Hello! I am new here, and so I hope this is the correct board. I want to learn to speak, and understand spoken Japanese, and I don't really care for learning written Japanese(kanjii etc). I am looking for the best starting place to do this, the foundation of the grammar, and advice on the subject(Japanese without Kanjii).

I am learning Japanese so that I can communicate better with my girlfriend(who is Japanese), and I don't feel that learning the written half of the language will be much use for me. And after learning French, and quite a bit of Portuguese, a passing glance at Japanese grammar shows that it isn't nearly as (immediately)daunting as I had expected. It will be a new set of challanges, but from the looks of it the hardest and most time demanding part of Japanese langauge learning is the Kanjii. Which, currently, I don't plan on learning.

What I am asking for, is not a pat on the back, or a heated debate on how useful Kanjii will be and how handicapped I will become ignoring it, but advice. I don't mind hearing what kind of pitfalls I will face in ignoring Kanjii(actually if you can say all of that in a polite useful manner I would be very happy). I would love to hear what the best place to start is(for instance in romance languages you generally start with to be, to have, to go, and follow a straight line of verbs and tenses to the end), Japanese is very different from the other langauges I have studied so this is difficult to decide. Any advice from people who have done something similar would also be very appreciated. Actually, I don't mind hearing reasons as to why I should learn Kanjii as well, I could very well be underestimating its importance. General advice is what I am looking for.

My plan so far, is to SRS sentences with romaji and english translations, find some grammar books, and listen to japanese music and watch japanese films and anime, non-stop. And converse with my girlfriend, and japanese friends(who i work with). Going for a mouth to mouth semi-imersion approach, but my problem is it's not very guided or ordered.

Contrary to what I believed, my Girlfriend has no idea where to start either, so I have her right now providing me with 20 random 'sentences' of her picking(very simple right now) a day, giving me meaning and pronunciation and so on.

I appologize if their are lot's of topics on this subject already, so simply directing me to them is very appreciated as well, also links to Japanese learning resources are appreciated, but I would love some discussion.

Thanks!! )

EDIT: and i am well aware I am asking this on a board based on a website dedicated to Kanjii, I have read the forum a bit and found discussions very open and civil.

Japanese: The Spoken Language is all romaji and based on speaking, but it's oriented more towards semi-polite and polite speech so it won't be as good for conversing with your girlfriend, plus it's not really geared for self-study.

The main reason to learn kanji is that there's just not that much material that you can use to learn Japanese without learning the Japanese writing system as well, and this is even more true for self-study. It's certainly possible in theory, and I've known many people with good spoken ability but poor reading, but for the most part they either lived in Japan or used something like JSL.

Though you made it clear you want to avoid kanji, you made no mention of hiragana/katakana. I would recommend starting there. It doesn't take long and has huge benefits. Learning the kana enables you to pronounce Japanese more naturally. Also, in the event that you ever wanted to read something, as long as there is furigana above the kanji, you would be able to read it.

Romanji is hard to read anyway...

Well, if you have absolutely no desire to read anything, then I can't blame you for not wanting to learn kanji. However, do note that written materials are very useful in actually learning the language. For instance, if you can't read anything, would you be able to use a textbook effectively? If you needed to use a dictionary, perhaps that might present some extra challenges?
At the very least, I would recommend you to learn hiragana and katakana, as they don't take too much effort at all, and will actually help you understand the language and the makeup of the words much better, in my opinion.

Your plan sounds pretty solid aside from that, I guess.

This sounds very similar to the way i started with Japanese. Except, I decided to learn H/K and ignore kanji.

Eventually, I started mixing lots of things up because many things sound the same. That will probably be your biggest problem.

After JPN 101 I moved away from textbooks and did Pimlseur, finishing 80/90 lessons with about 95% retention. Pimsleur will teach you some Japanese, but you will not be able to think/understand outside the box (lessons).

I recommend using Japanesepod101.com. Do about 1 hour a day and in 3 months you will be able to understand and say a bunch of things. (you'll be able to say/understand a bunch of things in a week, but in 3 months you'll be able to hold a conversation)

I also lived with a Pakistani guy who lived in Japan, married a Japanese woman, and became conversationally fluent. However he didn't learn anything else, not a single kana/kanji. So your goal is completely possible.

