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Hello everyone !
I just subscribed and… I just thought I will ask here what I’m thinking about since some days.I search some way to learn new vocabulary ; and well, i’ve already downloaded all the decks from textfugu but…
The things is ; I will go in Japan for one month in September, and I will be better to learn useful vocabulary. So I’m kind of searching for little lists mixing verbs, nouns, etc. on differents subjects so I can choose that will be important for me, like “food”, “basic words” or “nature” or whatever.
Plus I don’t want to learn any kanjis yet so I search something with hiragana too, at worse katakana. (I know, I know, I could be learning some kanjis, I will have to at some point, but right now, I’m really trying to focus on speaking rather than reading/writing, because that’s what I’ll use in Japan, and back home, I will have time for that. And I haven’t even learned katakana yet, so.)
I would create these lists myself, except I really want the audio with…
I checked the list of japanese decks on the website of Anki, but the list is really long and i haven’t found what i was looking for. (or maybe I should search more carefully)Do someone knows some decks on Anki that will be helpful, or another website/program (hopefully free) ?
Thanks for any answers ! :)You should check out memrise. They offer several collections of vocabulary, both single words and helpful sentences. Many of these are kanji-free, too.
Beware though, there is no guarantee as to how correct everything is. But it certainly is a good resource :)
Here’s one for food vocab, and generally everything Japanese you can find here.One idea that I like doing myself from time to time: load up Google Maps, find some train station in central-ish Tokyo somewhere, then go into street view mode and just wander around reading the signs on buildings. If nothing else, it’ll give you a feel for what kanji you’re not going to get by without. For example, 立入禁止 = “no entrance”/”passage forbidden” sort of thing.
Someone once showed me a website with information about the buttons on washing machines and other electrical apparatus, but I wouldn’t have the faintest idea now where that would be…
Hey that’s a really good idea, Joel
Ah, thanks !
Yeah, Memrise was exactly what I was looking for. :) Let’s just hope I learn correct vocabulary, indeed, but I’m gonna try to pick the ones who looks pretty safe.Wandering in google view seems a really fun idea too ! Although I’m a bit afraid to spend a lot of time to find the meaning of the kanjis I find, even more if they’re not very clearly shown.
I just began japanese like… 1 or 2 months ago, so… Anything is hard. Although I’m storing that for sure for later. :)
(I’ll be working in an art center in Japan where, by chance, I would be able to speak english and be helped for pretty much everything. Though washing machine buttons and more are indeed the useful kind of things you never think about ! As a french person living in Germany, I already know how it’s important to look up these not-really-fun-words ; home appliances, cleaning products, names of devices like Keyboard or USB Stick… ; it’s so easier then, gosh !)Wandering in google view seems a really fun idea too ! Although I’m a bit afraid to spend a lot of time to find the meaning of the kanjis I find, even more if they’re not very clearly shown.
Practice makes perfect. =P
That said, many of the kanji you’ll see on shop fronts may be proper nouns. Though speaking of proper nouns, one possible practice technique you might like to try – at least for pattern recognition – is to get maps of the train lines in Tokyo in both Japanese and English, and compare station names. =)
names of devices like Keyboard or USB Stick
Most of those tend to be English loan words in katakana. Case in point: keyboard is キーボード and a USB stick is ユーエスービーメモリー. =)
Oh, that’s a good idea too, and I guess I could even maybe get train lines maps of Osaka, I spend a night over there before going in the countryside. Cann be fun too to kind of know the stations already ! :)
And anyway, I DID began kanjis now, because i follow textfugu like a good student.
I’m suddenly wondering what kind of level I could get in… 5 months and a half ? I don’t go too fast but I study 30min at least to a whole hour each day or almost each day, so that makes something… Could I be able to know, let’s say the 50 most commons kanjis by that time ? I don’t know how fast you guys learn kanjis. Or were able to follow a really simple conversation with people if you had the chance.And, yeah, キーボード and ユーエスービーメモリー are actually easy, that’s cool ! I’ve noticed a really big bunch of loan words in japanese… Even if sometimes, the prononciation don’t really help because it’s different enough to be not exactly recognizable, it’s pretty useful to remember vocabulary.^^ (I’m not sure though if it’s always the most used words ?)
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This reply was modified 10 years, 2 months ago by
My advice would be to get a phrasebook, with Japanese text and/or romaji. You could just learn a bunch of words and a few grammar points but it’s unlikely you’d be able to put together comprehensible sentences that easily with such a short amount of time (unless you’re studying intensively, reading lots and listening to lots of Japanese audio). Learning phrases will allow you to use more useful Japanese and you’ll learn vocab at the same time. Learning common responses to questions like “Where is the library?” or “What time does the train arrive?” is also essential, as it’s no good knowing how to ask a question without being able to understand the answer. A phrasebook should get your ears used to common answer patterns so you’ll be more likely to understand what people are saying to you.
