restaurant when I told a waiter "chotto matte yo", when I completely did not mean to be rude or forceful in that situation. I still wonder if that was spit or just grease on my steak :( .

[Mizuchi]

@Animeniax: Masa just gave him some links, but ok. I remember the -kun, -chan, -san. It was the first chapter in my "Learn Japanese" book. It's really important.

@Mizuchi: You should read about Japanese culture (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_of_Japan) on Wiki. It's good to learn about the culture to understand them.

lol nah i know the suffixes and what they mean. Thats why I put the little ;) face next to it, referring to it being a joke, as the suffix should've been -san or -sama (since hes admin). :) I probably shouldn't joke like that though, as it may become a bad habit and I may accidently do it when in japan and unintentionally offend someone :o .

@animen: yeah i plan on taking japanese in college, but I would like to learn to speak it rather well before college, as I'm still a sophomore in highschool and would like to go at a faster pace, and I still have over 2 years before college.

[Animeniax]

Wow, you're in high school and you can afford Rosetta Stone software?

You're best bet at this point would be to make some Japanese friends (or gf, even better). You could also look into studying abroad in Japan and student exchange programs. And what better vacation than to do a 1 or 2 week homestay visit with a host family in Japan? Learning Japanese from watching anime is probably the worst option.

[Ryllharu]

Learning Japanese from watching anime is probably the worst option.If you are after fluency, definitely. The simplified forms, the "cutesy" verbs, etc. If you're only learning it for watching anime, that's fine. Otherwise, watch a lot more dramas and news shows off channels like AZN.

[Animeniax]

J-dramas help you learn colloquialisms, some slang, and common usage. They also seem to speak slower in dramas than in normal conversation, so it's easier to follow and differentiate words. Talking to a Japanese person when they're talking full speed is difficult unless you're fluent.

By far, learning the 2 kana syllabaries and as many kanji characters as you can is what I've found to be the biggest hurdle to learning Japanese. Next would be the sentence structure, but I think once you figure the basic placement of subjects, objects, verbs, adjectives, participles, etc, it's not that difficult to string a sentence together. Especially since they often omit subjects and objects in normal conversation.

[Psyke]

I thought the easiest were the Hira and Kata, while the Kanji is relatively easy to me since they are based on Chinese characters. The hardest are the multiple forms for verbs and the honorifics. Each verb can have as many as 8 different forms, such as passive, causative, causative-passive, transitive, intransitive, etc....... This is by far the harddest to grasp, and the only way to learn is to practice speaking.

[Animeniax]

If you're used to character systems, I can see the kana being simple to grasp. I think Americans who are only used to roman characters will have a harder time differentiating between the different squiggly lines.

I don't see the honorifics being that complex, though it seems to boggle a lot of the people here who can't help throwing them around too casually.

Verb forms can be a problem, but in spoken language, I imagine non-native speakers have a hard time differentiating between the forms, so they all end up sounding the same. I don't think this would hinder you from becoming at least fluent in spoken Japanese, though you'll fail some written tests in school.

[Psyke]

The honorifics I mean don't just refer to the ones used for addressing people, but also the way of speaking, etc. There are generally a few types of honorifics:

1) Talking to a superior (family or work)
2) Talking to a person of similar level
3) Talking to a person of lower level
4) Humbling sentences, meant for politeness

It's not just about adding -san to a name for respect, but your entire sentence structure can change.

Simple example:

"Can I borrow a book?"

To a person of same/lower level: "Hon o kashitte mo ii?"
To show politeness : "Hon o kashitte mo ii desu ka?"
To show respect: "Hon o kashitte kuremasen ka?"

This is just a very simple example, and there are much more complex forms for other verbs, such as eat:

"Have you eaten?"

normal: "Tabemashita ka?"
honorific: "Meshi agarimashita ka?"

