Wanting to learn japanese.

[S.M.O.G.]

Are there any websites where I can teach myself, or would I be better off buying a book? Are the ones on howtodrawmanga.com any good? And what are the odds of me learning by the time Pokemon Heart G/S come out, at least enough to play the game? Why am I asking so many questions?

[airichan623]

for reading it, try Kana de Manga. Very helpful. and buy The Complete Indiot's Guide to Japanese for grammatical

[animechica]

There's a game for the nintendo DS called My Japanese Coach. It makes it somewhat tolerable for me to learn the kana, and that's my weak point with Japanese - I am addicted to romanji.. *is a very bad girl*

My other methods of learning Japanese include watching subtitled anime, listening to Japanese songs and trying to match their translations with their lyrics, and just basically translating things myself (You remember it REALLY well when you put in the effort to find the meaning! It's crazy!)

Anyway, I would honestly just wait for a US release for the (awesome) new Pokemon games.
If you're not very familiar with Japanese, they have a different sentence structure than English, so it can get confusing. Plus, you're looking at three different alphabets, one of which has like thousands of different characters.

If you really wanted to devote all your time to learning so you could play, you could probably do it, but odds are you wouldn't get as satisfying of a gameplay experience as if you just waited to play it in your own language. (I've been casually picking up Japanese for about 3 or 4 years, and it takes a bit to get comfortable with it and not be too intimidated, lol.)

Now, if you want to learn Japanese anyway, be my guest.
I love it. ^_^

[Tsukuyomi]

Oh lookies what I have here \o.o/ You may want to get some books as well to help you further along

... I recently found my Kana de Manga book that someone got for me a few years back ^__~

[ShiroiHikari]

I just wanted to say that learning Japanese takes years and a lot of effort, so don't expect to learn it in a few months or something. XD I've been studying it on my own since like 2000 and I can't even watch anime raw yet. (I need to work harder! D: )

About My Japanese Coach: I wouldn't recommend it as your primary learning tool, but it's great for improving your kana and vocab. The grammar sections are a wee bit shaky (in my experience so far).

[animechica]

About My Japanese Coach: I wouldn't recommend it as your primary learning tool, but it's great for improving your kana and vocab. The grammar sections are a wee bit shaky (in my experience so far).

Am I the only one who thought they should've gone the anime-styled route and given the game happy pop music and the mascot big shiny eyes? XD I swear I learn better when anime is involved... lol

[airichan623]

yes and lots of jpop and jrock. may I reccommend utada hikaru, buono!, nakazawa yuuko, natsumi abe and HANGRY & ANGRY? Their songs are relatively easy to understand. And tho i learn a lot from subbed anime, use other stuff 2. (cuz the only phrase i know from anime 'i cant' (muri or somethin like that). even better is actual japanese tv shows (they r all over youtube) I learned alot from Scrap Teacher. Great plot, funny, and hot asian boy band members (kya). sry but i learned 'do your best' (ganbatte) and 'how pathetic' (buzamada) from just one episode. sry i almost fainted every time yamada ryosuke-kun as takasugi said 'buzamada.' KYA lol

[Eddosan]

These are all very solid resources for learning Japanese, from my experience.

smart.fm = Well organized kana and vocab flash cards (in Flash! lol). Also quizzes you during these flash card sessions. I like this site, because they show you kanji with the vocab and have audio samples.

lang-8.com = Language exchange social networking. Write random (or non-random) journals in Japanese (or whatever foreign language you want) and have it corrected by others.

guidetojapanese.org = Amazing resource of Japanese grammar.

jisho.org = Online Japanese dictionary.

alc.co.jp = It's in Japanese, but don't let it scare ya. If you type in English words, it not only translates them for you (no romaji, though ^^; ), but also gives TONS of example sentences about those words in BOTH languages.

Japanese.about.com and kanjisite.com get honorable mentions, because although they're not as robust as the above sites (IMO), they're quick and easy references for anything related to Japanese and kanji.

HAVE FUN

[Galant]

How much spare cash do you have lying around?

Check out http://www.rosettastone.com/personal/form/flash-demo-form

A pricey option but this one is well recommended and if you try the demo you'll get an idea as to how it works and if you feel it will be effective.

The demo isn't in Japanese by the way. It's Turkish, but the principal applies.

Check it out.

[S.M.O.G.]

I'm thinking I'll get Kana/Kanji de Manga, but I have to pay for my missions trip this summer.

[jtire]

try http://www.japanesepod101.com:thumb: