Japanese - 日本語 - Language Learning

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Issac

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Who are you?​

Give us a brief introduction. Why are you learning Japanese? How much experience do you have, are you a beginner or an expert? Learning by yourself, or in a class?
 

Issac

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Okay I'll start!

I'm Issac, the friendly GBAtemp Supervisor.
I've been learning Japanese for more years than I like to admit, I think I started 16 years ago!
No, I didn't study all that time though, I have started, and stopped many times. High school got in the way, university got in the way, working, gaming, relationships and anything you can imagine got in the way.

When it comes to resources, I've tried many books, many sites, many videos, many CDs. And software, and apps.
I always start, but since I am past the point of the absolute beginning I always get bored by the resource before I get to the part I *should* get to. That's on me though, and I will get past that point ;)

What am I currently using? Right now, actively, I'm using Duolingo, chatting with Japanese people. I'm thinking of picking up Genki again, and use it together with ToKini Andy's YouTube channel. At least giving it a go, and ignore my feelings of "ugh, I know this already" :P
 
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Issac

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I'm an etymologist who likes learning intersting languages. I know a bit of the basic Japanese sentance structure, but I don't know many verbs, so I can't say a whole lot :P
Yeah, I have gotten a grip on a fair bit of sentence structure and grammar, but lacking in vocabulary a lot! 😂
 
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The Catboy

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I am everyone’s favorite Catboy and best Catboy, The Catboy or Miko Bootstraps if I am feeling more formal. I started learning Japanese with my ex-girlfriend a few years ago and I’ve been trying to constantly learn more with my wife. My wife is 1/4 Japanese and has been practicing her Japanese for years now. She’s tried to teach me some stuff but I’ve kind of struggled, so I think it’s time I start looking for more ways to practice.
 
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Pk11

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I've been learning for like two or three years now, my initial reason was that I got a Japanese DSi because they're much cheaper and I wanted to know what I was doing on it lol. I haven't taken any classes yet, in order to force myself to figure things out I basically just decided to set all of my computers, phone, iPods, websites, etc into Japanese and just look things up and figure it out. definitely not the best language to use that technique for as trying to figure out what the heck the Kanji on your screen are when you don't know how to type or read them is rather tricky, I've somehow managed though and am still using practically all my devices in Japanese cause I find it fun that no one I know can read them :ha:

The main resources I use are Jisho.org (Japanese <-> English dictionary), Kanji Garden (Kanji learning site), and just good old Google Translate and DeepL Translator at times, along with random other websites and YouTube videos and such I've seen.

I can use a computer pretty well and even play some games in Japanese, however I could at best barely hold a conversation cause I just haven't really gotten any practice in that, so I'll probably want to take a class or book or something at some point, but haven't really had the opportunity present itself to make me actually do it.
 
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Kioku

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Who am I? Memoir.

Over a decade ago I took two Japanese classes in High School, and found it to be an enjoyable experience. Coupled with the fact that I actually really want to visit Japan and lose myself in its wonders? I'm looking to learn Japanese to expand my language boundaries and explore a new part of the world.

It'll be good, plus the wife is really into their culture. I'm a beginner, and forgot a lot of the basics. Especially Kanji. I can still read some of the Hiragana/Katakana alphabets, and even write my name the way Sensei taught me. A lot of what I'll be learning is self taught, as there's no in person classes where I live. Which sucks. I did use Duolingo, but fell out of it real quick.
 
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Issac

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and just good old Google Translate and DeepL Translator at times
I use them too a lot, mostly to see if I've written anything that makes somewhat sense. But I tried it together with a Japanese person, translating from English into Japanese with both Google Translate and DeepL, and boy, DeepL was heaps better. A lot more natural sounding and made much more sense.

I only noticed that it sometimes translates a little bit too much :P Sometimes I like to divide a sentence in smaller parts just to see the individual parts, but DeepL translated each part as the full sentence... so that wasn't that helpful :P
 
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Pk11

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I use them too a lot, mostly to see if I've written anything that makes somewhat sense. But I tried it together with a Japanese person, translating from English into Japanese with both Google Translate and DeepL, and boy, DeepL was heaps better. A lot more natural sounding and made much more sense.

