Study Japanese?

[Anayo]

Does anyone here study Japanese? I do, but I was curious if anyone else did likewise. Have you been to Japan or spoken with a native? How many kanji do you know?

[tbeeghly]

I took a year of it last year and one quarter of it this year at UC. It is HARD. It's not like learning another Latin based language, you have to learn a whole new alphabet. We barely even got into Kanji in the first year, we learned Hiragana and Katakana the first year. I probably knew about 100 Kanji by the end of this quarter's study, but I had to drop it. I just don't have the time to work on it with the rest of my Design classes. Give it a try if you're in school, it's worth it for a semester/quarter at least.

[Dig]

I'm on my second semester of Japanese in college right now. We learned hiragana and katakana within the first couple of weeks in the first semester, but the real challenge now is learning Kanji. I've never been to Japan, but my initial interest in the language came from wanting to make sense of all the random scribbles and lines. It also helps that overwhelming interest of videogames and JRPGs pushed me to learn the language the first chance I got. Only up to 30 kanji right now, but I'm working on it.

[D.D.D.]

Does anyone here study Japanese? I do, but I was curious if anyone else did likewise. Have you been to Japan or spoken with a native? How many kanji do you know?

Yep. I'd been to Japan a dozen times before moving here and I speak with native folk on a daily basis.
Of actual studying, I've maybe studied for 2 years, 2.5 years total (while I did my best with grammar and vocab, I really never studied kanji because in college as I was too busy with work to really study - just cram for a test and be done with it).
Now I'd say my kanji level is about 8~900 and I can play most games with ease but I keep an electronic dictionary handy just in case.

[Anayo]

Does anyone here study Japanese? I do, but I was curious if anyone else did likewise. Have you been to Japan or spoken with a native? How many kanji do you know?

Yep. I'd been to Japan a dozen times before moving here and I speak with native folk on a daily basis.
Of actual studying, I've maybe studied for 2 years, 2.5 years total (while I did my best with grammar and vocab, I really never studied kanji because in college as I was too busy with work to really study - just cram for a test and be done with it).
Now I'd say my kanji level is about 8~900 and I can play most games with ease but I keep an electronic dictionary handy just in case.

Ooh I envy you!

I've been studying for a year plus some unquantified period of time, first in my spare time with books like "Japanese Verbs Saying What You Mean", "Bojinsha Kanji", and "Breakthrough Japanese", then I managed to get it worked into my high school language curriculum thanks to Rosetta Stone. I have a crude/basic command of the language and know about 150 kanji, plus maybe 30 or so for which I only halfway know as on yomi or kun yomi but not both.

I had a meeting arranged between me and an exchange student by the name of Tomo most recently. I learned what I've been saying all along - one can't really become fluent in a foreign language unless you're surrounded by native speakers. (I could make myself understood and sorta understand her when she clarified words I didn't know, but there wasn't really any non-English eloquence going on there.) What I'd really like is to be able to speak fluently with native folk and, like you, play games with ease. XD

Hopefully a year or two from now?

[Doctor Fugue]

I just started...but I also want to play games without guessing what the options are or relying on gamefaqs for translations.

I have the Kanji Sonomama Rakubiki Jiten for the DS. There are a quite a few kanji dictionaries for the DS but this one is the best I've seen. It's really only for people who have mastered a bit of japanese already...actually I know some native japanese speakers who said they use it.

It has great hand recognition, little vocab tests, tons of extras and it's really for serious study. I think it has less entries than a normal electronic dictionary but it costs only 50 bucks, assuming you already have a DS...great value.

[D.D.D.]

Ooh I envy you!

I've been studying for a year plus some unquantified period of time, first in my spare time with books like "Japanese Verbs Saying What You Mean", "Bojinsha Kanji", and "Breakthrough Japanese", then I managed to get it worked into my high school language curriculum thanks to Rosetta Stone. I have a crude/basic command of the language and know about 150 kanji, plus maybe 30 or so for which I only halfway know as on yomi or kun yomi but not both.

