Teaching Myself A New Language

I'm curious to see the responses because I'm hoping to learn ASL. I'd also love to learn more Spanish and Mandarin, and learn Italian, and German and French and basically everything.

 

Teaching yourself a language is tough. You have to be really into it, passionate even. I also should say, you may not be wise to spend so long learning Japanese unless you're sure you'll have a use for it. If it doesn't come naturally to you, it may not be the perfect choice for a hobby.

Anyway, I always found that just by reading and listening in other languages (books, music, audio books etc) I picked up on a lot. Learning a language isn't about learning all the translations. You need to understand how grammar works in the respective languages; each is quite different and interesting in its own way. Then, you can pick up the words you like in a dictionary. Perhaps you ought to take a class in Japanese?

 

Hiragana, Katakana and Kanji are all used together in Japanese writing. Hiragna is for particles, verb endings, and some words. Katakana is for foreign words and onomatopoeia. Kanji is used for writing words or ideas. Also, hiragana is used for writing words of Japanese origin. Katakana is used for any word that has been borrowed from another language. Out of them all, Kanji is the most complicated. Hiragana is the first writing system taught to Japanese children, so low-level children's books are written exclusively (entirely) in hiragana. It's obviously the easiest to learn.

I'd start by buying a Japanese-English dictionary, and keeping a notebook to practice writing and use as a reference. There's plenty of videos on Youtube, teaching Japanese, which help quite a lot. I also keep a separate blog on tumblr for my Japanese learning, and tend to write down definitions or reblog references, such as sentences.. or nouns, verbs, adjectives, ect. I've also watched Japanese dramas and anime, which help with pronunciation. If I had the the money and time to take a professional class, I would.

 

Yeah there's a ton online. There are some websites like Memrise that claim to be great for this kind of thing but I dunno. Give it a go.

 

I taught myself how to read it, and I first started out with Katakana simply because they're mostly used for English words and it made it easy for me to learn how to properly pronounce words and know what they mean. Hiragana sort of just came to me naturally, and I didn't really need to study them all that much (I watch a LOT of Vocaloid PV's, which have the Japanese lyrics on screen) but I'd recommend starting with Hiragana; you see it more often than Katakana. So far I only know "boku", "sekai", "ima" and "naka" (disregarding generic stuff like love, girl and heart) in Kanji, and yes it's definitely the most difficult to learn. Learn them last. xD

It came easy to pronounce because I'm half Hispanic, so speaking Spanish really helped with that. But it was still sort of hard, I highly recommend getting lesson/guide books (Like "Japanese for Dummies") and listening to audio on your iPod/MP3, YouTube and the like.

...and yes, watching more anime helps as well. xD

For websites to use, I started out with YesJapan and (something) 101, but there was an excellent audio book I downloaded and I can't seem to remember it...

 

Aww yiss. I'm also teaching myself Japanese!

I started off using romanji to learn basic vocab, then I used a really awesome resource called Hiragana42 (google it), which uses pnemonics, to learn all the hiragana characters. I now use hiragana mainly to write, in order to get used to it, and I'm gradually adding kanji in as I learn them. My next project is katagana, but building up basic knowledge of the language is more important right now for me.

Like Oddish, I also watch Japanese shows and listen to the radio as much as I can to assimilate myself with the language. It's also definitely worth making notes or revision cards to keep a record of what you've studied. I also use the Teach Yourself books, but they are in Romanji, so aren't great for pronunciation help.

 

I'm currently teaching myself Japanese. At first it was just watching anime and picking up words or phrases, and then I started looking up words and their pronunciations. I'm getting okay at Japanese, although it's still overwhelming when someone talks very rapidly at me .

 

I'm learning German fluently at the moment. But I am also aiming for a specific purpose: I need to be able to understand two reading comprehensions for an exam in June. So what I have been doing is learning the 2000 most frequently used words in German, and then a pile of topic-specific vocabulary, like on the weather, on transport, on the environment and so on.

I have also then learned how to use the top 30 most popular verbs in all the tenses in German.

And, I have learned a lot of phrases. I can talk about my family, where I live, my hobbies, etc. Then I am learning a load of other phrases.

I am also listening to a lot of German radio, and I listen to Euronews in German.

But here's this, and it's my secret: I use an application called Anki on my computer. Let me tell you that this thing is absolutely amazing.

I learned this technique from this really good article on Lifehacker, and it seems to be working.

 

If you can, go for full immersion. You won't improve if you never communicate with those who actually know the language. Study abroad programs are nice, but using a site like SharedTalk is a lot more convenient and affordable.

Motivation, consistency, and access to resources also play into it. Pick a method that works for you and stick with it for as long as you can, learning all you can in that time. Have patience! Japanese is classified as a class III language by the FSI, and should take 88 weeks, or 2200 class hours for English learners to reach proficiency, theoretically.

I've never learned Japanese, but yeah, it would help to learn basic words, phrases, common characters, then focus on more complex grammar later on. Steve Kaufman says the most crucial component of language is vocabulary, the more you know the faster you'll move forward.

Using Berlitz, Teach Yourself, and Living Language, I've made reasonable progress with several languages, along with various dictionaries, phrase books, verb charts, classes, and web sites.

 

I'm starting to learn Swedish right now and working on my French. I've got beginner level French skills from my school years but hardly conversational, even. I'm hoping to become fluent in both languages.

Has anyone purchased any Rosetta Stone products? I tried one of their online demos and was fairly impressed, but the software is so damned expensive. I'm just not totally confident it would be worth it.

 

Recently I bought the book for Bolivia Sign Language. I can't wait to visit at Bolivia because I'm a volunteer to help deaf students on this summer.(!)(!)(!)(!)(!)(!)(!)

 

I'm teaching myself Esperanto.
Cu vi estas Katon?
Mi mangos kukojn.

For a language like Japanese, I would recommend a personal class, I was taking lessons in year 7 and by the end of half a year I could understand Hiragana. Not the actual words however, more like the equivalent of learning the alphabet. :/

 

I taught myself Japanese. You need to find a textbook that suits you (I used Genki) and practise everything you learn many times over. In terms of the script, you should just learn Hiragana and Katakana (should take about a month), then learn Kanji as you encounter them.

You need to be able to understand how the structure and grammar of language works generally (knowing more than one language already would help). Obviously, if you can you should take classes, as they will help with the more conversational/idiomatic aspects of the language, and you should be watching Japanese shows for pronunciation. I started out watching heaps of anime with subtitles then slowly transitioned to only Japanese (Japanese subtitles would be good as well). It's hard at first but you become familiar with common constructions and phrases. But yeah, you need to work through a good textbook and ideally attend some classes.

 

There are tons of different resources out there to help you learn the language (and many others). Hopefully, I will not get in trouble for posting the names of these websites!

I read a lot, so when I got this idea to learn French, I asked my mom for some books about French. I highly recommend buying a beginner's book that is mostly entirely in Japanese. My Oma is German; was born there; and when she moved here to the States when she was younger, she read comic books to help her learn English. Although Japanese has a lot (and I'm sure as you know, a lot) of different symbols for each of its alphabets (I dunno what you'd call them, so I apologise!), I think it'd be best to work with material that definitely gives you a feel for the language. Basic phrases are a must, I'd say.

You can go to Goodreads.com and make a list of the books that you may already have or need or think you should look into more. They have reviews for most of their books, and you can refer back to the books you've saved (to make it an easier process).

Also, websites such as LiveMocha (Livemocha - Languages) have a broad selection of languages to choose from, including Japanese. You can connect with people who are native to the language and others who are wanting to learn through their community. It's mostly free. The parts you have to pay for I'd say don't do unless you become more knowledgeable to the language.

I am hesitant to suggest Google Translator or Bable Fish, but they are good for very simple and basic words you may need to look up in a hurry. As you probably already know, Google has a text-to-speech option with a really creepy computer voice, so I'd recommend Acapela Text to Speech Demo (Acapela Text to Speech Demo).

Another thing is to also watch Youtube videos--they can help tremendously ('cept I don't have any links off hand for this one...).

I'm sorry if this isn't what you were asking. I've been teaching myself French for three years now--on and off--and I've actually gotten a good bit down.

My only other advice is to stick with it. Read a bit everyday, keep notes, etc. This will make it easier in the long run. Sometimes it may seem overwhelming, but really just go for what you're most comfortable with.

Good luck!