日本語? (Japanese?)

[Koeshi]

Not going to help with the writing systems so much, but my sister has a good conversational command of Japanese achieved with nothing but a few terabytes of subtitled anime :') It'll certainly get you used to the flow of the language if nothing else.

Believe me, if watching subtitled anime was a good way to learn I would be near fluent by now.  Besides I no longer have the time for anime binges these days.

[starfallz]

Not quite  (it's a bit weird). It used to be a JET placement about 20 years ago, but the town I'm going to and the university town I'm at now have an almost sister city relationship, and nowadays the post is covered with the university sending over one student to cover the area (which is going to be meeeee!). It's almost exactly the same as what the JET students do except for I have to represent the town and university at certain events and I don't get to go to the JET conference whenever it is  Do you have experience with JET then?

Oh, interesting! I was in JET 15 years ago and was in Nakasen-machi in Akita-ken. I think they have the conference when you first get there, but I heard they don't have the renewers' conference any more. Where are you going?

[Gwenno]

Oh, interesting! I was in JET 15 years ago and was in Nakasen-machi in Akita-ken. I think they have the conference when you first get there, but I heard they don't have the renewers' conference any more. Where are you going?

I used to be surprised at how many people I come across have been though JET, but it really is a program which has touched the lives of many people so I'm not so surprised anymore ^_^ I'll be going to Otawara in Tochigi. I've talked to the ALT who's already there and apparently it's very rural without even a train station, but I'm not too fussed because that's just the kind of thing I like (also you can see the mountains )

[princeofdoom]

on the anime thing, i've actually heard that it's better to NOT use the subtitles. subtitles in your native language give your brain a crutch, so being by nature a lazy thing (saves energy, more efficient, better for survival until modern times), it won't try to learn the Japanese. It'll just fall back on your native language.

Instead, try to listen to the language you're learning ONLY (at least while you're studying), even if you don't understand it, is the best way to go, i've heard.

Even though I haven't actively studied Japanese in a long time, i think that helped me retain a lot. Also, translating things yourself and SAYING the language as much as possible are really important too. even just silly things.

[Auleliel]

Regarding subtitles, I've tried it both ways and had different benefits each way. When using subtitles it gives me a chance to have the general idea of what is being said, so I can match that idea to the words I hear, and without subtitles I can try to pick out the words I know without any distractions from my own language.
However, I wouldn't use most of what I have learned from anime in actual conversation because most anime is such informal and non-standard Japanese, that using it with anyone except close friends would be really rude. (At least, for the kinds of anime I tend to watch...) (Also, all my favorite characters are boys, and boys and girls use different words, so I would sound like I'm trying to be a teenage boy instead of an adult woman, and I don't think that would make a good impression. For a teenage girl it probably would be okay since it's a trend in slang right now for teenage girls to use boy words. I am not a teenager though.)

[Shihchuan]

I'll be going back in August to start teaching English so really need to practice! Because I'm worried I may have ended up saying something awful here's a translation of what I tried to write…

日本で英語を教える予定ならば、このウェブコミックはお勧めですね：Let's Speak English http://www.marycagle.com/letsspeakenglish/。同じく日本で英語を教えている女性が自分の毎日を描く作品で、チョウ面白いんです！

僕は日本語を勉強し始めたのは約十年前からなんですけど、今まで日本へ行ったことはたった一回あります。二年前、一年間でフランスに居た時にはほとんど練習していなかったので、またすこし下手になってしまったと思います。基本的な会話や読解はできますけどね。みんな一緒にがんばりましょうか！

If you're going to Japan to teach English, then I recommend you this webcomic: Let's Speak English http://www.marycagle.com/letsspeakenglish/. It's about the daily lives of a woman who teaches English in a Japanese elementary school, and it's super funny!

I started learning Japanese around ten years a go, but I have only been to Japan once. And wWhen I stayed in France for a year two years ago, I spent very little time practicing Japanese (naturally), so now my Japanese is slightly rustier than before; I can still hold normal conversations and read articles, though. Let's all practice together! (by the way, I always think it's a pleasant coincidence that Minna's name means "everyone together" in Japanese )

I went to Japan when I was 19 for four months of my gap year working with WWOOF (Spent a good deal of it in Hokkaido actually Rabbit )

面白そうですね！WWOOFFでの経験はどうでしたか？どんな仕事をしていましたか？

That sounds interesting! What was your experience with WWOOF? What kind of work did you partcipate in?

Regarding anime, it's true that Anime Japanese can often be too informal, too rude, too archaic or just outright weird; it's probably better with more realistic settings such as Doraemon, Chibi Maruko Chan, Detective Conan (really? realistic, you say? ;p), Atashin'chi, etc. TV drama would probably be more natural in general, but then again it all depends on the genre......(I wouldn't imagine people learning Japanese from Taiga drama to be a good idea, for example)

For memorizing kanas (or vocabulary, or anything for that matter), I strongly recommend the software Anki, which uses spaced repetition method, allows flexible customization and easy synchronization between the desktop and mobile version (the mobile version is only free on Android for some reason though). Mentally speaking, using mnemonics helps a lot: no matter how silly or politically incorrect it is, if it speaks to you it will work.

[viola]

How does one get one's keyboard to do the Japanese character thingy? I have a PC.

