ME LEARNING JAPANESE FROM A JAPANESE RPG MAKER SITE

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I've been try to learn Japanese for a while now but aside from a few phrases, I just haven't been able to do it.
Its not do to lack of resources, it do to lack of drive. I play J-RPG's almost exclusively(Its no that I don't like western RPGs, I
just love Japanese games) and there are so many games that I can't play properly because I can't read Japanese.
I was hoping that if I go to a RPG maker site as often as this one(I get on my computer almost everyday and this site is my home page) with Japanese as its main language, It will help me get off my lazy butt and work on learning the language.
Learning Japanese and being able to play Japanese video games is a whole different step, as the vocab (including Kanji) is quite different. There are a few with hiragana on top, like Ni No Kuni (DS), but more children's games anyhow.
I know a few former students who are quite fluent (including reading and writing), but aren't able to read any games. (not talking about some phrases, that much even I can do, but not enough to get a gist of it)

I'd say if you learn for the sake of playing something, it's no surprise you haven't had any motivation. Long-term goals suck.
The difference between "going to the gym twice a week" and "losing 10 pounds until next month" is enormous. The success-rate, too.
If you wanna learn it, you gotta do it for the language itself. Short-term. Learning hiragana, learning katakana - being able to write your own name, for example. If you can't reward yourself inbetween, you won't do it.

But Japanese is a wonderful language. Should you feel up for the task, remember: regarding hiragana/katakana (and Kanji even more so) - fucking write them. Write them stupidly while riding a train or bus, but do it. Definitely look up the stroke order, though. You wanna make them the same way every time (and it doesn't look right otherwise)

It helps. In fact, it helps you remember them long-term. I haven't touched the Kanji I know for months (although I did glance over a few when writing emails, but not the ones I've been learning), and I'm still able to write them after a short refreshing. And I've been told by many that after 2 weeks of nothing all is supposed to be gone : D


I know a few kanji and I know how to greet somebody in Japanese. English is my native language but I've noticed that I sometimes get...lazy when I'm typing/writing and its not school. I also make a lot of weird typos when I'm
typing on my laptop since I have rather big fingers and the keys are kind of close together. Don't even get me started on typing on my phone...I'm working on my
typing but...
Hiragana/katakana already down, then? It's usually one of the first steps and also allows you to understand their pronounciation (and their Engrisu. wifu and that kinda stuff).

Not a hint of grammar there, then.
Do you know the A は B です structure (A is B. Regarding A, it is B)? Or general structure.

Well, anyhow, I'd gladly help you out with the basics of basics (won't be able to do much more), but motivation is something you need to find for yourself first.
I'm afraid you'll have a very hard time if you dive into all at once on a Japanese website. Without basics, too. It works quite differently from our common languages, so it's nigh-impossible to figure out by yourself while looking up kanji and vocab.
Or rather, it's a whole ton of workload in different areas you have to do all at once. It's not impossible, but hard work.
I know that kanji do have two different meanings but I can't remember the
names. All I remember is that one is the japanese meaning and the other is Chinese meaning.
Kanji do have an on-reading (Chinese) and a kun-reading (Japanese) in the Japanese language.
But what sets it apart from Chinese so drastically (which is nothing like it), is that you have two sets of syllabic alphabets additionally (one for Japanese words - hiragana, one for foreign words - katakana). They are far simpler than Kanji.

That means you could write everything in those two alphabets. Which is why it's a good place to start. That's also why Japanese speak so many English words so oddly. They have single vocals, but they don't have single consonants (except n). They do use many English and foreign words in their everyday-language, though.

Of course, in addition to Kanji which cannot be changed themselves, hiragana offer grammar options like changing endings as well as the ability to structure sentences with "particles" (the above は - wa , for example).
This is so confusing. I already knew that the Japanese language was
a lot different from English but this... thanks for telling me
this.
Yeah, it's rather different. But not that difficult, once you look past the differences. It takes some effort to get somewhere, though, but it's definitely worth it.

It basically just means you don't have to learn all Kanji to communicate, but also that you need to study more than vocabulary and phrases if you want to read, speak or understand a thing.
Kanji work like bricks, they are base words. Tree. Green. House.
Hiragana fill the gaps, give it structure and allow grammar. Tree is green and brown.

But as these syllabic alphabets (meaning: not one letter, but two most of the time), ka, ma, ke, me .. express the mere pronounciation and do not change this pronounciation randomly, you can simply put them together. And for English words as close as it can get (you know the results). co-fi. coffee.
You can write Kanji down as they are read with hiragana.

私 -> わたし -> watashi -> I

Once you know how to pronounce hiragana, you'll have the pronounciation of everything. There are 25 hiragana in total if I remember correctly.

Hiragana and Katakana are the same in green, really. Same pronounciation, but different use. You gotta write your own name with Katakana, for example.
Kanji has many meanings in Japanese as well. It's not just a "1 is Japanese reading and the other is Chinese" It also has different pronunciations depending on how it's used or what it's used with.