There are a few courses available for those not wishing to learn Japanese script, but none will take you beyond beginner/intermediate.

Off the top of my head there are:

All audio programs such as Michel Thomas, Pimsleur, In Your Car, etc.
Let's Learn Japanese--TV series with accompanying textbooks mostly in romaji.
Assimil--Good course with lots of dialogs written in both romaji and native script w/ accompanying audio. Teaches casual and polite speech.
Linguaphone Comprehensive--Similar to Assimil but uses no native script. The Linguaphone Japanese course uses VERY polite language.
Rosetta Stone--Expensive, repetitive, and no grammar explanations, but you can use the romaji setting.
Japanesepod101.com--Japanese learning podcast.

Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar has romaji, and I think Japanese: A Comprehensive Grammar uses romaji as well. Also there are some E-J dictionaries which use romaji.

There are good books to learn from that will let ou get by with just romaji.
I would recommend
Ultimate Japanese Basic-Intermediate http://www.amazon.com/Ultimate-Japanese-...0609607367
This quite a good book and has lots of useful audio practice. I only used it for listening practice but it does all the grammar.

My favourite grammar book is A dictionary of Basic Grammar by Seiichi Makino. Only the first of the series of 3 seems to use romaji but that will keep you busy for quite a while.

Japanese Sentence Patterns for Effective Communication. http://books.google.com.au/books?id=0BtG...&q&f=false Click on 'preview this book' and you get to read the first 50 pages.

A Handbook of Japanese Verbs by Taeko Kamiya and a lot of the other small Kodansha books (the Power Japanese Series).

For absolute beginners - Learn Japanese in your Car is good, I think. Basically, it is just audio. I found it less slow than Pimsleur (which you might also consider using).

I agree with Crayonmaster, that learning hiragana and katakana might make your life easier, but I think you should start with what you are interested in and revisit the decision about reading later if you want to. Down the track you may find that learning kanji, helps you acquire and remember new vocabulary more easily - when you know some of the readings and can see how the words are made up from the meaning of their composite kanji. But that, again, is something to consider down the track.

It may also be sensible to use anki for SRSing vocabulary. With the download audio plugin, you can practice with English and sound and ignore the written Japanese in the deck(s) if you wish. The 'core' decks have a lot of good audio already included.

"Teach Yourself Japanese Complete Course" uses only romaji. You can pick up a copy on Amazon.ca for $22.37 (that includes 2 CD's), or just the book for $5.19. I've never heard the CD's so I'm not sure how they are, but the book isn't bad and is geared more towards casual conversation.

Thanks for all the posts guys, a ton of really useful information already. Learning Hirigana and Katakana may be a good idea, I will look into it. And I guess I am not totally cancelling out Kanji. Obviously, if this turns out well, Kanji would be the next logical step, and I am sure after learning to speak I will be much more motivated and interested in learning to read. As far as it being a source of un-tapped material, I am not totally concerned, as I have a large pool of Japanese speakers who I can rely on for input and ideas, so while one stream of information is blocked off, another very large one is open in its place. Dictionaries being the big problem.

A big fear of mine now, is that since my girlfriend will be a big source of listening input, that I will end up speaking like a girl from Fukuoka.

Learning the polite form is actually another concern of mine. Is it worth ignoring, and learning once I have a workable conversation level of Japanese? Or should I focus on it along with casual right from the start?

I am going to look into japanesepod101 right now, and then work through the other links and resources you guys have given me. Glad to hear all the positive information, and that it is possible!

EDIT: Is japanesepod101 worth the subscription? Is the 'free' one time offer worth it with the subsciption?

Thanks!

Iustefan Wrote:My plan so far, is to SRS sentences with romaji and english translations, ....... Going for a mouth to mouth semi-imersion approach, but my problem is it's not very guided or ordered.

Looking at what you wrote .....
One of the best ordered and useful collection of sentences for beginners would probably be the sentences from Japanese Sentence Patterns for Effective Communication (see previous post). I wish I had had it when I was beginning. Someone on these forums has posted a link to an anki deck containing the sentences. If you found that, and bought the book, you could add the romaji yourself if you needed to, and it would still save time on entering sentences from scratch.

