Everyone starts that way, but as you get more comfortable with/used to the words and grammar structures you’re using, the time to translate into the language you know best decreases. Eventually, it begins to happen instantaneously (i.e. you “see” the Japanese and the English at the same time). After that, the English portion fades away until it’s pretty much just understanding the Japanese straight up. It’s a gradual process, I think. But that’s just how I see it, others may be different.

If you are going to split up a sentence into 2 clauses using a comma, you can’t use ～ます form and the sentence ender よ. You have to use plain/dictionary form, or end it with a full stop. And you have to put でも before the comma, I think. Also, I think けど or しかし might be better than でも (though I’m not too sure on how exactly to use しかし). But then… wait, could you just tell us what it was you were trying to say? :P Sorry.

@All: It’s much better to have “ki”, “sa” and “ri” unjoined-up. The joined-up forms of them are only used in computer fonts, I think.

@Para: Yes, that would be correct ;) Maybe try printing out a kana chart, put another piece of paper on top and trace over, just to get a feel for the hand motion.

Here’s a thread I made way back on the old forum (back when I first started TextFugu D: – man, that feels like a long time ago hehe). First picture is my handwriting back then, and I’ll write something just to show you what it’s like now (MUCH better :P). Granted, I now know 2100-odd more kanji, so there won’t be AS much to compare it to.

[Don't think I'm getting at you for not knowing about that thread - it WAS in the old forum, so a bit trickier to find. Don't worry :P]

First Paragraph of Harry Potter (Handwritten)

• This reply was modified 13 years, 6 months ago by  MisterM2402 [Michael].
• This reply was modified 13 years, 6 months ago by  MisterM2402 [Michael].

What Koichi said. My schedule is random… but also consistent – I study at different times every day but I make sure I study *every* day. It’s actually kinda cool that I don’t think I could go a day without doing Japanese stuff; I’m just so used to it! :D It would feel too weird.

RikaiCHAN is for babies (hence the「～ちゃん」), RiaiKUN is for the cool peeps (hence the「～君」).

True story.

However, while this thread is still open, I’ll just say that I like “Perfume” and “MEG” (both Electro-pop produced by the same guy, so they have a similar sort of style sometimes). The only other Japanese band I like (so far) besides those two is “RADWIMPS”, but even then, only listen to a few songs – they are indie-rock, but the singer raps as well as singing (but no, it’s nothing like Gangsta Rap hehe).

I guess I’ve not gotten into J-music as much as some other people.

I answered these correctly in my head (and by correct, I mean concurrent with Ryuugyuu’s and Elenkis’ answers haha), and since there are already perfectly good answers posted, I won’t bother posting them again. I don’t wanna appear as if I’m not bothering to try these mini sentence questions/lessons, I really am, I’m just saying :P.