And this is just the tip of the ice berg, as the Japanese practices very different style of speech to different audiences. Most of the time, the words you hear in anime belong to the more impolite category, and my sensei used to tell us to avoid some of the terms which I thought were part of everyday language.

[Animeniax]

Ahh so. Yeah that part can be tricky, though I think it waters down to casual versus respectful phrasing. Something I find that complicates learning Japanese is knowing what's old-fashioned compared to what's currently in use.

[Mizuchi]

oh god, this is starting to scare me... lol. It's hard because we don't have any japanese people at my school *cries deeply* so i found the next best thing and got my chinese friend (shes hott but speaks no japanese :( or even mandarin/kanji for that matter lol, only her dialect) to learn japanese with me. It's hard to practice speech though because we have no book or reference we can use to practice what we learn.

For example, like in the first 2 days we were learning japanese we got to like page 45 in the Japanese for dummies book, and I am pretty much still on that page after a month, maybe a little ahead, because its so hard to memorize everything that I've learned because I don't practice it.

Does anyone know any good books or programs or ways I can practice what I learned? Like I feel stupid cuz its so early in the learning and im already stuck, liek with all these rules.

Like how verbs change whether they are a u- or an ru- verb, and like this big table of suffixes i didn't even bother to memorize like -iru and -desho and -nagara. Also the table of pronouns, like even if I take notes, after a few days I just forget all of the rules and memorized things, so Im looking for a way to retain the information. Me and my friend cant really speak it to each other cuz we don't know enough to make sentances yet =/.

[NM]

For example, like in the first 2 days we were learning japanese we got to like page 45 in the Japanese for dummies book, and I am pretty much still on that page after a month, maybe a little ahead, because its so hard to memorize everything that I've learned because I don't practice it.

Well, that's the main problem right there, lol. The key to ANY language is to practice, practice, and more practice. Just following along the book isn't enough, you should be speaking what you learn from the book with your friend (which is really good that you were able to find someone since you can both converse with each other). This brings back the point that Ryullharu said, immersion. If you're in an environment where nothing but that language is the only spoken dialect, you will catch on to it MUCH faster. This will be great for Masa since he's going to be going to Japan.

In high school, I took French (went up to French III) and during the time, it was not my best class. I'll admit I slacked most of the time during lecture and only tried hard just to pass the exams and any reports (mostly journal entries). Granted had I put in the time and effort and really studied and put what I learned to use, I would have understood and could speak it to this day.

I can tell that you really want to learn though and I think its great that you are getting a head start on it. Even if you don't get it now, don't fret. When you take it in college, you will already have some grip on it (your Japanese for Dummies book, Rosetta Stone, and through anime) and you will have an instructor to tell you how to prepare. Just don't be like me and only study to pass. :p

[Mizuchi]

it also gets confusing because im learning another language as well, as I am taking the highest level of spanish my school has to offer.

And yes I know im supposed to immerse myself in a japanese environment and practice, but i just dont know how. I only have a brief understanding of the structure, but i fail to remember any rules or vocabulary :( . Maybe I should get another textbook that has practice excersizes at the end of each section? Does anyone have a suggestion?

[David75]

I've got Tell Me More from Auralog.
And although the interface is really old and It has some flaws regarding Kanji learning, the speech recongnition part is nice. You can tune the level you have to pass for prononciation. I put it to the max from the beggining because I think good pronounciation has to be done from the start. After it's too late because you're already used to the bad way you pronounce.

So you can start in a lexical fashion, and then you also have scene dubbing and everyday life chat etc... all with voice recognition, even for long phrases.

I don't know if that will be great in the end, but it seems it's not too bad to train oneself when no japanese people is around for help.
Maybe after sometime like this, a japanese chatroom would be next, and then voip :D

[Psyke]

For Vista users, you can try adding this Japanese Audio Word of the Day (http://gallery.live.com/liveItemDetail.aspx?li=2e903d07-011c-42b3-9028-cd5d6add373f&bt=1&pl=1) gadget to your side bar. It's a good and simple way to increase your vocab and Japanese word bank. Ranges from simple words to fairly difficult ones, and includes pronounciation.

