anyone hear speaks, reads and writes fluent japanese? if so i need some help!

forming and speaking japanese sentences are not as easy as i thought. pronouncing it was fine but when i start forming sentences...it's kinda confusing. it's like french where the sentences are backwards. i find italian much easier!

watashi << me
anata << you
ichi << one
desu << always use it when like closing sentence. not sure...
and many more...

I learn before when im young, but when i get older, i dont learn it anymore.

please don't double post in the future bubble.

I had a Japanese phase a yr or two ago, but I didn't learn much. -_-' Sorry, can't help you there. You probably know more than me.

Kunichiwa..
watashi no ryu san desu.
anata no namie wa?

hehe sorries im not that good but..yeah learning.. :genius:
ima nanji desu ka?
it's 4 07 right now.. buh-bye

TJ

I need help with that too so I can practis....Boku no namae wa josh desu. boku no juuyon sai des.

i know a few greeting and stuff like that.

here are some

Konnichiwa [hello]
Arigato [thank you]
Ohayo gozaimasu [good morning]
watashiwa no ______ desu [ i am _____]
Konbanwa [good evening]
sayoonara [good bye]
wakarimasu [ i understand]
shibaraku [it's been a long time]
ja-ne [see you later]

these are probaly the most useful greetings. if you need any help that invovles SIMPLE japanese i can probably help, but other than that i guess im not any better at it than you are. ja ne. and wow.. im currently taking my second year of french..i find it quite easy though

I know this may sound cliché, but watching subtitled anime and listening to Japanese music helps a lot in terms of pronounciation and sentence structure (anime is more suited for the latter though). Bit by bit eventhough you can't translate everything literally, you still get the meaning of it, you know what I mean?

Also for writing, it's best to know by heart the first two alphabets in Japanese which is katakana and hiragana. Katakana is mostly used to translate foreign words such as "Thank you" would sound like "sankyu" or サンキュ in katakana. Then slowly work your way up in learning kanji, you can find sites where they offer a set of different levels of learning kanji, like Level 4 (which is beginner's level) would make you learn up to 100 different kanji, and Level 1 would be where you'd need to know about 2000 kanji in order to be fluent.

The key to learning any language is practice, even after you've learned all 2000 kanji and expressions, it won't do any good to you if you don't practice every day.

Then you have to watch out the different dialects of Japanese, that's a whole different ball game

You could maybe learn from watching lots of anime series. I know a few, but if I spell it wrong, correct me, thankies!

~Onsai Onsai- Hey, Hey I have a question.

~Gumanasi- Sorry!

~Kawaii- Cute!

~Baka- Stupid

That's all I know so far. Hope that helps.

That's "gomen nasai" for "sorry"

made a few corrections

The 'desu' term at the end sentences denotes a polite form of the phrase, you may omit this if talking to friends that you are familiar with. Just dont do it to people in positions of respect.

Japanese is a very simple language if you want to just carry your message directly across. Structure is much like Mandarin/Cantonese. However, if you wish to be eloquent and firmly polite, then well, Im still working on that.

Isn't "desu" the verb form of "is"? "de$hita" meaning "was"? Although with this type of verb, the "desu" can be omitted sometimes, right?

Nope, the sentence ending suffix 'desu' is primarily a polite manner.

eg.
Dahila wa kirei desu.
and.
Dahila wa kirei na.

Both are acceptable but the first is much more polite. The same goes with questions.

Such as:
Doko desu ka?
and
Doko ga?

Both are asking 'Where is it?' but you'd better say the first one when asking directions from strangers.

It's not "arrigato" for "thanks." It's "有り難う" (arigatou).

Seems most of the reply are non Japanese. Why you learn Japanese anyway? Just curious... No offence.

I study Japanese because I plan on moving to Japan in the future.

then get a japanese learning book. This thread won't really help you much.

You expect the Japanese goverment to give you citizenship?

I meant study as in taking a Japanese language course.



You mean they won't?

The japanese government won't give any foreigners a citizenship and only PURE japanese has the right to get a citizenship. At least that's what I heard from people.

true watching lots of anime does help improve your japanese. i learn every word i know in japanese from anime.

something i do to practice speaking japanese is to write common sentences (with varied sentence structures etc.) down on paper, and then memorize them. in that way, if you wanna say something or if someone asks you something, you can just recite the sentences you memorized. don't be afraid to make mistakes, coz that's how you learn.

if you are still having problems with your speaking, try and practice with someone...maybe a club or organisation? but if you've tried everything...then just slave through the next couple of years, save money and buy a ticket to japan and stay there for a few years. that's a sure way that your speaking will become great.

hmm... I was always told that "desu" meant "to be" (i.e.: "is") but wasn't required in sentences
so, "doko desu ka?" would be "where is (it)?"
and "doko ga?" would be "where (is it)?"
and, "sore wa doko desu ka?" would be "where is it?"

the parts you don't say are just implied
is that not right?



hahaha all 2,000 kanji?
aren't there over 60,000?
don't you need around 3,000 literacy level just to read a newspaper?

does it?
I've seen a fair amount of anime, and I don't think it's really helped my vocabulary
but, it definitely helped my timing, pronunciation, and naturalness of speech

Well since kanji is taken from the Chinese, it's obvious that there's most likely way more than 20,000 kanji characters, but yeah something like 2000-3000 kanji should be enough because there isn't always a specific kanji for a certain item in Japanese, they'd use hiragana or katakana (where in Chinese they don't have those alphabets) to designate that item.

During the Qing dynasty (1644-1911), Emperor Kangxi compiled a complete dictionary of Hanzi (Kanji). In that dictionary, there are over 50,000 characters. How many, many are just different variations (i.e. traditional and simplified) of the same character. Also, many characters are no longer in use. Many characters were specific names for science, like planets, chemical... etc. which have been replaced with more obvious terms in Chinese and English-imported words in Japanese. In Chinese, you only need to know about 2,000 characters for everyday life, and maybe 2,000 - 3,000 for reading newspaper. In Japanese, you need about 1,500 - 2,000 to function. After WW2, the Japanese government limited the usage of Kanji, which is why many new vocabularies are written in Katakana, isntead of forming Kanji compounds like "denwa" (electronic-talk/communication/conversation) for telephone.

Really? Only 2000-3000 characters to be able to read in Chinese? I thought it was like at least 10,000 or something Shows what I know

The average adult in Taiwan don't even know 10,000 characters, not unless you want to be a scholar who does nothing all day but decipher ancient scripts

In mainland China, you don't even need to know as many characters because of simplified characters. I believe you only need to know about 1,200 characters in mainland China.

Think of it this way. Characters are nothing but "basic" ideas. For example, you have "dian" (electronic/electric) and "nao" (brain). Instead of making a new character for "computer", the two characters of "dian" and "nao" are combined to make "diannao", or "electronic-brain". Or how about a business office? In Chinese, it's "ban'gongshi". Ban - to do, handle, gong - business, affairs, shi - room, put it together, it's "room where business is conducted", or a business office. This is why Chinese isn't a monosyllabic language, because many Chinese words are made up of more than one character. It's not like there is a character for every single word or idea

This has nothing to do with the japanese language.

Of course it does. Unless you want to argue that Kanji doesn't play a major role in the Japanese language

I never said Kanji wasn't important. baka-ne

this topic is to notify who can read/write japanese and an call for help. i don't think a call for help on chinese influence was intended.

When is the last time an AF thread hasn't gone off-topic even just a little

I'm glad you're into the subject. But what does it have to do with China?! If you're so eager, go ahead and make another topic.

Read carefully. I wasn't the one who went off topic.

I am not "eager" about anything. I am merely correcting you for making incorrect statements.

I didn't say you were the only one did I?

I'm only picking at you cus you had the misfortune of being the last offtopic person to post.

You didn't say I wasn't either. Since you were refering to me the whole time, I assumed you believe I am the only person who went slightly off-topic.

Would you like to continue this pointless bickering further? I personally don't have much to do for a while but I'd rather spend my time on something more worthwhile.

i think it's good to culture one self. i find it very interesting and the language is beautiful. i'm also trying to learn mandarin but not as much as japanese. lol...one language at a time.

What's your ethnicity and native language?

i'm filipino and i can speak tagalog. does this matter?

No you cant.....barely maybe
i speak better than you.
hahahaha

Can a person not inquire about another's ethnicity and native-language?

why are people asking for laguanges in forum? why dont they pick up their lazy @$$ and go to library and get a damn language book or textbook.

Because if one doesn't know anything about a language, one probably doesn't know how to find materials to learn it.

There are plenty of friendly members on AF, almost as many as unfriendly ones such as... well, we won't mention Schutzstaffel's name...

part of learning a language is communicating. and as far as i can remember speech is very important part of daily life. so hmm...maybe that's why i want to excercise this language by communicating w/ someone who's japanese....HENCE the question.

Don't mind Schutzstaffel, he's just a Nazi looking for trouble.

ok

thanks kulong

Damn Nazi

I hate to see more Patriot coming in...

Damn Nazi