I had a meeting arranged between me and an exchange student by the name of Tomo most recently. I learned what I've been saying all along - one can't really become fluent in a foreign language unless you're surrounded by native speakers. (I could make myself understood and sorta understand her when she clarified words I didn't know, but there wasn't really any non-English eloquence going on there.) What I'd really like is to be able to speak fluently with native folk and, like you, play games with ease. XD

Hopefully a year or two from now?

No need to envy... I just started earlier is all. There will always be someone better (and I know plenty of non-Japanese that are way better than me).

What I did after my first trip to Japan was just turning my input of Japanese stuff to 11. By that I mean, I listened to Japanese music, played games in Japanese with a dictionary, I made some friends in school, hung out, listed to them speak, I'd try to speak, they'd try their best to understand, then we'd all laugh at me, and I took two conversational classes at the end of high school at the local college.

Because living anywhere but Japan is not the best enviroment for learning Japanese, you just have to turn up your exposure to it. That's what I did for a long time and then I eventually got a little serious and took classes.

I know many more people that are more diligent than I when it comes to studying but for my advice on the language: phonetics are the most important (I've met people here that have a better command of J-grammar than I do but I can hardly understand them when they speak 'cause their accent is horrible ), then grammar, then vocab, then kanji and of course you already have a good start there.

[D.D.D.]

And yeah, the Kanji Sonomama Rakubiki Jiten for the DS is a good one.

[elph]

Ooh I envy you!

I've been studying for a year plus some unquantified period of time, first in my spare time with books like "Japanese Verbs Saying What You Mean", "Bojinsha Kanji", and "Breakthrough Japanese", then I managed to get it worked into my high school language curriculum thanks to Rosetta Stone. I have a crude/basic command of the language and know about 150 kanji, plus maybe 30 or so for which I only halfway know as on yomi or kun yomi but not both.

I had a meeting arranged between me and an exchange student by the name of Tomo most recently. I learned what I've been saying all along - one can't really become fluent in a foreign language unless you're surrounded by native speakers. (I could make myself understood and sorta understand her when she clarified words I didn't know, but there wasn't really any non-English eloquence going on there.) What I'd really like is to be able to speak fluently with native folk and, like you, play games with ease. XD

Hopefully a year or two from now?

No need to envy... I just started earlier is all. There will always be someone better (and I know plenty of non-Japanese that are way better than me).

What I did after my first trip to Japan was just turning my input of Japanese stuff to 11. By that I mean, I listened to Japanese music, played games in Japanese with a dictionary, I made some friends in school, hung out, listed to them speak, I'd try to speak, they'd try their best to understand, then we'd all laugh at me, and I took two conversational classes at the end of high school at the local college.

Because living anywhere but Japan is not the best enviroment for learning Japanese, you just have to turn up your exposure to it. That's what I did for a long time and then I eventually got a little serious and took classes.

I know many more people that are more diligent than I when it comes to studying but for my advice on the language: phonetics are the most important (I've met people here that have a better command of J-grammar than I do but I can hardly understand them when they speak 'cause their accent is horrible ), then grammar, then vocab, then kanji and of course you already have a good start there.

As a self-taught non-native speaker of Chinese, I just wanted to echo what D.D.D. said. Immerse yourself in the language as much as possible. Spend a lot of time practicing the phonetics at first-- it helps you immensely to be able to understand others, and also helps them to be able to help you. Study grammar and vocab at the same time. Try and find a dictionary that natives use to learn English, it's SUPER helpful for getting grammar correct with new vocabulary.

[Daniel Primed]

I study Chinese at University, have been studying Chinese for about 6 years total, 4 of thos years at high school which was a bit all over the place. It wasn't until 2 years ago that I started taking Chinese seriously. Just like what was said above you need to live the language. I listen to Chinese music and podcasts, read the Chinese news, read the additional articles in my text book, write vocab lists etc. All of this stuff goes a long way. Also make Japanese friends and practice language with them. I have a nice set of Chinese friends which I catch up regularly for about 8hrs a week out of Uni.

Don't ever worry about people being better than you. You have your own reasons for learning the language so just focus on them and forget everyone else.