Ah yeah, forgot about that – yeah, get a phrasebook. I picked up one fairly cheap before I went over to Japan, and it was a great help. Carried it in my pocket the whole time.
Ooooh, yeah, phrasebook, didn’t really thought of that. I usually don’t like the travel books, as someone who likes to learn languages, I find that frustrating because it’s not made to learn it, just be useful. But here, it will actually be very nice.
Do you know maybe a good one ? Which one had you, Joel ? I’m gonna buy it online, i guess, I’m living in Germany but i’m not fluent in german, and it will be a hassle to manage two languages at the same time.
I just found that one from lonely planet : http://shop.lonelyplanet.com/japan/japanese-phrasebook-6/But I wonder if all phrasebooks include some kind of general phrases, not always related to travel, like… “Do you want me to help for ***** ?” or “It’s on the table/floor/etc.”, this kind of things. Seems logic, but i’m not sure ?
Mine’s published by Berlitz, but it’s rather old – 1993 edition. Picked it up for a few dollars in a second-hand bookshop, reasoning that the language hasn’t changed a great deal in the intervening twenty years (though it did suddenly occur to me while in Japan that its age means it’s missing words like “mobile phone” or “internet”).
It’s got a fair range of sections – travelling around (includes stuff to say at train stations and the like), sightseeing, relaxing, making friends, shopping, banking, post office, stuff to say at the doctor’s, and a general reference section (how to say the time, days of the week, public holidays common words and phrases, and a metric/imperial conversion chart that I didn’t look at once =P ) and a very brief dictionary at the back. There’s even a page on dating, but I kinda think if you’re using a phrasebook as a dating reference, you’ve still got a fair way to go. =P
There’s a nice spread of sentences, and all are written out in English, romaji and full Japanese. Some pages have lists of signs you’re likely to see (like entrance, exit, etc) and others have reference boxes that you’d basically show to the person you’re attempting to communicate with and get them to point at the right one, if you’re otherwise having difficulty understanding. There’s also a quick reference page of things to say in an emergency, which is very important in any phrasebook.
And all of that’s just about small enough to fit in a pocket. =)
Ah, all that seems really good ! :) Having a small dictionnary in it is cool too. I’ve always a tiny one of german in my bag and it’s so useful.
I’m going to look up on internet for that but I think i’m going to settle for the lonely planet one because i can get it for 4 dollars and there are good reviews.
Though one of the commentary made me laugh :” (…) pronounciation guides – if you are going to translate into English then it should reflect basic English pronunciation – example: PLEASE = ku-da-sai
I was prounouncing it as Coo-da-say. It’s actually coo-da-sigh. So no one understood me until I was corrected.Since when is sai pronounced sigh in English? (…)”I’m laughing a bit because waaayyy before learning japanese, i knew romanization was a thing…? X)
It’s real hard to give pronunciation approximations in English, especially considering how many different English accents you give. The Nakama textbook’s menmonic for the や kana involves the word “yacht”, but here in Australia, that’s pronounced “yot”. Still, it’s better than one website, which told me that “o” is pronounced like the o in “bow”… but there’s two ways to pronounce “bow”, and neither of them are very close to the Japanese “o” sound. “Reflect basic English pronunciation” is about the least helpful advice you could give.
My phrasebook has a pronunciation guide in the front, and its choice of words to use as examples for the vowel sounds is pretty good.
Yeah, I thought it was a little bit stupid because it’s obviously a hassle to begin with to translate a pronunciation in writing. Romanization is a mess too because it’s just nearly impossible to do. And seeing there is too a pronunciation guide in the book, well, you suppose naturally it’s pronounced a different way.
And we can even consider the regional accent of people to add to the different country accents ! And there is words you prononce a bit different sometimes just because of the ton you use or whatever reason. And the sounds you can’t even try to translate like the “r”.
But, yeah.^^Apparently, the guide of prononciation of the phrasebook from Lonely people is a bit off, i’ve read several comments about that. I don’t care really much though, as normally, I know how to prononce all the sounds of the japanese language with textfugu.^^ I’m still awful at this, obviously, but at least I know how it should sound, and i feel like i’ve a advantage being french because a lot of sounds looks like ours. :)
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This reply was modified 10 years, 2 months ago by
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