I am currently in Japan, and I don't speak Japanese, but I'm learning to recognize a lot of words from seeing them all the time and my cousin lives here and is fluent because she is half Japanese, so she's teaching me some things.

[Kizzy]

How does one get one's keyboard to do the Japanese character thingy? I have a PC.

Click on the language button on the task bar and click "show language task bar". Then on the pop-up bar click on the arrow and a dropout menu should appear. Click on "settings". A new pop-up menu should appear. On the "general" tab hit the add button and specify the language you want.

If the first option is not viable then go to control panel. Type in "language" and click the first option "change keyboard or other input". A pop-out window should appear. On the "keyboards and languages" tab click "change keyboards". And the rest should be easy

Edit: I believe that you have to install some kind of Japanese characters pack or something. Mine can't type Japanese even though I've manually set it to?
In the end this didn't help XD

[Koeshi]

Click on the language button on the task bar and click "show language task bar". Then on the pop-up bar click on the arrow and a dropout menu should appear. Click on "settings". A new pop-up menu should appear. On the "general" tab hit the add button and specify the language you want.

If the first option is not viable then go to control panel. Type in "language" and click the first option "change keyboard or other input". A pop-out window should appear. On the "keyboards and languages" tab click "change keyboards". And the rest should be easy

Edit: I believe that you have to install some kind of Japanese characters pack or something. Mine can't type Japanese even though I've manually set it to?
In the end this didn't help XD

Don't know about the keyboard settings, but yes if you want your computer to properly produce and handle non-latin characters you need to install a language pack.  The same applies for a lot of (non-localised) Japanese games.

[Russet]

Hi there! I'm still trying to fully memorize the hiragana + katakana chart, but I can read most kanji because they're very similar to traditional chinese. Have 0 clue about pronouncing any kanji at all though, so far it seems to be a bit like the pronunciation of their chinese counterparts but also completely different. hmmm.

[Kizzy]

Don't know about the keyboard settings, but yes if you want your computer to properly produce and handle non-latin characters you need to install a language pack.  The same applies for a lot of (non-localised) Japanese games.

^^^
I tried installing SilverLight Microsoft language package and it worked! So far only Kana seems to be available.

Hi there! I'm still trying to fully memorize the hiragana + katakana chart, but I can read most kanji because they're very similar to traditional chinese. Have 0 clue about pronouncing any kanji at all though, so far it seems to be a bit like the pronunciation of their chinese counterparts but also completely different. hmmm.

Not surprising, considering that the phonetic/sound system are similar in a way (to put it simply).

[Bobriha]

Hi there! I'm still trying to fully memorize the hiragana + katakana chart, but I can read most kanji because they're very similar to traditional chinese. Have 0 clue about pronouncing any kanji at all though, so far it seems to be a bit like the pronunciation of their chinese counterparts but also completely different. hmmm.

Be cautious, in Japanese the same kanji may have completely different meaning, than in Chinese. Or may have several different meanings (and readings as well).
Say, dearly loved by everyone who learns Japan 生 has:
onyomies sei, sho with meaning life;
kunyomies umareru, umu with meaning to be born, ikiru with meaning to live, haeru with meaning to grow, nama with meaning fresh, unprepared, and this is not a full list.

[Auleliel]

How does one get one's keyboard to do the Japanese character thingy? I have a PC.

I am currently in Japan, and I don't speak Japanese, but I'm learning to recognize a lot of words from seeing them all the time and my cousin lives here and is fluent because she is half Japanese, so she's teaching me some things.

I am not very computer-literate, so I haven't figured out how to type directly in Japanese on my computer. When I type on my computer I just go to Google translate and type the romaji, and let the translator switch it to hiragana for me (it's one of the input options on the left-bottom part of the text box). If I want it to be in kanji or katakana, there's a scroll-down thing that lets me pick the ones I want. (On my phone I have an app that lets me type directly in Japanese though, which is nice.)

[Russet]

Be cautious, in Japanese the same kanji may have completely different meaning, than in Chinese. Or may have several different meanings (and readings as well).
Say, dearly loved by everyone who learns Japan 生 has:
onyomies sei, sho with meaning life;
kunyomies umareru, umu with meaning to be born, ikiru with meaning to live, haeru with meaning to grow, nama with meaning fresh, unprepared, and this is not a full list.

I see, thanks for the head's up! 生 has multiple meanings and mean all those things in different contexts in Chinese as well, so up till now I can still sort of hobble/struggle through Japanese kanji, and vaguely get the idea of a sentence through the kanji littered throughout, as well as certain hiragana words that I recognise.

[AquaAurion]

こんにちわ！私も今日本に住んでいるけど、八月帰国する。日本の大学に勉強しているが、日本語の授業を受けない。受ける授業は全部日本語で受ける。でも、外人だから、レポートなんては全部英語でする。従って、あまり日本語を利用しなければならない場合じゃない。

Hello! I'm also currently living in Japan, but I'm going back home in August. I study at a Japanese university, but I don't take any Japanese language courses. The courses I take are all in Japanese, but since I'm a foreigner I do all reports and such in English. Therefore I don't really have to use Japanese.

I probably messed up some of the grammar, but oh well...

For writing in Japanese, try this: How to Install a Japanese Keyboard