Tofugu - Latest Comments in The Secret to Learning Japanese! Amazing!

Re: The Secret to Learning Japanese! Amazing!

simonsickboy — Tue, 17 Dec 2013 18:27:44 -0000

get rosetta stone japanese from pirate bay and if you really like it and end up seeing that it's going to be your personal ticket to learning Japanese, then support Rosetta Stone and buy it. By then you will have saved up at least part of the cost depending on your income/lifestyle.

Re: The Secret to Learning Japanese! Amazing!

Neha — Wed, 29 May 2013 21:09:09 -0000

Just keep working at it. Even though you don't feel like you're getting anywhere, if you're studying hard then you actually are, and improvement will just come with time. Gambatte! :)

Re: The Secret to Learning Japanese! Amazing!

Alex — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 00:28:09 -0000

I feel the secret to learning Japanese can be found in this saying:　七転び八起き

Re: The Secret to Learning Japanese! Amazing!

bun bun magenpyon — Fri, 27 Jul 2012 22:04:11 -0000

Hello, I need someone to answer this one question and I will be really great full to the one person who answers it see I'm almost dying to learn Japanese see my dad doesn't think
I can so I want to prove him wrong by saying an entire article in Japanese anyway the question is: What exactly do I study to learn it? I mean I would trade my heart and soul to learn Japanese so I can impress my father. I work day and night on Japanese but, I feel like I'm working really hard but, I'm getting nowhere real fast does anyone out there know what I mean?

Re: The Secret to Learning Japanese! Amazing!

Sean — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 21:28:31 -0000

Koichi,

I thought I would respond to your post. I began "studying" Nihongo several years ago, even taking the JLPT4 at one point! I didn't pass and lost interest in learning. Most recently, I discovered your site, Tofugu, And it has raised my interest again!

I've polished my knowledge of kana again, I'm using Textfugu and debating whether to purchase, and use my iPhone for lesson apps and drills. I hope to be able to afford Rosetta Stone again some day, because that was the most immersion I received when I first began to study.

Thank you for making Japanese Interesting again and funny!

Cheers,

Sean Cruz

Please feel free to comment below and tell us how you study your Japanese. How are you going to learn? How are you learning? What do you do to keep yourself accountable? Share your knowledge a little with the rest of the world.

Re: The Secret to Learning Japanese! Amazing!

Nuria Freitas — Sat, 10 Sep 2011 15:56:11 -0000

I'm also like that, but I'm 15 xD

I began to watch anime and knowing some words just for fun at the age of ten. I wasn't really thinking about learning real japanese. But then I started searching for more and more stuff and I actually became to like the japanese culture :P Then I realised how much do I wanted to learn japanese and go to japan. I'm actually thinking about going to japan in three years from now (by the time that I finish my high school). Since I have the same problem that you have, I'm always looking for internet sites that teach you (I have a lot of them, but some are not that good or a bit confusing... And some are really really nice and easy to understand... And some aren't that easy but makes you to study (and thats a good point) so... like I said I'm always searching... That way you'll know what are the new sites and if you like them), Sites of language exchange to talk to japanese people, I try to think or to say what I'm going to do in japanese and translate lots of words (search by vocabulary). I also try to hear music / seeing programs and try to translate what they're saying.

If everything goes right I'll try to make my best to do the japanese language test to go to an japanese university. (I'll study for how long it takes... 3 years, 5 years... I was going to say 10 years, but if I learn japanese in ten years I wont be able to enter the university, maybe... but yeah even though I'll be studying even if it takes 10 or more!) If I went there and study there, my japanese would improve a lot. And just to think about living there its so great :3

Good luck for your learning japan-fan! :3 (Oh btw, I usually use google for searching... thats not a big secret... but it maybe will need some patience... because you can be searching 'till "50" page if you are interested :) )

Re: The Secret to Learning Japanese! Amazing!

akio_imaidegawa — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 14:22:57 -0000

i really want to know the secret of learning japanese language. i'm taking basic japanese language class right now and next week is my final exam. actually i find it's hard for me to understand about when and where i can use "ga","ni","to","wa","ka" and so on. i hope you can help me. thank you.

Re: The Secret to Learning Japanese! Amazing!

koichi — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 18:31:17 -0000

Heyo! Take a look at some of the textbooks on this page - probably will be
able to find something nice for yourself, and if not shoot me an email and
I'll help you search further! http://tofugu.com/japanese-...

Re: The Secret to Learning Japanese! Amazing!

Moonshadow2589 — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 18:21:08 -0000

Koichi! I want to learn Japanese the right way. What is a good Japanese Textbook to begin with? Do you have any good recommendations?

Re: The Secret to Learning Japanese! Amazing!

mogu — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 00:10:31 -0000

And what happens in you talk in ultra polite under broad day light? Is it something to be made fun of, or will you just receive strange looks?

Re: The Secret to Learning Japanese! Amazing!

koichi — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 16:44:24 -0000

I'd say about two main ones, perhaps three, but that's if you get into
really polite stuff. I'd say go for neutral/polite and casual - ultra polite
isn't needed for a while.

Re: The Secret to Learning Japanese! Amazing!

mogu — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 14:38:06 -0000

I love you. Anyway, I saw a comment on one of your videos saying something about the many ways to speak in Japanese, and that it was basically useless to learn to speak in an uber-polite, stereotypical foreigner way. Are there endless ways to speak? Or just a few? Are there any really significant differences?

Re: The Secret to Learning Japanese! Amazing!

Krupali Trivedi — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 15:28:01 -0000

please anyone help me to translate this following sentence into japanese ' I am learning japanese since last two months'

Re: The Secret to Learning Japanese! Amazing!

