Most students of Japanese go about learning to read Japanese the wrong way. In fact most teachers go about teaching Japanese the wrong way. It is harsh comment, but an unfortunate reality. It is the reason why most students never reach a level where they can read real Japanese.
Most students are taught to read Hiragana, Katakana and then memorize Kanji in order to read Japanese. This is obviously a logical learning pattern or method. However, too much emphasis is placed on learning individual kanji characters and all their readings. Once a student has reached a basic level, where they can read hiragana and katakana, they should start trying to read kanji in context. The problem is students try to learn and memorize hundreds of kanji in no context at all.
Learning To Read Kanji
Memorizing hundreds of kanji readings will not help you read Japanese. More emphasis should be place on actually reading kanji in context and on “kanji vocabulary”. I struggled for years in order to reach a level where I could read real Japanese. I spent hours and hours on trying to memorize hundreds of kanji and lots of grammar points. When I went to practice to read I couldn’t. It was like having all the right ingredients, but not knowing how to use them. This is the problem you are probably facing right now with your Japanese - you know hiragana, katakana, a few hundred kanji, basic grammar, but you can’t read.
Learn How To Read Japanese
My wife and I have developed a learning method to help people learn to read Japanese quickly – in 30 days in fact. We coach students to read with screen capture video tutorials. We teach the basics, hiragana and katakana, but we mainly focus on reading kanji in context. We go through twenty reading pieces word by word, phrases by phrase explaining everything. We also take into consideration learner needs and the ambiguity of Japanese.
Culture plays an important part of Japanese, too. Most teachers of Japanese forget this. We discuss culture, social customs and the Japanese mind-set in our video tutorials. These factors play an important part in learning, speaking and reading Japanese. We also give concise easy to understand grammar explanations as well.
If your goal is to learn how to read Japanese then I urge you to give our product a go. We can have you reading Japanese in 30 days. I know that sounds like a bunch of sushi. Ten years ago, when I first started learning Japanese I wouldn’t have believe it myself. We have tested our method and upgraded our product over several years. If you have a basic understanding of Japanese and are frustrated with your slow progress consider ”Read Japanese Fast”. Our product comes with an 8 week guarantee so you have plenty of time to try our product without risk.
Here is a link for more information. You can sign up to our newsletter and receive some sample videos.
After living in Japan for close to ten years and once never breaking the law I was quite angered when I learned that the next time I re-enter Japan I will be fingerprinted and my photo will be taken. My photograph and the image of my fingerprints will then be ran through a database of international terror and crime suspects as well as domestic records.
It felt like a bit of a slap in the face at the time. I have always believed that Japanese are not racist, at least not to Hakujin (white people). However, this was yet another case of discrimination in a ,at times, backwards country with more than enough social, political and economic problems to worry than concern itself with fingerprinting every foreigner that comes into the country. Japan has been fingerprinting all foreign visitors for security measures since November 2007.
This an another example of Japanese bureaucracy wasting money and resources. Japan is only hurting herself making this move. It will make many people think twice about visiting Japan. It will especially frustrate businessmen. Just imagine you arrive at Narita airport after a 10 to 15 hour flight. Your tired and want to get to your hotel or destination and you are going to be requesting politely requested to have your fingerprints and photo taken. If you refuse you’ll be deported. This kind of bureaucratic nonsense really fuels the fire of my love-hate relationship with Japan.
I can’t think of any reasons that justifies this “security measure”. Japan has not experienced any terrorist attacks by any foreign group or individual. The only recent terrorist attack I can think of was the Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway in 1995. this attack was committed by the Japanese religious cult Aum Shnrikyo.
Japan can be a wonderful country to visit and live in. However, the longer you live there the more you realize the less you understand. After ten years and many experiences I knew that Japanese could never really be a home for my family. It was a difficult decision to leave, but it was the right decision. I certainly didn’t want my son exposed to certain aspects of Japanese culture. His mother is Japanese and he was born there, but he was always considered a foreigner or half before a Japanese because of the way he looked. I think growing up in Japan would have been very difficult for him.
