Introducing myself

[cronus]

Hello everyone, I have recently signed up on this site and thought I should introduce myself. I tend to ramble a bit when I post on forums, sorry in advance

Ever since I can remember I have wanted to learn Japanese and go to Japan, and because I have now been working for a couple years and have some cash, I can finally sign up for something like this; however I have never been very good at language skills (3 extra years in high school because I refused to take anything other than university level English ), though I do hope to become a teacher one day as I love teaching people things and from what my bosses say I am excellent at teaching new people what to do.

I am interested in modeling (model cars, warhammer, etc.), programming (though I haven't been able to do much in the past 3 years), anime and manga (English translated... for now), gaming, building (recently put up a shed, tore down, rewired, and now on weekends, rebuilding my parents basement), and learning corny jokes (how many mice does it take to screw in a light bulb?... 2, the problem is getting them in there -_-).

If anyone has any advice for me or is willing to help me in my learning, I will gladly accept if I can, and if ever I can help others with theirs (though I don't think I can help much now ) I hope that I can help as well.

[Psy]

Wow. You seem like a pretty busy guy. If you can do all that stuff you should be able to tackle Japanese-- language learning is more about dedication and consistency than anything else. I don't know where you're at in your study, but the first order of business is learning to read hiragana and katakana-- depending on your methods (and how stubborn you are) this can take anywhere from a single evening to a couple of weeks. Once that's done, start doing JPOD101 podcasts and practice your newly-learned alphabets by jotting down some of the vocabulary/sentences you learn. At this point you can prime yourself in some elementary grammar by way of The Japanese Page and the fabulous Tim Matheson's guide to verbs. (they aren't the most thorough but they will get you on your feet). Go slowly and be sure you understand what you're learning-- you can always post here if something is fuzzy. Beyond Jpod, probably the single most thorough and comprehensive online Japanese grammar guide is Tae Kim's Guide to Japanese Grammar. It's long and does get quite involved, but by the time you're finished you'll have a solid foundation in the structure of the language. Lastly, since the most time-consuming part of the process is acquiring vocabulary, you'll want an SRS system such as Anki to keep new words alive in your memory. The other battle is kanji. There are plenty of threads on this forum which discuss the various learning methods in considerable detail. Find what works for you and start early, because it will take a long time.

What a mouthful. Welcome to the forums and enjoy learning Japanese!

[jkid]

Welcome to the forums cronus-san.

[cronus]

thanks for the warm welcome. and thanks for the advice psy. been trying to learn hiragana for the past few days, but have been having a hard time getting it stuck in my head from just writing it out and reciting what I am writing down. now, I thought I could find something online in Japanese that is written purely in hiragana (force myself to learn faster by actually trying to read instead of just writing and reciting) but I can find nothing online. can anyone give any advice? is this a good/bad idea? anyone know of a website that has what I am looking for? and possably any other advice for learning hiragana and getting it stuck in my long term memory (instead of instantly forgotten once I write it down)?

[Psy]

I think the about.com hiragana lessons strike a nice balance between "information overload" and "forced exposure." You could also try making some flash cards.

[cronus]

hmm, thanks for the link, I will check it out.

[flamecca]

Konnichiwa!

flamecca desu!
I'm new here,I encountered this site just now and I join right after! Because I was really happy that at last - I could learn Japanese online. And wow, I have learn something in my one day here! I hope I could learn more because I really want to learn nihonggo so much. I love everything about Japan and I'll start by learning its language. fo fo fo fo

sincerely,
flamecca