Julie Boell — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 16:44:45 -0000

But where can i get something thats actully worth studying, No not japanese articals ^^

Re: The Secret to Learning Japanese! Amazing!

TwoBlue — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 03:19:13 -0000

oooo and hooray for typos (slap me)

Re: The Secret to Learning Japanese! Amazing!

Designer handbags — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 03:17:51 -0000

I was expecting "Eh?" at the end considering it was Canada Dry or whatever that's called. haha. I need to practice more... I haven't seriously since summer. Time to crack open those Japanese textbooks that I never gave back to my school during the break.

Re: The Secret to Learning Japanese! Amazing!

Penny Davis — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 02:45:34 -0000

Do you have any advice for learning the difference between pronouncing ii and i? I'm having a lot of trouble with it...

Re: The Secret to Learning Japanese! Amazing!

Paul — Sun, 02 May 2010 19:16:16 -0000

I've not even begun to dive into Japanese as much as I'd like to.
I took a year of basic Japanese my freshman year in highschool (sophomore now).
I forgot most of it... (tear tear) but now I know how much I missed it. I've been reading up on the culture of Japan and daily life there, in hopes that it will get me more motivated to start actually independently studying.
I thought the mention of Skype was a terrific idea. I just need to actually be able to find Japanese friends!

Re: The Secret to Learning Japanese! Amazing!

nutsu — Sat, 24 Apr 2010 14:42:06 -0000

I wish to learn Japanese language.Kanji is so difficult

Re: The Secret to Learning Japanese! Amazing!

kimie — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 06:37:23 -0000

...so u mean to say that when their cursing in anime, it's not translated properly? That sucks...but i still love anime anyway haha. My bf got me into it and he watches it cause he likes the stories. Anime is more then just a cartoon because most anime stories are put together in a very clever way, which is my opinion... besides that, we've learned alot of words by watching it...so one could probably see it in both positive and negative ways...and it also helps if you know another language. In that case, i'm half asian and i speak another language, and our words are also translated differently in english, so i could understand that fact. I think it would be easier for me and my bf to catch on with tons of practice...don't get me wrong, it's still a very complicated language to even try to consider perfecting...but i would love to visit japan one day!=)

Re: The Secret to Learning Japanese! Amazing!

Sarah — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 18:35:19 -0000

comment to ekopilosopo. japanese is not 3,000 characters. The goverment has made it only 1,945 characters, but i've heard there is about 50,000 caracters that people just madeup i guess but you only need to know the ones the gov. approved of to read things.

Re: The Secret to Learning Japanese! Amazing!

Sara — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 18:30:51 -0000

Um hi. I was going to say that the way that I learn Japanese is by my aunt Shia teaching me. She lived in Japan all her life and came to America for collage. She married my uncle Shannon and she taught him how to read, speak, and write japanese. I learn by sitting down about 10 min. a few times during the day. I can learn about 10-20 new characters a day if I really try. I learned all the numbers in a day. I have already learned all the Hiragana and Katakana. Now I'm learning kanji and what the meaning of words are because Shia said if I wanted to learn the whole language I should start by learning to read and write it.

Re: The Secret to Learning Japanese! Amazing!

asdfghjkl — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 18:22:23 -0000

you should sub japanese in english with your videos then it would be a bit easier to learn with you in your video blog btw.. your videos are too short and not enough teaching...

Re: The Secret to Learning Japanese! Amazing!

Maximilian Pfeiffer — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 13:42:29 -0000

Arg, my only reason for learning Japanese would be... of course, Anime.

Just kidding. I am kind of fascinated by the utterly different culture that Japan represents- yet beeing a totally western county.
But regarding the fact that I already know 3 different languages (and therefore knowing how much work learning one is), I kind of can't make myself get motivated.
Yeah, that's the SuperSaiyajinLevel4 of LAME.
But why learn Japanese? I'd kind of like to hear your opinion on that one. I mean, learning english is a given. German is my native tongue, and half of my family is french, so all these are natural for me.
But Japanese? If I ever were to live in Japan, I'd probably be repelled by the different savoir vivre over there- The very concept of thinking is different, in my opinion at least.
I once saw a whole company sitting through its break and continue working like it was nothing, in Japan. Where this was self-evident.
And I've never seen a culture that pays so much attention to rituals, bearing and status; a friend of my family was actually a succesful scientist (endocrinology, to be exact) in the USA, as the leader of his team, but when he tried to continue working in Japan, having published lots of papers, he actually was treated like a greenhorn, given no responsibility at all.
Because he had no connections and standing over there, as he explained himself.

I can't picture myself beeing successful, thus happy in Japan. And making Japanese acquaintances would be kind of difficult without living there, no?

P.S.: Congratulations to everyone who read the whole roman above ... you've achieved the very first step for learning Japanese! Perseverance! xD

Re: The Secret to Learning Japanese! Amazing!

Jarmone Porter — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 02:07:10 -0000

Whats up dude, well I'm super lazy and a little busy with having a job and going to college. I just wanted to say that I decided to learn only how to speak japanese and not read it. Well because like I said earlier, I'm super lazy, so I've been trying to learn japanese seriuosly for a month now and doing pretty well. I'm poor, so I've been watching all these youtube videos on learning japanese, going to language exchange sites, watching japanese movies, japanese shows, japanese music and skyping with japanese people from japan to make sure what I'm saying is right and makes sense. So it's been going good and even people from japan that sometimes I sound native and I was born in houston. Next year I plan to study there through a foreighn exchange program from school. So for people who want to just speak japanese, I would suggest doing what 'm doing and also trying to simply think in japanese instead of translating it in your head.