I had a little Japanese on my back when I started with Textfugu, but nothing to be proud of. I’m a long time anime fan, and I “work” with a fansub group, so you can imagine what my Japanese was like. “Horrible” doesn’t make it justice :P

After a few emails with Koichi, I got myself a paid Textfugu account, drove through hiragana, and started working on grammar, kanji, and (*gasp*) vocabulary. It took me all of 2 days to get my head around hiragana, and I have little trouble remembering kanji so far. I’m even picking up the grammar quite fast, and doing a lot of practice. Anki is smokin’ yo. And so is my pen. Cause I like to write down the answers to any questions the text asks me, and then check whether I was right.

But then I hit vocabulary. Those vocabulary words Koichi laid out in the early chapters, where he doesn’t give you any kanji, but just the hiragana for it. I’m wondering whether I’m just doing it wrong (drilling em in Anki), or missing some trick, or maybe I’m just worried for nothing and should wait for proper kanji learning to dig in with vocabulary.

Advice, anyone?

Kaito said: I had a little Japanese on my back when I started with Textfugu, but nothing to be proud of. I’m a long time anime fan, and I “work” with a fansub group, so you can imagine what my Japanese was like. “Horrible” doesn’t make it justice :P

Which fansubbing group? And I guess when you say “work”, you mean like timing and typsetting which requires no Japanese skill at all

thisiskyle said: I would suggest jumping on the kanji boat pretty quick though.

pretty much this

As for vocab, I think I’m not going to get frustrated over not being able to recall these words right now, and rather save my energies for when serious kanji comes along.

I’ve already looked at readthekanji, and I’m liking it so far. I just feel that I don’t have enough grammar under my belt to truly benefit from it, but a paid plan is planned for when I’m ready. The free version is good enough for now.

I *am* learning some Kanji, so it’s not like I’m skipping. I’m following along with textfugu, but not yet quite overachieving, like Koichi keeps suggesting in the chapters. Call me weirdo, but I find Kanji huge fun.

Thanks for the tips :)

But glad to know you’re in the subbing business. That sh!t is mad hard. As for me, I’m in the scanlation business

↓↓↓
http://scans.nihongogo.com/index.php

missingno15=honeysenpai

Also, go at whatever pace YOU want.

And don’t talk my job down :P Most groups don’t care about the quality of their work, and just want to get shit out the door. My group does care, so my position is actually appreciated. Getting good translators is damn hard, but getting people that have a firm grasp of their own language isn’t much easier. I’m just happy I can contribute to the fansubbing scene, tbh.

It’s not like I’m learning Japanese to translate anime, but that would be a nice plus once I’m at a good level. That, and understanding those crazy Japanese TV shows.

EDIT: You offer manga download. I just started loving you big time. Can’t stand reading stuff online, it’s just not the same experience. Not to speak of image quality.

EDIT2: The “link embed code” is regular html. ie Link text

EDIT3: Thing doesn’t want to actually show html, code. W3C Link Docs. That should do it :P

I guess what I meant is that it doesn’t really take that much effort. Undoubtedly, it’s just as important as all the other jobs but compared to translation work, typeseting and timing, its not that hard. I guess that’s just me, I think that there really is no reason why you should not have a firm grasp in your own native language…:/

Also, if you check us out, we are very niche as you can see. We only do one manga. But that may or may not change….

Just stick at Anki for vocab. The first few times you review words, it might seem hopeless. At some point you’ll think “oh, hold on a second, I actually know this one! :D” – happens every time with me, it just takes a while :P

I don’t know why, but your avatar looks really good :P Quite fitting as a forum avvie somehow haha

@missingno15: “Honey”? Why don’t you pick a more feminine name?