AboutDreams Expertise I have been teaching myself the language for the past seven years, having consistent practice with Japanese materials. I can help translate things from English to Japanese or vice versa. I can also help you get started if you're planning on taking up the language. =) I'm most familiar with things like anime, manga, J-pop, games and so on.
Experience I began learning the language in 1999. I frequently talk with penpals and natives in Japan, as well as continually keep up practicing with authentic Japanese materials.
Question Um... Konnichi wa... uh.. I'm trying to learn japanese and I'm trying to find some good translator sites... But I a) can't find any, b) WaNT TO LEARN IT PROPERLY.... Can you help?
Answer Hello,
To start learning Japanese, I would suggest getting a feel for the language through basic grammar. In addition, it's a good idea to start learning your kana.
I don't know how much background you know of the language, but there are three parts to written Japanese: hiragana, katakana, and kanji. Hiragana & katakana are called "kana" together. Kanji are the complicated symbols borrowed from Chinese that represent nouns, names, and roots of verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. They look like this (). Hiragana is Japanese script that pretty much makes up the rest of the language - it writes out the endings for verbs, adjectives, and adverbs, but can also write any word that can be written in kanji (kanji just makes it easier to understand the meaning of a word, since different words can be pronounced the same way). It looks like this (). And katakana is used primarily for words of foreign origin, or sometimes for emphasis. It looks like this ().
Kana is easy and fun to learn - take a look at www.kanachart.com to get started! There's also a great book called "Kanji & Kana" by Mark Spahn and Wolfgang Hadamitzky, if you like learning from books. It includes all the kana, and the entire list of kanji you need to learn to be considered fluent (1,950 characters).
What you need to know about grammar in Japanese is that it goes SUBJECT-OBJECT-VERB, unlike English. So where we would say:
"He wrote a letter"
The order in Japanese would look like this:
"He letter wrote"
Japanese also includes particles, which we don't use in English, and can often not be translated. Particles will mark off certain words (ie, denoting the subject of the sentence) or show the direction of an action, etc.
In addition to websites, I would highly recommend the book "Teach Yourself Japanese" by Helen Ballhatchet and Stefan Kaiser. It goes through beginner and intermediate Japanese very well, giving you a good grounding in grammar. (There are some advanced chapters at the end as well.)
For websites, you might want to check out these:
www.learn-japanese.info
www.nihongoresources.com
www.timwerx.net http://japanese.about.com
www.hesjapanese.com is also a good site, but to use all the lessons on the site you need to pay a fee for the year.
If you're serious about the language, I would highly, highly recommend finding someone you can practice with, or taking some kind of actual course at a local college (if possible), etc. Even getting a Japanese penpal is an excellent step - many can speak some degree of English and will be willing to help you with Japanese. You can find penpals here: http://www.japan-guide.com/local/jp/?aCAT=2