Iustefan Wrote:I am learning Japanese so that I can communicate better with my girlfriend(who is Japanese), and I don't feel that learning the written half of the language will be much use for me.

To me, kanji is an extremely important part of learning Japanese. That said, I completely agree with your reasoning. In the short run, ditching kanji and concentrating on conversational practice instead will almost certainly be better for your spoken Japanese.

If you do continue to study and progress in Japanese, you'll eventually get to a point where lack of kanji will hinder your speaking ability, because you'll lack knowledge of compounds (which are much more important in Japanese than in English), and access to written materials that can help you build vocabulary and finer use of the language. That will be years in the future however, and you can deal with that if and when you get to that point. No real need to rush, as Heisig and other kanji learning materials will still be waiting for you when you do.

Iustefan Wrote:Dictionaries being the big problem.

Yes, dictionaries for beginners can be a problem. You do have a couple of options open to you, even if you stick with only with romaji:

-The Japan Foundation's Basic Japanese-English Dictionary
-Kenkyusha's English-Japanese Japanese-English Learner's Pocket Dictionary

Both have headwords and example sentences in romaji. Having example sentences is really useful, especially in the early stages, while you're getting your head around basic grammar etc.

Iustefan Wrote:Learning the polite form is actually another concern of mine. Is it worth ignoring, and learning once I have a workable conversation level of Japanese? Or should I focus on it along with casual right from the start?

I'd say learn both; in any event, you can't really avoid the polite form, as you'll see and hear a lot of it in the textbooks/audio courses you'll be using. What you *can* safely ignore for now is respect language (keigo) - that's a way of being even more polite using a system of special verb forms and other words.


Best of luck!

I'm glad you said you don't mind hearing reasons as to why [you] should learn Kanjii as well, because I'm going to be a dick and give that undesirable advice. Learning the kanji is not 'the next logical step'--it is the logical prior step to learning Japanese for two reasons:

1) As others have noted, the writing system and the oral language are intertwined to such a degree in Japanese unimaginable coming from the perspective of a western language. Japanese has many homophones, as you know, and also many examples of words that if you screw up the pronunciation they sound like something else instead of just gibberish. Before I learned any kanji I made those mistakes all the time, but now I don't. The visual image of the kanji helps me keep them separate in my mind. Everyone's thinking and learning process is different, but if you're anything like me you'll spend more time frustrated with these difficulties than it would take to just learn the kanji now.

2) Even if you know the kana, without the kanji you will be functionally illiterate. How can you expect to be an interesting conversationalist without being able to read? Think about it.

EDIT: But either way, best of luck!

mafried Wrote:the writing system and the oral language are intertwined to such a degree in Japanese unimaginable coming from the perspective of a western language.

I wonder how kids manage to learn to speak before they enter elementary school.

The situations are entirely different and not even close to comparable. Kids have no language to fall back on, every interaction is in that language, the topics and vocabulary used is less advanced, they spend years learning before they can have even the most rudimentary conversations, the expectations of all involved are different, ... should I even go on?

mafried does make some good points about why you should learn kanji, the one that hit home the most was how the visual image keeps homophones separate in your mind. OP, you don't care too much about being functionally literate, so don't worry about that bit...I'm not sure how much reading has to do with being a conversationalist, but...

I would definitely recommend, as everyone else has, at least hiragana and katakana -- and you'll probably pick up some kanji along the way just on accident.

I don't know a lot of sources, but for just speaking, I have heard that Assimil is pretty good. Also: Michel Thomas and Pimsleur. Although Pimsleur has a certain reputation for programming you for certain conversations. Assimil and Michel Thomas supposedly don't...I have no experience, I'm not sure.

As for books, the only thing I used was Genki in my classes. To be blunt, a lot of the teachers at my university don't expect you to be able to read a lot, so they focus a lot on speaking (until the later classes). While Genki does use a fair amount of Kanji, the hiragana/furigana is all over the place, so you could get by without it. Especially if you use the audio CDs provided.