I only noticed that it sometimes translates a little bit too much :P Sometimes I like to divide a sentence in smaller parts just to see the individual parts, but DeepL translated each part as the full sentence... so that wasn't that helpful :P
Yeah from what I've seen DeepL seems to make much more natural translations, however it also seems to be a lot more prone to messing up badly, especially with really short inputs. The most recent funny thing DeepL did for me is it just randomly stuck this weird face ˶‾᷄ -̫ ‾᷅˵ in the middle of a string lol. I've also seen it give literally an antonym, usually just with really short strings, like giving 'ハイスピード' for 'haitus' or '以上' for 'or smaller'.

I've found machine translation is extremely useful, however you do actually need to know at least a little bit of both languages as if you just blindly trust it you're going to end up doing things like when my sister texted me '見出しホーム' to say she was heading home or calling the Japanese language '日本人' lol. I've also seen Google Translate (ja->en) flip pronouns from 'she' to 'he' just by putting a space at the start of a line. They can only do so much when given some contextless words :P
 
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TigerTiger

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こんにちは、皆さん!

I'm Tiger, and I've been learning Japanese for a few years now. Like a lot of people here, I've been going at it on/off. I was doing well until recently when I fell into a depression, and now I'm too scared to get back into it for fear of seeing the 1000+s of words to reviews that have probably piled up. But, I'm trying... What else can you do!

よろしくね
 
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Minox

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I'm Minox, just some guy who used to be an active staff member here and currently lives and works in Japan.

I used to study Japanese full-time at the university for two years and then continued using it during my free time until I graduated with an engineering degree.
Somewhere along the line I passed N2 and through a friend I found myself an interview and now I'm here.

These days I just try to have fun and learn more through passive learning in everyday life.
 

Issac

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Somewhere along the line I passed N2 and through a friend I found myself an interview and now I'm here.

These days I just try to have fun and learn more through passive learning in everyday life.
Do you think you'll tackle N1 eventually? :)
 

Minox

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Do you think you'll tackle N1 eventually? :)
It really depends I think. Currently I'm still learning quite a lot at work and there's no end in sight for that yet so maybe once I become really good at my job? :')
 
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JuanMena

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Sugoi!
Konnichiwa, boku wa Juan-san.
O genki desu ka?


I decided to learn Japanese at the age of 11 years old. Contrary to what you're probably thinking, It wasn't because I was a Anime Fan or something.

I just liked challenges and Japanese seemed like a good one.

I learned Hiragana and Katakana with the aid of a NintendoDS and two games called: My Japanese Coach and Kanji Sonomama Rakubiki Jitten.
I learned some japanese by studying My Japanese Coach lessons. Tried to learn Kanjis by translating with Rakubiki Jitten, but I just gave up on Kanjis... THERE'S TOO MANY AND I'M TOO LAZY!

In 2013 I got the chance of studying Japanese in my city with a Korean teacher.
(Funny because Korean Sensei taught Japanese while speaking Spanish!!!)

And got the chance to travel to Japan as exchange student but couldn't pay the trip.

After that, I gave up on everything (not because I got sad, but because I focused on French, Portuguese and Italian at the time)

Up to this day, I'm still able to read Hiragana, most of Katana has been forgotten because I never used it, and probably know 3 or 4 Kanjis.
I hope this group revives my curiosity for Japanese again!
 
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cluesagi

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初めまして! I am a linguist and language-learning hobbyist. I first started learning Japanese maybe 8 years ago or so. My interest in it initially stemmed from my interest in Japanese media, from which I began picking up bits and pieces by osmosis without even intending to do so. Eventually I became interested in the language for its own sake, and I taught myself via books and the internet for several years before also taking Japanese courses in university. Right now I'm working my way through Wanikani and I frequent /r/LearnJapanese on Reddit. I'm planning to take the JLPT N2 in December. これからよろしくお願いします!

By the way, I know GBATemp has a rule against non-English languages, but am I correct in assuming that doesn't apply in this group?
 
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