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Thread: Anybody here learning japanese?

  1. #21


    Nami's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by hairlessly View Post
    Korean and Japanese are pretty similar in language. They are both derived mostly from Hanja, the traditional Chinese characters. I know many Korean friends who have easily picked up Japanese, and equally Japanese friends who have easily picked up Korean. I would love to learn Japanese too. Maybe someday, if I get the chance to live in Japan!!

    You can try finding these documentaries on YouTube. I watch reruns on television. It's about Japanese celebrities traveling to rural parts of Japan and asking locals for interesting places to go. I believe it's called Japan Hour??
    Yes, I've already heard that learning other similar asian languages is a lot easier if you already know one, I'll definitley pick up Korean someday!
    I haven't googled it now, but I'm sure I'll find some! It sounds really interesting!

    Quote Originally Posted by mokavanila View Post
    Japan is 14 hours flight from where I live and we had a connection in Hong Kong (before the korona hit!) We bought the Rail Passes because it's much faster than traveling by bus. 500km from Tokyo to Kyoto only took us about 3 hours. The bus might be a lot cheaper but we got once into a typhoon and some of the roads to Tokyo were closed so a 2-hour drive took us more than 6 hours on the road. (We were lucky to have a toilet room inside the bus haha).
    When you travel to Japan you need to plan ahead - there is a Rail Pass that is unique for tourists and it only ships abroad, so you need to get it to your country and you can't buy this type of rail pass in Japan. You also should check the specific trains you want to go on because they are not always frequent and we got stuck in Osaka one extra day because we missed the 5 pm train back to Tokyo!
    One last tip I wish I knew about before- the Ghibli Museum in Tokyo sells online tickets for pretty cheap In every 10th of a month for the following month and they run out pretty quick and a visit there is a must.
    I imagine it being weird to actually walk after being on a plane for so long. XD Is there any difference in prices if you ride a normal train instead of a shinkansen?
    That sounds really stressful! I almost forgot that Japan has earthquakes and typhoons, this are the few things I'm quite scared of when travelling there. I'm not used to heavy forces of nature, we don't have them here. XD
    Thanks for all the great insider tips! That's good to know! I'll definitley notice them, even though it may take a few years until I'll be finally able to actually travel to Japan.

  2. #22
    mokavanila's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Nami View Post
    I imagine it being weird to actually walk after being on a plane for so long. XD Is there any difference in prices if you ride a normal train instead of a shinkansen?
    That sounds really stressful! I almost forgot that Japan has earthquakes and typhoons, this are the few things I'm quite scared of when travelling there. I'm not used to heavy forces of nature, we don't have them here. XD
    Thanks for all the great insider tips! That's good to know! I'll definitley notice them, even though it may take a few years until I'll be finally able to actually travel to Japan.
    Haha, yeah the typhoons are apparently pretty common there, all the grocery stores were EMPTY and we were stuck in the hostel for a couple of days with some other tourists from Hamburg (we were like 5 people alone in the whole hostel, everyone escaped). At some point, the ceiling started leaking and breaking but we got through this, it was really interesting and definitely memorable experience.
    About the shinkansen - it's the most expensive one, but it's direct with no middle stops. I and my bestie are both students so we decided to save up on the trains and the hostels but we got a little crazy with the food. (BEST FOOD EVER. Though it was sometimes rough for me, I don't eat any meat and they don't have many vegetarian restaurants).

  3. #23


    Nami's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by mokavanila View Post
    Haha, yeah the typhoons are apparently pretty common there, all the grocery stores were EMPTY and we were stuck in the hostel for a couple of days with some other tourists from Hamburg (we were like 5 people alone in the whole hostel, everyone escaped). At some point, the ceiling started leaking and breaking but we got through this, it was really interesting and definitely memorable experience.
    About the shinkansen - it's the most expensive one, but it's direct with no middle stops. I and my bestie are both students so we decided to save up on the trains and the hostels but we got a little crazy with the food. (BEST FOOD EVER. Though it was sometimes rough for me, I don't eat any meat and they don't have many vegetarian restaurants).
    That sounds very exciting tbh, if you at least all stayed safe! What a funny coincidence, I am from near Hamburg myself XD But I know for sure I wasn't one of those tourists LOL
    I heard traveling with the Shinkansen is a first class feeling compared to our trains so I definitly want to ride it if I am there! And I feel you, I crave for the food! I tried making Curry and Ramen by myself but clearly it doesn't taste as good as the original. I've also made a list of which foods I'm gonna try for sure!
    Yea the food there is pretty meat centered, fish etc. but it's good to hear that you still found something, I always thought they were pretty versatile with their food!

