“The only definite way to learn Japanese is to take a class.” – Who is Jacob and what is he playing at? That sentiment (since you paraphrased I don’t know *exactly* what he said) is completely untrue. Obviously there’s no one best way to go about it and some people like taking classes, but the idea that you *have* to take a class to learn Japanese is ridiculous; don’t listen to him :P

Everybody is an “average Joe” when it comes to language learning, I doubt many people have “natural-born talent”, like they have some god-like skill for it that others don’t – all the polyglots (people who speak multiple languages) I’ve seen on YouTube aren’t proficient with those languages because of “talent”, it’s because they were passionate and dedicated and hard-working. Of course, once you’ve had some experience learning languages you get better at it, but in the beginning you’re no more or less skilled than anyone else (probably a few exceptions to that, mind you). It bugs me that so many people are like “I’ve always wanted to learn language XYZ” but when you say “Then why don’t you? :D” they respond with something like “Oh, I’m not good with languages” – I’m thinking “Well have you actually even tried? Are you just basing that off the fact that once upon a time you sat in French class at high school for a couple of hours a week not paying attention and you’re not fluently fluent now?”. The other main response is that they don’t have the money to pay for a fancy class or buy Rosetta Stone or 100 textbooks or a flight to the country, and that is such a shame that they’ve been made to think that way.

Classes aren’t inherently bad but there can be some disadvantages and I don’t think they should be solely relied on. You have to put in the work on your own outside of class if you want to see improvement; it seems some people think “If I just go to class and sit there for the appropriate number of hours, I’ll be good at Japanese” but that’s not how it works. You might get an inflexible teacher who just wants you to do it their way, like how they might get you to learn kanji by writing them out 50 times in a row because that’s how they did it at school; that may work for some people but for a lot it won’t. The other thing with classes is that everyone has to go at the same speed and learn the same things, you don’t have the freedom of choosing what you want to learn and how much time to spend on it: if your class is learning keigo and you don’t think it’s that important, or if you want to cover more new vocab words each time, you don’t always have that choice (just depends on the class).

I’ve probably said more than enough here, I’m sure you get the idea :P And don’t get me wrong, I go to a class myself for maybe 50 minutes every week but it’s really only supplementary to the main bulk of my studying which is self-led. I can see why people might like going to class but don’t think it’s the be all and end all.

Say what? I was just going through the big list of *these* threads, finally on my way to email Koichi to tell him to get it fixed… and someone’s told him about it already? More than a year ago as well and still no fix? I think I’ll still say to him – the first guy to email him probably only told him what the problem was, not the true *extent* of it.

Hm, not particularly, but I wouldn’t mind visiting once my Japanese is of a better standard (and by that I mean the point where I can actually tell what the shit is going on most of the time). You can’t really know if you want to live somewhere permanently unless you’ve spent time there beforehand, living as a normal person rather than as a tourist. I’m sure there are a lot of people that develop a warped view of what living in Japan is like, then they end up there and decide they don’t like it because it’s not what they expected.

Tried the N4 sample questions. Did reasonably well on the first two sections; did… not so well on the listening >.< The difficulty of listening and speaking is TOO DAMN HIGH!

Edit: Just tried N3 too. Got most of the first two sections right again. Gave up on listening at the first question.

@willbobaggins: That’s pretty much what I do, except I do it for both on *and* kun readings. Learning them through vocab just seems the most logical way to do it.

@Gustav: Whether you choose to learn readings separate from kanji or together or not at all, I’d suggest not to bother trying to remember which is on and which is kun, it’s really not that important.

But then how much is “enough vocabulary”? As for “If you’re going to learn Japanese, when will you have time to review 300-500 flashcards?”, that’s like saying “If you’re going to learn Japanese, when will you have time to read Japanese” – it’s all part of the process (for some people). Plus, I only do 100-200 cards a day, not sure who’s doing 500 (*that* many cards seems like time wasted, I agree).

I’m also a fan of Steve Kaufman, despite not doing things exactly the way he does; his points of view are usually pretty interesting, even though they usually boil down to “listen and read” and “learn to notice”. I could have *sworn* I posted the same video on this forum but I can’t remember where or when.

Even though Steve isn’t a fan of flash cards, there’s a flash card system in his site LingQ, isn’t there? Are you a LingQ user? How do you find it? I’ve considered joining myself but the free trial wasn’t enough to give me a good enough sense of it.

zeldaskitten wrote:

it’s also better organized and the order that kanji are taught is better too because it doesn’t go in order of number of strokes, but instead it builds off the radicals.

So like Heisig’s style of ordering? For the longest time, Koichi championed the “fewest strokes to most strokes” ordering; I guess he’s realised that way wasn’t actually that good after all.

SamusAranX wrote:

You aren’t being very clear at all.

“from what I’ve heard, you don’t need to bother with the TextFugu kanji at all.”

First, who did you hear this from?<br>
Next, why don’t we need to bother with Textfugu kanji? Becuase Wanikani is better, or because something else out there is better, or because Textfugu kanji is bad, or why?

Because WaniKani is in essence “TextFugu kanji section 2.0″: instead of overhauling that part of this site when he realised it wasn’t that great, he made a spin-off service. From what I’ve heard, WaniKani is pretty good, so I’m assuming it’s better than what you have here on TF. I’m really surprised he hasn’t just done away with it and given us all free access to WK… or at least done away with it, reduced the price of TF and given us a decent discount to balance it out.

As for “who did you hear this from?”, I’m assuming he’s gleaned it from just general discussion around the site, no one source in particular.

The guy is probably there because he has to be for his course, not because he’s any good at the language :P

I can *kinda* see why they might use shapes to help you write the kana with proper proportions (after all, a lot of people use square paper when practising kanji), but it doesn’t seem to be something they should dwell on so much. Oh well, just gotta push through it, hold out till you get to the good stuff, the more interesting parts of the course.