Considering your goals, I wouldn't suggest learning Kanji unless you find yourself dedicated to learning the language. If you find it's really holding you back (a lot of learning materials will just be in print) then don't be intimidated by the Kanji. But since you're just beginning, and you don't care about it, you shouldn't have too much trouble with it.

Best thing to do would be talk talk talk and listen listen listen (dramas should be good, too, I suppose)

mafried Wrote:2) Even if you know the kana, without the kanji you will be functionally illiterate. How can you expect to be an interesting conversationalist without being able to read? Think about it.

He's not illiterate and he can read so I'm guessing he's as good a conversationalist as the rest of us.

Will he ever reach an extremely high level of spoken Japanese if he never learns kanji? Probably not. But, I don't think that's what he's looking for either. He just wants to chat a bit with his girlfriend and he doesn't need kanji to be able to do that.

I have studied Japanese on and off for years, but every time Kanji was the main obstacle that brought me back to square one. This made me take the bold decision to postpone learning Kanji till I master conversation first.

So recently I started listening to Japanese and trying to practice speaking, I think the main problem with learning any language is that we receive information in the target language more than we transmit, we learn other people's-speak instead of our-speak,

so my target now is to speak and construct my own sentences more than listening. Here are some of the free tools I use these days 1- KeyholeTV (for Japanese channels), 2- Rikaichan add-on for firefox (translates Kanji on any website into hiragana and gives you definition), 3- Furigana Injector for firefox (injects Hiragana over the kanji), 4- japanesepod 101 (you can find many files on avaxhome), 5- http://nihongo.j-talk.com/kanji/ (breaks down kanji sentences into romaji and hiragana and puts spaces between the particles and the words for easier reading and analysis, it actually has a dictioanry), 6- smart.fm (look for core-2000 to learn the basic most used 2000 words), 7-Tae Kim's grammar guide is great for a basic foundation of sentence structure http://www.guidetojapanese.org

What I do now is to try to generate my own sentences all the time, so when I listen to japanesepod or japanese tv for an hour, i try to speak for two hours. At first you won't be able to say full sentences, but the more you try, the more your brain will be forced to generate the language. I think livedoor's passage translator (http://translate.livedoor.com/) is the best I could find, coupled with the rikaichan's firefox addon, I am able to construct sentences in Japanese without the need for any kanji, and since you have someone to correct the mistakes of the online translator it will be easier.

As for me I am glad I made the decision to postpone studying Kanji however late it was, because this has accelerated my study very much, I have actually heard that there was a Japanese movement decades ago calling for canceling the kanji all together! but well actually Kanji is very interesting and enjoyable to study, but the problem is it takes too much time.

Amado Wrote:I think the main problem with learning any language is that we receive information in the target language more than we transmit, we learn other people's-speak instead of our-speak. [...] What I do now is to try to generate my own sentences all the time, so when I listen to japanesepod or japanese tv for an hour, i try to speak for two hours. At first you won't be able to say full sentences, but the more you try, the more your brain will be forced to generate the language.

Antimoon fan here, so I'm a bit skeptical that this will work out well. Can you post us some sentences your brain was forced to generate? A paragraph on some topic would be great.

Well I am just trying this method as I have said, I didn't say I have succeeded yet. The online translators help with short sentences, but long ones tend to get messed up, so I use them only for direction. What I meant by generating my own sentences was avoiding ready made phrases like for example according to the textbook you should say : gomennasai watashi ga warukatta desu, but I would say something like : gomennasai kore wa boku no ayamachi desu . Perhaps it sounds a little weird but I don't mind as long as it is understandable !

I think learning language is about breaking the wall of fear, nothing less nothing more.

Lot's more information, working through it all, and re-working my plans and how I want to go about this quite a bit. And I have a few more questions(if anyone is generous enough to answer even more).

Concerning SRS, from my knowledge(limited) of Japanese sentence strucutre, is that it is fairly open, and that the verb is the most important part, and most everything else can be left to context(and often is). Would it be a good idea to make a deck of say, the top 200 verbs, and another deck of vocabulary, and just drill words and not sentences to start(anyone know good sites with these sorts of lists?)? Work towards sentences later? Maybe even learn structure just through conversation practice using memorized words?