  4. #24
    mokavanila's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Nami View Post
    That sounds very exciting tbh, if you at least all stayed safe! What a funny coincidence, I am from near Hamburg myself XD But I know for sure I wasn't one of those tourists LOL
    I heard traveling with the Shinkansen is a first class feeling compared to our trains so I definitly want to ride it if I am there! And I feel you, I crave for the food! I tried making Curry and Ramen by myself but clearly it doesn't taste as good as the original. I've also made a list of which foods I'm gonna try for sure!
    Yea the food there is pretty meat centered, fish etc. but it's good to hear that you still found something, I always thought they were pretty versatile with their food!
    Yeah the tourists who were with us are 3 students from an exchange program, so if you have this kind of option it could be a great experience in my opinion. I found something to eat just cuz I had NO choice, and sometimes I had to drag my friend with me for hours until we found some decent place to eat (it wasn't so easy as most of the Japanese people we met didn't speak any English and all the menus were in Japanese!). I do eat fish but some of the places there serv really fresh fish and it smells like aquariums in there. I don't consider myself a picky person when it comes to food but it always surprises me how some cultures really depend on meat and seafood that much. Once in Austria, I ordered the eggplant and it came with pieces of bacon on top, imagine my surprise. Anyways, the places that had more tourists had more vegetarian options, like Kyoto for example. There were also surprisingly a lot of vegan places in Kyoto.

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  6. #25


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    Quote Originally Posted by mokavanila View Post
    Yeah the tourists who were with us are 3 students from an exchange program, so if you have this kind of option it could be a great experience in my opinion. I found something to eat just cuz I had NO choice, and sometimes I had to drag my friend with me for hours until we found some decent place to eat (it wasn't so easy as most of the Japanese people we met didn't speak any English and all the menus were in Japanese!). I do eat fish but some of the places there serv really fresh fish and it smells like aquariums in there. I don't consider myself a picky person when it comes to food but it always surprises me how some cultures really depend on meat and seafood that much. Once in Austria, I ordered the eggplant and it came with pieces of bacon on top, imagine my surprise. Anyways, the places that had more tourists had more vegetarian options, like Kyoto for example. There were also surprisingly a lot of vegan places in Kyoto.
    Aren't those exchange program only for students? I fall out of that category, sadly
    But I know what you talk about, I like to eat fish but I can't go on a fresh fish market because of the smell. Eggplant with Bacon on top? I'd have been surprised too lol
    Thanks again for those insider tips!

  7. #26
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    I use Genko and Duolingo ^^ both helps me quickstart Japanese fairly easily. There are also a TOOON of free email subscriptions for daily kanji to teach you brush strokes and such. I'd suggest looking into those as it will really help with your Kanji.
    Also, find someone to practice with! Watch anime...it literally does help!
    I remember when I first started learning Japanese how excited I was to see the kanji for 'bird' in an anime and know exactly what it meant right away. It's an amazing feeling Read signs and stuff in the background of animes or close your eyes and try and understand what you can and make sense of it from sound alone.

