21. Been learning Japanese for between two and three years.

I'm planning on starting a gap year in Japan this summer once I graduate, and I want to be totally fluent by the end of it. I'm not certain what I'm going to be doing yet, I just want to have a fun year and goof around with my friends in Tokyo, who are also going this summer (I have a friend who's going to a language school, and a Japanese friend who's going back to Yokohama).

But after that I want to move on and get to work on Cantonese. I love Japan but I think I'd rather live in Hong Kong :3

zachandhobbes Wrote:About peculiarities, I'm still not convinced that ta12121 is a native english speaker.

qft

I wonder if I'm the youngest ... 14.
I haven't really been studying Japanese that much but I've had this account for 2 years, and I recently finished RTK 1.
I'm also trying to go to Japan next year with AFS, so I can learn more of the language in a high school scenario.

kitakitsune Wrote:27/M/JP IM ME

21/M/NJ

4th semester of J at uni but if you dont count that I've been doing this for about 2.5 months finished RTK March 23rd.

Age: 25
I hate to admit it, but I started learning Japanese 10 years ago in high school. Japanese classes were never really my strong suit, so I continually did poorly. When I entered college I started doing terribly. I lived in a Japanese dormitory for a year when I promptly got a D+ in Japanese, which led me to start studying on my own (ie. I was not allowed to continue, so I stopped for 2 years). I found this site and subsequently RTK (followed shortly by an introduction to Anki) in my senior year of college around the same time that I applied and got accepted to grad school in Tokyo. I finally finished RTK in the summer of 2009 (I think ... I don't remember, I could always look at when I posted in that finished thread ... but, meh). I still never had a good continuous study/reading regime until about last Summer, though (This oddly coincides with the release of Ankimobile and my buying of an iPhone ... well whodathunkit). Took me long enough

I gotta say, if I had never found this site and all the resources and discussions around here, my Japanese would still be pretty pitiful despite having lived here for 2.5 years already. In fact, Kanji was far and away the worst part of my Japanese (followed by vocab) until I finished RTK. Thanks to all of you guys on this forum!

Anyone who wants to beat me is crazy. I'm the youngest. I'm one hundred and two young.
Never did Heisig.

18
started RTK 2 days ago.
frame 85

zachandhobbes Wrote:About peculiarities, I'm still not convinced that ta12121 is a native english speaker.

hmmm, not sure what to say about that one lol. I guess it really depends on what you think. Although this is a forum and what people believe and what is the truth are two different things. I am a native-speaker, but I do agree I need to work on my grammar. That's what everyone tells me and thanks to the srs I can improve on this really fast.

Asriel Wrote:

zachandhobbes Wrote:About peculiarities, I'm still not convinced that ta12121 is a native english speaker.

qft

Would it be wierd if I said I actually got an award in my english grade 12 class for writing well. Although that was back in grade 12, maybe my english just got horrible due to japanese. There is another possible I'm just lazy as well.

If anyone can recommend some good english grammar sites/books that are easy/on the spot. I'd read up on it and use it to improve my grammar

buonaparte Wrote:Anyone who wants to beat me is crazy. I'm the youngest. I'm one hundred and two young.
Never did Heisig.

No kidding. :o I'm two hundred and five, just turned that last month. You sure are young.
Did Heisig 2042 times.

ta12121 Wrote:

zachandhobbes Wrote:About peculiarities, I'm still not convinced that ta12121 is a native english speaker.

hmmm, not sure what to say about that one lol. I guess it really depends on what you think. Although this is a forum and what people believe and what is the truth are two different things. I am a native-speaker, but I do agree I need to work on my grammar. That's what everyone tells me and thanks to the srs I can improve on this really fast.

No, it wasn't an attack or anything. I have just seen you consistently produce some pretty funky, hard to read posts. Like your writing has no sense of flow to it that a native speaker (or writer I guess) would have. But that is just a misjudgment on my part, maybe. No one really types perfectly on the internet anyway.

zachandhobbes Wrote:No, it wasn't an attack or anything. I have just seen you consistently produce some pretty funky, hard to read posts. Like your writing has no sense of flow to it that a native speaker (or writer I guess) would have. But that is just a misjudgment on my part, maybe. No one really types perfectly on the internet anyway.

play call of duty on xbox, you'll lose faith in english speakers.

i'm a native english speaker as well and i have to admit sometimes if i look over some of the posts i've done i cant make heads or tails of them. Never did learn english grammar beyond the verb adjective noun bit and i dont think trying to pick up any of that will actually help me.

