I will meet your “blabbering” with my general rantyness :)

I can’t really answer this PROPERLY because I haven’t worked passed the middle of season 4 and I’ve never [intentionally] spoken Japanese to a human being. But that said, I know very much how you feel, and I may be able to help at least a little.

I’ve been spending my time learning kanji because that’s what my life permits right now, and honestly when I see a kanji without context, I’ll recognise that I’ve written it before, but it takes me some time to go “OH yeah that’s the kanji for [...]“. And I found the same thing with a lot of the vocab, although some stuff does stick with me, like じてんしゃ is just always bicycle, right away. The same speed as reading the English word.

However, a good 90% of the words I have to slowly read and translate, just like you do. I find it does help to hear the words more. Obviously you’re not going to find an episode of Naruto conveniently packed with Koichi’s adjective list, but you’ll be able to grab a couple words here and there out of anime/music/news/whatever.

Try this: go here and grab the captions for an episode of any show you watch (or discover a new show). Download the subtitle file (which you can just open in notepad) and then read through it (yeah, it’s Japanese, just trust me though). Identify words you know (worth mentioning that a lot of it will be kanji so don’t worry too much if you don’t recognise them) and highlight 10 or 20 that you don’t. Go learn the meanings/spellings/pronunciations of those words. Now watch that episode. Did you find all the words? No? Don’t worry. Make anki cards of those words. Study them. Watch the episode again in a week. How about now? Improvements? Having an actual context for those words should help you make sense of them. Otherwise it’s just a sound, and you might as well try learning to speak Wookie.

Obviously this is a LONG process and NOT the way to learn the Japanese language but it may help you get through periods of self doubt. Little successes are successes all the same. You might also learn some fun/cool words along the way.

As far as being able to think up a word on the spot… who said you have to talk to a person? Nobody home? Just walk around the house saying random crap out loud. Seriously. I’ll be doing laundry and saying (well, I tend to sing more than say) just junk like “げんき、 はたらきます、 アメリカジン!” It doesn’t make any sense, but you’re using the words, and you have to recall the words in order to use them. Try not to repeat words without getting at least like ten other words in between.

But seriously make sure nobody is home… not going to make THAT mistake again :S

Best bet is online unless you happen to have something local. Depending on your city, you may have an Asian stuff store, that’s usually where you’d find it if you’re going to find it anywhere.

(the top one is a pretty popular one)
http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_kw=kanji+practice+notebook

Hope that helps!

Yep, pretty much :)

As you get more experience with real-world conversations you’ll start to get a better feel for it.

So, the first thing is that the second sentence, はる　は　すき　じゃありません, actually means “I don’t like spring”.

To actually answer your question, が emphasises the word that comes before, は emphasises what comes after. If you mixed the two around, it would still (in most cases, anyway) be a valid sentence, and you’d be understood. But it’s a bit of a different feeling, which is a pretty big deal in Japanese. You’ll get used to it.

It’s like saying “I *hate* Catcher in the Rye” – you aren’t emphasising Catcher in the Rye, the important thing you’re communicating is that you hate it.
But if you were listing a books you hate, you’d say “I hate *Catcher in the Rye*” because we already know you’re talking about things you hate.

There aren’t really direct English translations for it, kind of like with -ね and -よ, which you’ll discover soon if you haven’t yet.

Was that helpful in any way? Did I make sense?

Also, Welcome aboard, Daniel!

Howdy and welcome, fellow canuck!

So I just started listening to Stereopony yesterday (because of this post) and wow, they’re really awesome!! Thanks for getting me hooked on them! :)