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  9. #27


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    Quote Originally Posted by mlemon View Post
    I use Genko and Duolingo ^^ both helps me quickstart Japanese fairly easily. There are also a TOOON of free email subscriptions for daily kanji to teach you brush strokes and such. I'd suggest looking into those as it will really help with your Kanji.
    Also, find someone to practice with! Watch anime...it literally does help!
    I remember when I first started learning Japanese how excited I was to see the kanji for 'bird' in an anime and know exactly what it meant right away. It's an amazing feeling Read signs and stuff in the background of animes or close your eyes and try and understand what you can and make sense of it from sound alone.
    I'm quite unsure about the e-mail subscription thing but I'll have a look at it! I also got my hands on a PDF Copy from Remembering the Kanji, I haven't looked through it yet since I'm still at learning Katakana.
    Finding someone to practice with is also quite difficult, I need to look up a few forums/communities especially for japanese learners, but I don't feel confident enough with my japanese skills, so I'll learn a bit more before that! But I watch Anime everyday, I started watching subs when I was around 12 so my basic japanese skills are mostly from that.
    AND YES! I know what you mean! I've needed roughly a week to remember all the Hiragana and while rewatching Naruto I tried exactly what you said, and I really recognized some things and it made me so fucking happy that's unbelievable!
    Thank you for those tips, I will keep going!

  10. #28




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    I would love to learn Japanese, for a Uni assessment, I did it on a learn Japanese style game and learned a little but it's hard to find stuff here to learn Japanese. I have an audio lesson for German but the series doesn't do Japanese sadly.

    Through do believe there is programs through Colleges and Unis here that offer exchange programs, we had a student taking a semester this year who was an exchange. If I wasn't going for Masters, would look into it cause would be interesting if Japan was one of the countries you could go to for a semester.

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  12. #29


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    Quote Originally Posted by Khloe View Post
    I would love to learn Japanese, for a Uni assessment, I did it on a learn Japanese style game and learned a little but it's hard to find stuff here to learn Japanese. I have an audio lesson for German but the series doesn't do Japanese sadly.

    Through do believe there is programs through Colleges and Unis here that offer exchange programs, we had a student taking a semester this year who was an exchange. If I wasn't going for Masters, would look into it cause would be interesting if Japan was one of the countries you could go to for a semester.
    I know what you mean! I also haven't found anything really good in German so I just started to learn it in English. It is a bit hard to read, think and write in 3 different languages but as soon as you did it a few times, it gets more comfortable. Today I've found "Marugoto" while searching for some informations about the JLPT and it seems you can download some PDF in different languages from those website, also German. I haven't looked it up yet but it seems very, very promising! The website is called marugoto.org!

    If I remember correctly, some Unis have that as a part of japanology studies. I informed myself about it a few years ago, I think it was the Uni in D�sseldorf. But you need to have japanology as your mayor, idk anymore it's been 3 years. So they are very specific, and since I don't go to an Uni I guess my chances are quite bad. If you want to travel with organizations you pay about 10.000€ for a year (other expenses, tickets, school supplies etc. excluded) so that will be quite expensive lol

  13. #30




    Khloe's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Nami View Post
    I know what you mean! I also haven't found anything really good in German so I just started to learn it in English. It is a bit hard to read, think and write in 3 different languages but as soon as you did it a few times, it gets more comfortable. Today I've found "Marugoto" while searching for some informations about the JLPT and it seems you can download some PDF in different languages from those website, also German. I haven't looked it up yet but it seems very, very promising! The website is called marugoto.org!

    If I remember correctly, some Unis have that as a part of japanology studies. I informed myself about it a few years ago, I think it was the Uni in D�sseldorf. But you need to have japanology as your mayor, idk anymore it's been 3 years. So they are very specific, and since I don't go to an Uni I guess my chances are quite bad. If you want to travel with organizations you pay about 10.000€ for a year (other expenses, tickets, school supplies etc. excluded) so that will be quite expensive lol
    I know some folks say if you can learn one language, the rest are easy to learn. The only thing about Japanese is there's so many different styles, I grew up with shows teaching the Kanji versions but Japanese was not the one languages our school system offered - my school only offered Spanish and if we wanted French, we had to travel to another school for classes. I'm still a novice in German but some of the words in Japanese were actually quite easy written in English, it got to the Kanji, etc when things got confusing since most of the symbols looked the same.

    I am not sure how it would work in College or Uni level, I know the Uni advertise about studying aboard but again, might of been targeted at younger students and possible only certain areas may be eligible. I'm in the computer courses so possible could of transferred to another country for my studies but the thing would be funding, I am getting funding in the UK and not sure how that would work outside the country.

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