Also I didn't use audio or images when I SRSed french or portuguese; with japanese i can see a definite benefit of recording audio and using it, but do images help at all? I just picked up an voice-recorder for audio. Also does anyone know if audio can be used with the anki-app for the iphone? I know images can(but not exactly how). Is it difficult to update decks constantly if you want audio or image included and synced to the app?

''mafried does make some good points about why you should learn kanji, the one that hit home the most was how the visual image keeps homophones separate in your mind. ''

Isn't this an issue with any language though? Or is it especially difficult with Japanese? Reading some posts make it seem like Japanese and Kanji are a special case. Can't i simply seperate them in my mind with the seperate meanings, as opposed to kanjii, as i do in romance languages?

Personally, I'd try to work something out with RTK-Lite and learn at a comfortable pace of 5-10 per day. It's hardly signing your life away in terms of time commitment, and it will make SRSing a lot easier (I can't even imagine a deck with just romaji/kana). Then you can enjoy all the benefits kanji bring to the learning process.

If you plan on making SRS the backbone of your studies, I don't see how kanji becomes time-consuming at all (you'll be learning to read as you learn vocabulary), as long as you make use of RTK and structure your learning efficiently.

As for improving your speaking ability, I'd recommend 10 minutes of shadowing a day, trying out some Japanese Pod lessons, and reading manga when you have a good enough base (you can do this knowing only kana), since it has so much conversational language.

Quote:Would it be a good idea to make a deck of say, the top 200 verbs, and another deck of vocabulary, and just drill words and not sentences to start(anyone know good sites with these sorts of lists?)?

I was thinking about learning German, and I thought that this might be a good idea -- learning words that you can actually recognize before you try to make out sentences. I never got around to it, but I personally think it might help at first.

Quote:Also does anyone know if audio can be used with the anki-app for the iphone? I know images can(but not exactly how). Is it difficult to update decks constantly if you want audio or image included and synced to the app?

Yes, you can use audio on the iPhone app of Anki. Updating it constantly shouldn't be difficult, but perhaps a little annoying (but hey, just adding audio/images in itself might get a little annoying). I'm not sure if you'd just "Sync" the deck or if you'd have to "Download" it again....but either way it's not that hard at all.

Quote:Isn't this an issue with any language though? Or is it especially difficult with Japanese? Reading some posts make it seem like Japanese and Kanji are a special case. Can't i simply seperate them in my mind with the seperate meanings, as opposed to kanjii, as i do in romance languages?

I don't think it's a special case at all. The only thing being that there's just a lot more homophones in Japanese than in other languages. Plus it's all about context. In English, if someone says "I read a book yesterday," you're obviously not going to think they took a book and painted it red. No, they looked at the words and interpreted them as meaning. Same in Japanese, except that there's a lot more.

I'm not even sure what people are saying about "you won't be able to pronounce this word correctly if you don't know the kanji for it." It makes no sense to me at all -- if you're speaking all the time instead of reading, you'll probably be able to pronounce it better than the person who learned it through reading. If someone can prove it to me, though, I'd be glad to see an example where knowing the kanji will help you pronounce Japanese better than spoken Japanese.

Asriel Wrote:I'm not even sure what people are saying about "you won't be able to pronounce this word correctly if you don't know the kanji for it." It makes no sense to me at all -- if you're speaking all the time instead of reading, you'll probably be able to pronounce it better than the person who learned it through reading. If someone can prove it to me, though, I'd be glad to see an example where knowing the kanji will help you pronounce Japanese better than spoken Japanese.

Yeah, I wondered about that, too. How knowing the kanji for 橋and 箸 would help you to pronounce them differently. But, if there is a trick I would love to know it.

I think it is quite possible to learn Japanese without Kanji. I knew heaps of people in Japan who could speak fluently but had only very limited or non existent kanji skills.

Good resources include
- the beginners CDs from Coscom. They usually have a romanji mode.
- Japanese sentence patterns for effective communication
- Pimsleur, Assimil

If I were you, I would start with a basic textbook and practice listening and speaking with Pimsleur and then graduate to Assimil.

A lot of older books used to use Romanji, but now the current thinking is to introduce hiragana early.