I know I'm resurrecting an ancient thread, here, but I'm facing this.

I learned the kanji, then the kana, and now I'm on Tae Kim's grammar, and am learning the vocabulary that goes along with it. I've been diligent in avoiding romaji like the plague, and trying to ingrain new vocabulary into my head using the kana.

However, for some reason I wrote in romaji "nedan" next to 値段, instead of ねだん, and it was much easier to recall the reading than when I use kana!

And then I thought, "Well, I type in romaji, so romaji is constantly in my head anyways..."

So...is it really that taboo to use romaji with the kana when learning new vocabulary, if the romaji sticks it in your head better? Help me with the logic...

Nice necro post.

You know, romaji is not the plague, but the fact that 値段 is easy to remember may not necessarily be because you used romaji. Some words are just easier to learn than others.

Even IF using romaji helps you learn vocab faster, that's just because you're not good enough at kana yet. Continuing to use it will help you improve your reading ability.

Jarvik7 Wrote:Even IF using romaji helps you learn vocab faster, that's just because you're not good enough at kana yet. Continuing to use it will help you improve your reading ability.

This.

Drop the romaji. It's a crutch you DON'T want to rely on.

While it's slower for me to read the kana, how else will I ever get faster at it than to just keep grappling with it?

Also, reading in kana will help with pronunciation and rhythm - especially those little つ's、the long vowels, etc.

Eat your veggies. They're good for you.

You'll get faster.....and faster, and FASTER! Romanji will HURT your eyes after a while (exaggeration.....sort of)

yukkuri_kame Wrote:Also, reading in kana will help with pronunciation and rhythm - especially those little つ's、the long vowels, etc.

SOOOO TRUE!

lol. Alright. Guess I'll keep on using kana when learning readings, then. Hopefully it'll get as familiar as my ABC's.

Thunk Wrote:lol. Alright. Guess I'll keep on using kana when learning readings, then. Hopefully it'll get as familiar as my ABC's.

The turning point, for me, was when I started following along with the Harry Potter audiobook (in Japanese) while reading the book at the same time. At first I couldn't even keep up. Within a week, my kana-reading speed had probably doubled or tripled. I would totally recommend getting something you can read and follow along with at the same time. You don't even have to understand it. Just follow along with the words.

A month from now you'll be surprised at how much faster it flows too.

If i was a teacher of Japanese, I'd kick any student out that uses romaji. Stick with kana, and only kana. In my dict of basic jp grammar, i've highlighted all the kana sentences just so I'm not forced into reading the romaji.

liosama Wrote:If i was a teacher of Japanese, I'd kick any student out that uses romaji. Stick with kana, and only kana. In my dict of basic jp grammar, i've highlighted all the kana sentences just so I'm not forced into reading the romaji.

My teachers were not that harsh, but after the two first weeks of going through the かな (evening course at half-speed) you didn't get any points if you used roumaji (they had had students that didn't use かな even into half of Genki I).

We did learn grammar in those two weeks, but that was a crash course in Swedish grammar! Still haven't figured out how learning the vocabulary of Swedish grammar would help us learning Japanese grammar.

Anyhow, if you can't wait a week to introduce grammar, why not use かな and then write roumaji below? That would signal to the students that roumaji is only a temporary clutch and give them practice on matching roumaji to かな.

astridtops Wrote:I'm currenty in a 4th year group that uses kana, but doesn't use kanji. That vexes me to no end. If new vocab is introduced, I immediately want to put the right kanji to it, but I'm the only one in the group that feels that way. The rest still has too much trouble even working completely in kana. It irritates me, but I can't feel upset about it, I'm simply in a different position, kanji-wise.

I think it's actually good that you're group is using kana so extensively, I studied it with no romaji and full kanji right from the start but I'm having real trouble reading an all kana text. At least having some kanji scattered in a sentence provides some hold on to where some words end and the next begins. And an all kana sentence makes that even worse, so I think for you it's good learning getting used to all kana. I had lots of times when I had a sentence that was all kana and I had no idea what it meant, then seeing the one with kanji included and instantly I understood the sentence.

