Where next? (Learning Japanese)

[jspstorm]

My goal is to be able to read and write japanese fluently enough to be able to chat with some of my Japanese friends, and of course, to be able to read and enjoy visual novels.

 

I've finished memorizing all the hiragana, katakana, the meaning/writing of Heisig's 2000+ kanji, plus some basic particles and grammar.

I also learned a few hundred words and phrases (purely in hiragana/katakana) through Memrise.com.

 

So I guess I have to go through the all the kanji readings contained in Remembering the Kanji II now?

Does anyone have any advice based on their own experiences on how to speed up the process?

[sanahtlig]

Honestly at that point I'd start reading VNs with a text hooker combined with  a dictionary parser + lookup tool like Translation Aggregator (JParser plugin).

 

Relevant: https://www.reddit.com/r/visualnovels/comments/3l33pe/who_else_is_learning_japanese_for_visual_novels/

[Deep Blue]

learn grammar and vocabulary, knowing the kanji' alone wont help you much when it comes to read a vn, a kanji alone can mean something but in compounds can mean something different (居間 to be+ interval = living room and yeah most of the time there is not way to know what they mean you just need to learn them), if you want to read a vn without any help learn grammar grammar and more grammar and then vocabulary.

[jspstorm]

So I take it while reading japanese VNs with a text hooker and dictionary parser I will be able to remember and retain words simply by encountering them over and over? Or should I drill myself on each new word?

I guess I'll go over a grammar guide like (http://amaterasu.tindabox.net/guide/) as I start reading.

 

No point in reading the kanji readings in Heisig's second volume then?

[OriginalRen]

You want to talk with your Japanese friends? Go to a conversation website that has Japanese to English forums. The more you practice everyday conversation reading/writing, the better. Also, speak it with your friends!

Drilling a language is the exact mindset the Japanese have when it comes to learning English in schools, and look where that has got them. Retaining language is difficult if you don't use it in everyday life.

[Ayana]

Yeah, your pretty good to go as far as processing natural uses of the language goes. If there are any words you encounter that you don't know in the realm of natural exposure, make sure to say them out-loud or find other ways of vividly outlining them (e.g. writing it down in kana form, which is what I do). If you want, you can select a VN from this chart/list of recommended eroge for beginners:

[Deep Blue]

I think learning the readings is a waste of time because there are so many on and kun readings for the same kanji and you wont be able to tell when to use them, just learn vocabulary instead, and yes reanding vns with text hooker and a parser will help you a lot, grammar and vocabulary all together, the bad thing of this is that sometimes it's not really fun to read the novel because you are studying and not just reading but it's better than just to study from a book or plain text

 

grammar guides:

 

http://www.guidetojapanese.org/completeguide.html

http://www.imabi.net/

 

use anki or memrise for the vocab, start from n5 and so on.

 

btw dont read something just because it is easy! read something that you like even if it is not the easiest thing out there, reading something easy but boring will be a chore and you wont learn anything, trust me on this, pick something harder you will struggle a bit more but you will end up learning.

[Down]

Yeah, just get into reading VNs with text hookers, you'll progress a lot that way. Also I'd suggest using the grammar guides Deep Blue pointed out, Ixrec's guide is a bit dubious. Tae Kim is perfect to get all the basics, Imabi should be used more punctually, when you encounter a structure you don't know, because it goes into more detail about a lot more things.

[jspstorm]

Alright, thanks for all the advice guys, I have a pretty clear idea of where to go from here now, and it seems like it will be much less of a chore than I anticipated.

[Deep Blue]

Alright, thanks for all the advice guys, I have a pretty clear idea of where to go from here now, and it seems like it will be much less of a chore than I anticipated.

I forgot, use http://ejje.weblio.jp/ when you don't understand how is a kanji, verb, particle etc used just check it there, it will give you sentences with examples and the meaning in english, it's a wonderful tool for learning.

[sanahtlig]

I use jisho.org myself.  It serves the same purpose.

http://jisho.org/

[KuroganeHomura]

As you progress, you'll want to start using JP->JP dictionaries like http://weblio.jp and http://goo.ne.jp. You'll need them when you encounter words not included in any JP->EN dictionaries, anyway.

 

As far as reading VNs goes, I'd recommend using a text hooker and pasting the text into your browser, then using Rikaichan to look up the words you don't know. In any case, avoid using machine translations.

In terms of learning, the most important thing is grammar. Looking up words is usually easy, figuring out unfamiliar grammar often is not.

And as has already been said, forget about learning readings without the accompanying meaning.

[astro]

http://www.babbel.com/en/magazine/learn-any-language-without-class