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Forums - Gaming Discussion - Best way to learn to read Japanese?

rolltide101x on 26 February 2014
mai said:
rolltide101x said:
mai said:

Try finding TUFS (Tokyo University of Foreign Studies) workbooks for beginners on the net if you're planning more regular approach of studying it. I have good memories of them, but it was years ago (the ones I have are ancient -- and all in Japanese lol -- published in the 1990s, there must be smth newer). Since then I wasn't practicing much of Japanese -- switched to Chinse --  so can't advise any better.

//Learning alphabet is like an hour, the rest is practice. Kanji might be a bit more complicated task -- there're plenty of separate kanji courses (how to write, memorize and search them), for basics even Chinese ones will do.


Do you know what the Japanese games are in? That is what I would need to learn, or are you saying you learn something else first and the characters the games are in later.

 

I want to be able to read and comprehend this

http://gamingbolt.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Nobunaga-4.jpg

 

and this

http://i1.ytimg.com/vi/qGzFvBjjTg4/maxresdefault.jpg (just wondering why is there so much English on there too?)

 

http://senpaigamer.com/sites/default/files/news/sony/2012/09/14-sangokushi-12-1.jpg

 

etc.

These are some common kanji for the most part, but I doubt you'd see a lot of kanji in Japanese games -- so forget about it before you're able to understand written Japanese text in kana -- if you're planning to read more than just a few inscriptions, of course.

Read some introduction in Japanese or smth so you'd understand what people are saying to you, because what I'm getting from the above posts you can't distinguish kana from kanji.

I have just started this pursuit last night and know nothing. Was looking for a starting point and now I know where I should start. Thanks



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mai on 26 February 2014
d21lewis said:

How hard is Japanese? Nintendo is a Japanese company and people STILL aren't 100% sure if the word "Nintendo" means "Leave Luck to Heaven"--not even the Japanese.

Not really ;) the writing is the major obstacle for 'white barbarians', but as a person with second native being Tatar any agglutinative language is intuitively understandable for me. But if you're only an English speaker it might be a bit harder for you.



WagnerPaiva on 26 February 2014
d21lewis said:
The absolute BEST way is to be born in Japan. Aside from that, it would probably be wise to never listen to anything I say on any subject, ever.


That is awesome =D



My grammar errors are justified by the fact that I am a brazilian living in Brazil. I am also very stupid.

Mr Khan on 26 February 2014
mai said:
d21lewis said:

How hard is Japanese? Nintendo is a Japanese company and people STILL aren't 100% sure if the word "Nintendo" means "Leave Luck to Heaven"--not even the Japanese.

Not really ;) the writing is the major obstacle for 'white barbarians', but as a person with second native being Tatar any agglutinative language is intuitively understandable for me. But if you're only an English speaker it might be a bit harder for you.

Tatar is like Japanese second cousin, right? Tatar related to Khalka Mongol, which is related to Korean and Japanese.



Monster Hunter: pissing me off since 2010.

mai on 26 February 2014

rolltide101x said:

have just started this pursuit last night and know nothing. Was looking for a starting point and now I know where I should start. Thanks

Good. Just don't let yourself be upset when you see Japanese writing :D  it's what most people see when they start learning Japanese or Chinse and is the greatest obstacle to learning the language, while technically, pardon for stating the obvious, it's not the language itself. So at first it might be a good idea to abstract away from the Japanese writing and read some romaji first (Latin transliteration of Japanese).



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Lafiel on 26 February 2014
theprof00 said:

start with a, i, u, e, o (yes the vowel order is different in JP.
then do ka, ki, ku, ke, ko
then sa, shi, su, se, so

etc. Learn to write them. Use flash cards to help. Also will probably take longer than a day. It is a huge amount of information to absorb through something that may be extremely foreign to how you've been brought up to think.

Also; pronunciation is different as well.

a i u e o
is pronounced
a as in father
i as in eat
u as in the second part of the u sound in cute. not the 'you' sound but the trailing short ooh
e as in feather
o in first faux

I think it's easy to memorize them well within a day, but ofcourse you need to revisit these several times on different days in order to make sure it stays that way.

Btw, it must be extra tough for native english speakers, as everything is pronounced so differently. It's much easier on me, as most of the syllables are pronounced just like I would when I read them "in german".



IsawYoshi on 26 February 2014
Lafiel said:
theprof00 said:

start with a, i, u, e, o (yes the vowel order is different in JP.
then do ka, ki, ku, ke, ko
then sa, shi, su, se, so

etc. Learn to write them. Use flash cards to help. Also will probably take longer than a day. It is a huge amount of information to absorb through something that may be extremely foreign to how you've been brought up to think.

Also; pronunciation is different as well.

a i u e o
is pronounced
a as in father
i as in eat
u as in the second part of the u sound in cute. not the 'you' sound but the trailing short ooh
e as in feather
o in first faux

I think it's easy to memorize them well within a day, but ofcourse you need to revisit these several times on different days in order to make sure it stays that way.

Btw, it must be extra tough for native english speakers, as everything is pronounced so differently. It's much easier on me, as most of the syllables are pronounced just like I would when I read them "in german".

I noticed it had the Norwegian way of pronounching them as well (Norwegian and German both "decend" from the same languages, so it makes sense). 



ktay95 on 26 February 2014
theprof00 said:

I'm took Japanese for three years at University level.

Definitely didn't go for English, thats for sure.  

=P



rolltide101x on 26 February 2014
Lafiel said:
theprof00 said:

start with a, i, u, e, o (yes the vowel order is different in JP.
then do ka, ki, ku, ke, ko
then sa, shi, su, se, so

etc. Learn to write them. Use flash cards to help. Also will probably take longer than a day. It is a huge amount of information to absorb through something that may be extremely foreign to how you've been brought up to think.

Also; pronunciation is different as well.

a i u e o
is pronounced
a as in father
i as in eat
u as in the second part of the u sound in cute. not the 'you' sound but the trailing short ooh
e as in feather
o in first faux

I think it's easy to memorize them well within a day, but ofcourse you need to revisit these several times on different days in order to make sure it stays that way.

Btw, it must be extra tough for native english speakers, as everything is pronounced so differently. It's much easier on me, as most of the syllables are pronounced just like I would when I read them "in german".

English is my native language but I am semi-fluent in Spanish (I used to be fluent but after barely using it for years I have lost a good bit of it) I will get there guys, just trying to find the exact table I want to study. The table on that one site is a bit small, would writing the Hiragana syllables followed by the English meaning be helpful?



theprof00 on 26 February 2014
ktay95 said:
theprof00 said:

I'm took Japanese for three years at University level.

Definitely didn't go for English, thats for sure.  

=P

lol, I'm taking artistic liberties.