Musashi Wrote:

astridtops Wrote:I'm currenty in a 4th year group that uses kana, but doesn't use kanji. That vexes me to no end. If new vocab is introduced, I immediately want to put the right kanji to it, but I'm the only one in the group that feels that way. The rest still has too much trouble even working completely in kana. It irritates me, but I can't feel upset about it, I'm simply in a different position, kanji-wise.

I think it's actually good that you're group is using kana so extensively, I studied it with no romaji and full kanji right from the start but I'm having real trouble reading an all kana text. At least having some kanji scattered in a sentence provides some hold on to where some words end and the next begins. And an all kana sentence makes that even worse, so I think for you it's good learning getting used to all kana. I had lots of times when I had a sentence that was all kana and I had no idea what it meant, then seeing the one with kanji included and instantly I understood the sentence.

That's a good thing, Japanese people are the same. All-kana texts are the problem, not your ability to read kana.

blackmacros Wrote:

Thunk Wrote:lol. Alright. Guess I'll keep on using kana when learning readings, then. Hopefully it'll get as familiar as my ABC's.

The turning point, for me, was when I started following along with the Harry Potter audiobook (in Japanese) while reading the book at the same time. At first I couldn't even keep up. Within a week, my kana-reading speed had probably doubled or tripled. I would totally recommend getting something you can read and follow along with at the same time. You don't even have to understand it. Just follow along with the words.

That's a brilliant idea! I love this forum. I wonder if they have Harry Potter at the Kinokuniya by my house... How much did the audio cost?

astridtops Wrote:Reading and writing kana will always be more awkward than roman letters. I know my kana, but I still have to spell them instead of them coming together fluently in my head like roman letters, so studying grammar in kana takes up 5x the amount of time it would do in romaji. I don't think I can ever overcome the speed gap when reading Japanese. I'm resigned that it will remain a slow affair forever.

The reason you're not getting better is because you're avoiding it. The first week or two where you just us kana is going to be a little more painful. After that, it becomes a lot better. I can read kana just as fast and reliably as I can English. I can't read romaji worth shit. It doesn't signal Japanese to my brain.

The kana are really not difficult, but you do need to practice them so they're reflexive. If you only use them when you absolutely have to then you're just making it more painful for a longer period of time.

I still use romaji a fair bit if I'm writing quick notes for myself on the spot somewhere. I remember being surprised once recently to see the writing come out in romaji instead of kanji -- too much typing.

we have kana tags here!? O__O i never knew that! what other miracle tags do we have here!?

Oh how times have changed Now people refuse to even write kana, and prefer to write in kanji instead, even for words that are usually written in kana. :lol:

Thunk Wrote:

blackmacros Wrote:

Thunk Wrote:lol. Alright. Guess I'll keep on using kana when learning readings, then. Hopefully it'll get as familiar as my ABC's.

The turning point, for me, was when I started following along with the Harry Potter audiobook (in Japanese) while reading the book at the same time. At first I couldn't even keep up. Within a week, my kana-reading speed had probably doubled or tripled. I would totally recommend getting something you can read and follow along with at the same time. You don't even have to understand it. Just follow along with the words.

That's a brilliant idea! I love this forum. I wonder if they have Harry Potter at the Kinokuniya by my house... How much did the audio cost?

The audiobook? Err...cost?...hm...not sure...I borrowed it from my internet buddies. I actually would have bought it if I could have easily figured out how or where. But I did buy a copy of the book itslef. I think I got it for like $15 AUD or thereabouts. But I prefered to read along on my iPhone using the .txt version of the book I also sourced from the previously mentioned internet buddies.

Squintox Wrote:Oh how times have changed Now people refuse to even write kana, and prefer to write in kanji instead, even for words that are usually written in kana. :lol:

Too much kana makes me eyes want to gouge themselves out!
I remember babysitting and reading bedtime stories to lil' kids...all the kana drove me insane. Furigana is especially irritating, because I used it a lot when I was learning to read when I myself was a small child, so my eyes reflexively glance at the furigana for some reason. And in kids books they always have furigana next to the most ridiculously easy characters, yet my eyes will keep glancing at the readings for 何、子, etc...

Besides, sometimes it's amusing to see how much of a sentence you can string together without using a single kana, haha