[David75]

Regarding appropriate use of words/level of language/hierachy/sex
Where is it possible to find a complete database of words/kanjis/rules that clearly specifies all of this?

[Psyke]

I don't think there's a database that stores all the words. It would be too huge, and won't really make sense to people learning the language, due to the many forms and tenses the words can be in.

[David75]

I don't think there's a database that stores all the words. It would be too huge, and won't really make sense to people learning the language, due to the many forms and tenses the words can be in.

I guess there are some rules, indications to follow? even though I'm sure there are lots of xceptions/local customs.

I'd really like to be sure I don't learn the language the wrong way.

[Animeniax]

There are electronic word banks like
http://www.jbox.com/PRODUCT/GW9600
or
http://www.goodsfromjapan.com/product/product-details.php?pID=0&cID=104&pdID=463&pName=product-details&cName=Electronic%20Dictionaries
might be useful, though expensive. I don't know if they teach usage rules. The Casio model has an input area for writing kana, which is pretty cool. Looking at the specs for the Canon, it has something like 500000+ entries, though many will be duplicates.

[David75]

I don't think there's a database that stores all the words. It would be too huge, and won't really make sense to people learning the language, due to the many forms and tenses the words can be in.

I've tried Thoosje Dock bar, that looks like Vista, but doesn't seem to be compatible with original Gadgets.
It seems there was a bar developped for XP by microsoft, but not officially released so considered piracy, floating on the internets.


And Many thanks to Masa for the links he provided.

[Animeniax]

What about my links? You ingrate.

My high school didn't offer Japanese, as I imagine few in the US would, so I wasted 5 years on French. And all those suckers who took Spanish because it would be needed in the real world more and more? They can't remember more than 5 phrases.

My personal view is that I want fewer foreigners learning Japanese and immigrating to Japan. For visits its ok, but I'm against them living and working there and badly influencing the people and culture. Long live the Republic!

[David75]

What about my links? You ingrate.

My high school didn't offer Japanese, as I imagine few in the US would, so I wasted 5 years on French. And all those suckers who took Spanish because it would be needed in the real world more and more? They can't remember more than 5 phrases.

My personal view is that I want fewer foreigners learning Japanese and immigrating to Japan. For visits its ok, but I'm against them living and working there and badly influencing the people and culture. Long live the Republic!

Sorry for not patting you :D

In a way I understand that you don't want Japan to be "spoiled" by other cultures.
However it has always been influenced no matter how.
But I guess their main problem is fertility and the fact that the population is getting older
everyday.

But it should'nt stop anyone for learning the language/culture as much as they can.
And don't be afraid, I think I wouldn't be able to live in Japan for many details are just incompatible with what I seek.

Maybe somewhere deep in the country where you meet almost no one... but in reality I wonder if such places exist. Plus I don't really need to go that far (distance, language and culture wise) to find such a place.

I guess you'll despise me for writing that I would like to learn japanese as a personal challenge first, as ways of maybe meeting "open minded" japanese and also for personal confort... being able to read and understand anything japanese (including, but not limited to anime:D)

Regarding the casio device, it's interresting. thanks.

[aarathi]

Hai, your ambition is great. But learning Japanese language is very difficult for you. So leave this ambition and take another one. Best wishes........................................

[David75]

Hai, your ambition is great. But learning Japanese language is very difficult for you. So leave this ambition and take another one. Best wishes........................................

Why me particularly?
I guess it's difficult for a lot of people.
Why would I change my ambition? Do you know what is my ambition for this?

I know I will never achieve something perfect. I only want to be able to hold basic
reading and conversations. Be able to understand radio or video shows.
I leave litterature to the ones born there...

[rockmanj]

Hmm...I wonder if there's anyone who can give me some pointers on Hanguel...i can never get enough help with that...