Good points by Joel there. ます-form is easier to learn first but the problem is that I’ve only seen TextFugu use that method, so learning new vocab anywhere other than here is a bit difficult since they all use dictionary form. However, when you’re comfortable with dictionary form, you’ll see it’s better to learn words in that way. I’d say once you’ve got a grip on ます-form and how it works, skip ahead to the section on dictionary form; I wish I had when I started but maybe that’s just me.

You’d taken 6 college courses of Japanese and only knew a handful of kanji? Is that just because you’d forgotten a lot of them or was it because your teachers were all terrible and thought learning kanji wasn’t important? :P

I don’t see why Koichi suggests using Lang-8 so early – what good are corrections if you can’t (at least vaguely) understand them? When your Japanese is so basic, there’s only so far the helper can simplify it while still trying to make it sound more natural/correct. It’s not always easy to determine how much a learner knows so you can never be sure which grammatical structures and vocabulary to use.

Just out of interest, what did you write originally? Were there other corrections?

If you learn full words 王女(princess) and 女王(queen) then, when other words come up with either 女 or 王 youll have to learn them again. So, instead of learning how to read 王女 and how to read 女王 (2 things), learn how to read 王 and how to read 女 (2 things), but the latter will help you know how to read new words that have one of these kanji.

You won’t have to learn them again, you got those readings for free when you learned the words 王女 and 女王. Learning the readings(s) for 女 doesn’t automatically tell you how to read it in every word it’s featured; that’s the annoying thing about kanji, they often have multiple readings, so you can’t say 女＝じょ only 女＝じょ(possibly), meaning you still have to learn *which* reading is used in every word. Doing it my way, when I come across the new word 女性 and learn that in this case 女＝じょ too, that solidifies the reading in my head a bit more.

Same with the meaning of the word, for example princess and queen. If you know that 王 means king and 女 means woman. You can figure out that 女王 means woman king which is queen.

That doesn’t help though because 王女 is *also* king + woman – if that was the first word you saw, you’d assume *that* one was “queen” but it isn’t. Also, kanji compounds aren’t always as straightforward as this; when they are, it’s awesome, but they’re not always. Even though you can sometimes guess the meaning (and/or reading) of a word from the kanji, you still have to check that your guess is correct.

As for your second post, it’s just the same thing as I’ve mentioned above, that learning the meanings and readings of kanji doesn’t guarantee you’ll be able to guess correctly the meanings and readings of the words they’re featured in, you still have to learn which words have which readings (by learning them). Knowing that 女＝じょ doesn’t help when you come to 女神 where 女＝め so you still have to learn it.

I think my main point is that it’s not necessary to learn readings separately because you pick them up naturally through learning words. If you learn じょ first, then you can *guess* that 女性＝じょせい (and similarly for all future words); if you learn　女性 first, you *know* that 女性＝じょせい and you get じょ for free as a consequence. Either way you do it, you’ve got じょ as a reading, but the second way takes less effort.

@Arnold: I’m not sure I follow. Learning readings *and* learning how to read specific words increases what you have to remember, not the other way around: e.g. learning that 便 can be read as べん *then* learning that the word 便利 is read as べんり is learning two separate things, whereas just learning the reading of 便利 is only one thing (the fact that 便 can be read as べん in other words follows naturally, you don’t have to put any extra effort into learning that); then you come to the word 郵便 in which 便 is read as びん this time, so where you’ve had to learn 4 things (べん・びん・便利・郵便) I’ve only had to learn 2 (便利・郵便).

Same thing with 女王 and 王女: you have to learn 女＝じょ and 王＝おう and 女王 and 王女 whereas I only have to learn 女王 and 王女 (even though it’s a particularly easy example since the readings are the reverse of each other, they’re still two distinct words with different meanings that you have to learn – *just* learning 女＝じょ and 王＝おう doesn’t work).

彼ったら怒り爆発だったよ。- He blew his stack.

What ったら mean here? How does it modify 彼?

Could someone explain to me how なんか works in a sentence? I’ve seen it used in various places but I can’t always quite grasp why. For example, in the sentence なんかいい車じゃない。(That’s a nice car you’re driving.), how is the meaning different with なんか than without? Or how about おまえなんか見るのも嫌だ。(The sight of you is an abomination to me.)? Can it just be a filler word?

Also, is there a difference between なんと and なんて? They seem to be used quite similarly from what I’ve seen.