what do you recommend I start with?

[Lord_of_Chizu]

Hi everybody,

I just joined this website and I have to tell it awesome, but I had some questions.
I'm 16 years old but I really want to learn Japanese and hopefully live in Japan so I decided learn a little Japanese before I go to college um my first question is what do u guys recommend I learn first nothing to hard now just something I can study for 2 years, and also I live in the U.S. what college has a good Japanese class? Thanks a bunch/



P.S. How long does it normally take to master Japanese?

[ch0b1ts]

Hi everybody,

I just joined this website and I have to tell it awesome, but I had some questions.
I'm 16 years old but I really want to learn Japanese and hopefully live in Japan so I decided learn a little Japanese before I go to college um my first question is what do u guys recommend I learn first nothing to hard now just something I can study for 2 years, and also I live in the U.S. what college has a good Japanese class? Thanks a bunch/

P.S. How long does it normally take to master Japanese?

I live in the DC Area and I think George Washington University has a really good Japanese program but it is also the most expensive school in the US. University of Maryland has a good program according to my sensei. I have a couple friends who majored in Japanese at William and Mary and later became JETs.

The first thing you need to learn is Kana, Hiragana and Katakana and their associated sounds. Forget Romaji. Pretend it doesn't exist. You should be able to do this in about 3 weeks. That is how long we were given to memorize them all at the start of Japanese 101 in College.

Start with that and see if your local Community Colleges offer Japanese. There are several highschool students going thru the Japanese curriculum at the community college here. They offer the following classes at my local community college.

JPN 101 Beginning I 5cr
JPN 102 Beginning II 5cr
JPN 198 Intensive Study of Kanji 3cr (JPN102 Prereq) - 250 Kanji in 6 Weeks
JPN 198 Japanese from Anime 3cr (JPN102 Prereq) - Focus on building listening and conversational skills.
JPN 201 Intermediate I 4cr
JPN 202 Intermediate II 4cr
JPN 298 Intermediate III 3cr - Intensive focus on reading, writing, translating, and adv grammar. You need to know about 500 Kanji for this class.
JPN 298 Japanese Media 3cr (JPN 202 Prereq) - Advanced conversational Japanese


Anyways, start with memorizing Kana first and then start learning the most basic sentence structures. Doing this will make JPN101 in college a breeze. You can concentrate most of you time developing your speaking and listening skills rather than learning how to read and write.

As far as how long it takes, my friend majored in Japanese in college. He said that was a nice introduction to the language and he became only moderately fluent after living and working in Japan for two years. So for him it was 4 years of study and 2 years living in Japan.

[Lord_of_Chizu]

Thanks for answering my question the problem is I unfortunately live in East Texas wasn't born, I was born in Boston, Mass. I think Leutorneu university teaches Japanese im not sure but its uber expensive to get into,:( and i don't think there are any Japaneses students at my school theres a lot off Vietnamese students and Chinese but thanks for telling me not to worry about Romaji I was trying to figure it out it really difficult so don't worry about that but work on my vocab, pronouncing the words got it thanks a bunch and Peace out.

[kichigaijin]

Locally for Texas, SMU and UT aren't bad, but I don't think you can get an actual Japanese major at either. A friend of mine who went to high school in Plano just graduated and is going all the way to Hawaii (UH Hilo) for Japanese.

Honestly, I think if you want to work in Japan, better to get good at an actual profession and pick up Japanese on your own time or if/when you get over there. Might want to look into the JET program (for teaching English) after you graduate or something; just to get over there & get your feet wet.

Too bad you don't live closer to Dallas, we've got a pretty deep network of people here studying Japanese, with plenty of friendly native speakers, at least one guy who's passed JLPT 1, and a decent number of people who can speak & read pretty well.

[Lord_of_Chizu]

Thanks for that tip like what part of Dallas are u talking about? And the colleges that u mentioned r they doing the JETS program? And what kind of profession should I be lookinf for if I wanted to live in in Japan? Thanks for the help.

[kichigaijin]

JET Program is independent of the University. I believe you have to have a degree and then you can apply for it, with a written essay and everything.

A lot of the Dallas-area stuff that I know of happens in Carrollton, Plano, Fort Worth, Arlington, and around SMU (uptown?).

As far as what jobs will get you to Japan, I imagine technical and (international) business-oriented jobs will get you there the best. I haven't found my own dream job yet, but I've been told that with my background in Computers & IT Security, I shouldn't have a hard time if I looked more seriously. Nursing/medical should have a decent chance of getting you over there as well.