Either way i'm 20 I finished RTK about a month ago i think, ended up doing it in somewhere between 4-5 months. I suppose you could say i started learning japanese about 8 months ago using various methods before stumbling on RTK and AJATT and throwing the rest out of the window.

ta12121 Wrote:If anyone can recommend some good english grammar sites/books that are easy/on the spot. I'd read up on it and use it to improve my grammar

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/607/01/
You can start here...

zachandhobbes Wrote:

ta12121 Wrote:

zachandhobbes Wrote:About peculiarities, I'm still not convinced that ta12121 is a native english speaker.

hmmm, not sure what to say about that one lol. I guess it really depends on what you think. Although this is a forum and what people believe and what is the truth are two different things. I am a native-speaker, but I do agree I need to work on my grammar. That's what everyone tells me and thanks to the srs I can improve on this really fast.

No, it wasn't an attack or anything. I have just seen you consistently produce some pretty funky, hard to read posts. Like your writing has no sense of flow to it that a native speaker (or writer I guess) would have. But that is just a misjudgment on my part, maybe. No one really types perfectly on the internet anyway.

I can agree that my writing is pretty random at times. Well a lot of times actually. I'll see what I can do about it. Personally a lot of people say I just need to improve on grammar. Although you've got me thinking about my writing flow and how I write things.

yukamina Wrote:

ta12121 Wrote:If anyone can recommend some good english grammar sites/books that are easy/on the spot. I'd read up on it and use it to improve my grammar

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/607/01/
You can start here...

I was thinking of using the srs to improve my grammar at a fast pace. But a lot of people say just read up on it and you'll be fine

Well if you want some feedback, I'd say use more commas. You use periods a lot to break up your thoughts, when really a comma would be more appropriate. There are also some spots that would read better with a comma. not to be anal or anything, just to give an example:

"well, a lot of times actually" would sound a lot more natural than "well a lot of times actually"

zachandhobbes Wrote:About peculiarities, I'm still not convinced that ta12121 is a native english speaker.

LOL. Capitalize 'E' in English.


Well, anyways, I'm 15 right now.
I started and finished RTK during summer vacation last year. [I was 14 then]. Those two months went by fast. ;]

I'm the youngest, I think.
rawr.

I see people question ta12121 a lot about his English, however it never really looks that strange to me.

I'm in a somewhat peculiar situation because I tend to really struggle when it comes to proper grammar and whatnot in my writing. Maybe because I didn't learn a single grammar term until Senior year in high school >.>

However, I constantly get praised by teachers and peers for my speeches. I'm apparently a fantastic speaker, even though I despise it. I personally think I'm a horrible speaker, but I can't get other people to agree with me no matter how hard I try.

I find the contrast between the responses I get for writing vs speaking kind of interesting.

mark95427 Wrote:I'm the youngest, I think.
rawr.

17 here 2nd youngest.

mark95427 Wrote:

zachandhobbes Wrote:About peculiarities, I'm still not convinced that ta12121 is a native english speaker.

LOL. Capitalize 'E' in English.

Pffft. Says who? I say either capitalise all nouns like the germans or none.

Tori-kun Wrote:

mark95427 Wrote:I'm the youngest, I think.
rawr.

17 here 2nd youngest.

I think I'm the youngest -- 14

arch9443 Wrote:I see people question ta12121 a lot about his English, however it never really looks that strange to me.

I'm in a somewhat peculiar situation because I tend to really struggle when it comes to proper grammar and whatnot in my writing. Maybe because I didn't learn a single grammar term until Senior year in high school >.>

However, I constantly get praised by teachers and peers for my speeches. I'm apparently a fantastic speaker, even though I despise it. I personally think I'm a horrible speaker, but I can't get other people to agree with me no matter how hard I try.

I find the contrast between the responses I get for writing vs speaking kind of interesting.

I definitely do need to work on my grammar. Plus, I'm working on improving grammar/flow. To put it simpler terms: I'm working on getting it solid, if I ever want to be a translator, my grammar has to be solid. Same with my writing

arch9443 Wrote:I see people question ta12121 a lot about his English, however it never really looks that strange to me.

His English is fine enough for forum banter, but he has specified numerous times that he wants to be a translator. As a translator is essentially a professional writer, excellent grammar is a minimum. I don't follow the forum that closely anymore, but he seems better than before.

I'm 21 years old, but I'm guessing most people on here are twenty somethings. I started studying Japanese around mid february this year, completed Heisig about a month later and then I started to look at grammar and sentences. I came to the conclusion that I'd rather expand my vocab first, because remembering several readings per sentence proved to be very inefficient. So now I'm going through the core 2k.