Learning Japanese, how do you guys do it?

[kryss]

Kansai-ben is much more interesting than normal Japanese to be honest. If you want to see explanations and how to say them in standard Japanese try "Colloquial Kansai Japanese". I found it a few years ago and really enjoyed reading it, it put the fun back into learning after my enthusiasm had kind of trailed off.

なんで/どうして/なぜ are all fine for "why" questions.

[JU!]

Yeah I undertstood the reason it was telling me to say it, but after asking around it seems nobody will EVER say that, no matter how poilte the situation is. The course also puts undue stress on saying "I" and "We" in situations where it would never be said. Anyone who takes this course on face value is going to end up speaking Japanese very strangely.

Always best to learn polite form first as well. I doubted this when my Japanese teacher in England was teaching us polite form, but then I would speak to my friends all in plain form. I have noticed though whilst living here polite form is useful in certin situations and good for converting te form stuctures etc.

[Richard.John]

Another commonly used expression is verb stem + ちゃった. Used so often by the locals, they will think you are fluent if you use it.

Actually for me though, I feel awkward using really familiar Japanese as I dont want to give the impression that I am too confident with the language. For example, how do you guys call yourself? ぼくor maybe おれ? The latter just seems too Japanese for me

[kryss]

-ちゃった (or -じゃった if it's a nu/mu/bu verb) is a contraction of -てしまった. It can be a little feminine though. Guys should use -ちまった.

I prefer おれ as when I'm reading manga its always little boys that say ぼく. I do tend to tag ぞ on the end of most things though. Read enough shounen manga and it just feels natural.

[Richard.John]

Actually I didn't know about ちまった. On the subject of feminine speech, the line is blurrier than it used to be I think. Fifteen years ago, I was told that men didn't use certain expressions, but they are in common use now. ぼく　is boyish indeed, but the alternative is a bit rough! I like おれ though. 　

[kryss]

My real favourite is -やがった which is the REALLY rough version.

[DeathAdder]

My real favourite is -やがった which is the REALLY rough version.

Can you give a full form, say, with たべる and のむ please Chris? I hadn't seen that form

[kryss]

You tag on -やがる after the -て form.
Famously: 俺は誰だと思ってやがる! (From Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann)

VERY impolite.

お前、まだ生きてやがったのか？

...Hm, thinking about it, it's not really the same as -ちゃった, which implies the person kind of feels bad about doing something, more like the person is kind of peeved at someone else for doing something.


I posted about these books in the JLPT thread and thought it might be a good idea to add them here too. Grammar Vocab+Kanji Practice Qs

[boxhead]

ive been playing that japanese coach on the ds lately and I think its really great. I studied it in night classes for a couple of years and maybe thats why I find it so easy to get on with it but its definately worth picking it up. it has some really great functions on it like recording your voice and playing it along side the ingame voice version to see how well you stack up.

[jamesy]

Been on this myself ds game myself. It's shown me that although I can read katakana/hiragana fine my writing is pretty bad. I never learned the stroke order for them so this is nice for that.

You still using it boxhead? How you getting on?

[teddymeow]

<Bumpage>

A guy at work has given me Pimsleurs Japanes 1, 2 and 3!

Are they any good? Anyone here used them with the desired effect?

[Darwock]

Lots of people love it. That's a disclaimer, cos I don't. As mentioned above I came across an issue with one part in the Pimsleur course, where they translated なんで渋谷に行きますか？ as "how are you going to Shibuya"　and then proceeded to teach you 'by bicycle', 'walking' etc

However in the Japan that I live in, that sentence 100&#37; means why are you going to Shibuya. After that I stopped bothering with Pimsleur, I wasn't learning anything new and all it did was serve to undermine what I already knew (as above). It's possible that the differences were caused by my Kansai-ben and Pimsleur's Kanto-ben, but either way it wasn't helping.

OVerall it seems like a quick guide to useful phrases for people going on business trips, and not much more IMO.

[randombs]

I sometimes listen to the last five or so lessons of pimsleur's japanese 3 while going to sleep. Seems to do the job, I learned a few new things. I'm not sure what it would be like for a beginner but I get the impression it's a bit more involved than your usual hand-holding type courses. The vocab/situations I've heard seem to revolve around business-type situations, so as Darwock said, it's good for business types.

Seeing as you were given them, I guess there's less worry about them not being good enough, but I don't think they're bad. Anything that complements your other course materials can only be a good thing.