I wouldn't advise learning Japanese from games though. There are a lot of different ways to speak the language and "RPG/Game speak" isn't really something you want to use in conversation. Or if you're going to use games to recognize kanji, just know that sometimes characters use exaggerated styles of speaking.

Learning any language is a hard and grueling process. But the thing that helps is using it as much as you can for daily life things. I think it's best for you to start a blog and write the entries in English, then writing a bit of it in Japanese. Start little by little but start with real conversational phrases. Someone who corrected the Japanese translation of my game recommended sites like lang-8? I don't use it, but it seems like a good site.

I agree with writing any chance you get when it comes to kanji. WRITE!! Write as you learn to read and LEARN THE STROKE ORDER. A lot of people can read kanji like no one's business, but writing? That's something that takes a long time to grasp. A lot of my Japanese friends jokingly say they can't write kanji either but it's mostly because they understand how hard it is to learn. Also, people will recognize if the stroke order is wrong or looks off. So definitely pay attention to that.

Japanese isn't impossible nor is it harder than English. It really depends on how much you want to learn it. But you seem like me who can't stand sitting down to study anything, so immersion is really the best thing you can do. Write blogs, talk to people on twitter in Japanese, watch Japanese TV and you'll start to pick things up. I can help as well, if you want! It's always exciting when people want to study Japanese!
I accidentally double posted????????
Sorry, I don't know what happened! Please delete or something orz
If you can learn how to translate a Japanese RPG properly like me, you're good to go :)

I of course did it the hard way though, even though I am native in Chinese. In fact, I actually began learning Japanese through game translation, but I certainly advise against learning it that way (yeah, I'm kinda crazy for actually doing that, not to mention that the game I'm translating is actually littered with Kanji). But that aside, I learned a lot of things along the way as I translated :) And one thing I definitely can say about Japanese vs English is that you need to be very creative in order to successfully translate Japanese to English.

EDIT: And just something extra: Hiragana is your bread and butter, meaning it is basically the same as your English alphabets. Katakana are used mainly for foreign words, particularly English written in the Japanese way. And Kanji is basically the Japanese vocabulary. If you wish to learn Japanese, you ought to have solid foundation in Hiragana first before even going onto Katakana and Kanji.
I'm not learning Japanese from a video game, its just the main reason
I'm learning the language.
It's just because you mentioned trying to go to a Japanese gam mak site.
If you're still up to it, on to hiragana! I hope the explanation made sense.
This is a decent site, for example. Sound and stroke order included.

http://genki.japantimes.co.jp/site/self/site/hiragana/hiragana.html
http://genki.japantimes.co.jp/self_en

Do yourself a favor and learn to pronounce Japanese vocals short by default.
No maaa-, but ma. Makes it easier for later.
While you don't stress anything, you have a huge difference between long and short vowels.
Concentrate on the top block, the others needn't really be learned extra. Leave them for later.

And I commend your willpower to go through with your path, eplipswich ;) Must've been tough.
Wow, so many different methods. Well, it seems that there is one thing that has not been mentioned much, but then again, this is my personal opinion of course;
Spoken japanese is different from written japanese.

This was a problem I ran into time and time when I was living in nishikawaguchi. Of course, my best advice is going to be very simple; Learn Hiragana above all else, you do not necessarily have to learn how to write japanese characters, but by all means memorize them. Your goal is to have reading comprehension above all else, so just like when you were a child in grammar school, make a list of 10 kanji a week and memorize them on sight. Test yourself every 4 weeks.

And for the spoken portion of japanese, my best advice is simple; Buy yourself a phrasebook or google some basic japanese phrases, and watch japanese soap operas.

Yes, I said soap opera, and not anime, or any sort of comedy drama; Your first major milestone will be recognizing certain words and natural sentence structure within the conversations. (This is important in any language). Many of the japanese soap operas I used to study with have normal, everyday style conversations, allowing you to natrually let your vocabulary expand by listening to them speak. Look up the new words you hear, write it down and add it to your list to study each week.

A good place for you to start would be "Tokyo Rabu Sutori", as any conversation that Kanji has with Satomi and Mikami are very natrual speech, while his boss uses a more proper way of speech, and Rika a very modern(for '91) way speech. This is probably the best way to learn spoken japanese outside of just going to japan and socializing. Or at least, it's what works for me.
That's a good one actually, I know a few friends doing it like that, but it totally slipped my mind.
I'm taking classes at the moment. If you're able to, I would suggest you do the same.
I am also studying Japanese right now. But as I can't either go to Japan or take language classes, I have to rely on what I could get my hands on in the internet. Books, magazines, movies, articles, everything. Pretty much like what I did to learn Russian. Though it seems you know more than me, because I only know hiragana.

It kinda sucks when you want to do something, to learn something, but can't because it's too costly.

Oh well, good luck man!
Thanks for all the help! I'm taking a look at some of this stuff now.
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