I lived in Japan for almost 10 years, married a Japanese, had a child in Japan and I couldn’t even apply for permanent residency. My wife, on the other hand was able to apply and received permanent residency immediately to my home country of Australia last year.
Looking for Japanese Kanji lessons?
Want to learn how to read Japanese kanji in context?
In this sample Kanji lesson you’ll learn how to read Japanese. If you really want to start reading Kanji check out “Read Japanese Fast ” – it will have you reading Hiragana, Katakana and Kanji in 30 days. It focuses on reading rather than memorizing Kanji. Trying to memorize lots of Kanji adds up to whole lot of wasted time if you can’t read. You don’t need to know all the readings of each Kanji. You just want to start reading as soon as possible.
Read Japanese Fast Kanji Lessons
For more Japanese Kanji Lessons visit Read Japanese Fast
Welcome to our first lesson on Japanese grammar. Studying a language isn’t always fun, but you have to know your basic Japanese grammar. In the next three post we shall look at the importance of particles. When I studied for the Japanese Language Proficiency Test I spent quite a lot of time learning particles and how to correctly use them. Particles in Japanese are called じょし . An easy way to remember them is てにをは – after the て form verb and the three quintessential particles に, を and は. In short particles give grammatical meaning to words or phrases that precede them.
You will find learning and using Japanese particles quite challenging. As the Japanese language divides the perception of processes and states in a drastically different way to western languages, particles are very different. Some particles do correspond to western prepositions and postpositions. However, there are particles which don’t just have one translation, but translate to many different things in western language. Learning these particles and all their applications can chew up your study time. One of the main reasons why many students avoid making a strong comittment to learn Japanese grammar.
However, you must learn the basics. Without knowing a certain number of prepositions it is reasonably safe to say that you cannot use Japanese to any real extent. Simply put you have got to know how to use particles correctly. If you don’t you won’t be able to hold anything that comes even close to a consistent short and simple conversation. We are going to take a look at 10 all important particles. Almost all Japanese particles have several meanings. You must know at least the first meaning of each of these particles.
The Japanese Particle が
This particle denotes the subject of an operative word (regardless of whether the operative is actually explicitly used in the sentence). Simple sentences that illustrate this use are:
だれが来ましたか。 － Who came [here]?
コーヒーが好きです。－ [I] like coffee.
In these sentences が links the subjects, respectively [who] and [coffee], to their operatives [come] and [like]. An important general rule to remember is whenever something not-yet-talked-about is being mentioned in a conversation, が is used. Also, when asking questions in relation to something unknown, が is used because this too is something new.
A second use of が is as a weak “but”:
すみませんが、今何時ですか。Excuse me but, what time is?
In contrast, but acts more like a gentle in-sentence conjugation particle, gluing the two pieces together with only a moderate level of contrast at best.
Here is our second Japanese grammar lesson on particles. In this post we are going to look at the particle は. Note that the particle is not pronounced as it is reads. It is pronounced wa and not ha. Although we are covering basic Japanese grammar in ths lesson, you may struggle with this for quite some time as I did. It took many Japanese grammar lessons for me to master this one particle. I hope my lesson will help you gain some understanding.
This particle has three main functions in Japanese. The first of these is to act as topic marker for conversations or texts. The main difference between a topic and a subject is that you can leave off a topic from a sentence, and it will still make perfect sense. This in contrast to a subject, which if removed creates a sentence with a gap in it:
Lets have a look at an example
きょうは だれが きましたか Who came [here] today?
The same sentence on its own without the topic works just fine:
だれが きましたか。Who came [here]?
However, the same sentence on its own without the subject won’t make sense.
きょう はきましたか。 …came [here] today?
The second function of は is as contrast marker, as in an “[A]は something, [B]はsomething else” pattern.
Here is an example:
ちがいますよ。 これは すしで、それはさしみ – [That's] not [quite] right. This is Sushi, and that’s Sashimi
Here a contrast is given between “this” and “that”, regardless of whether they were already topics.
The third function that は is the negative imperative when it follows a て form.
Here is an example;
きょう こなくて は いけません － You have to come today.
In this use, it creates a negative imperative。The は could also be followed by だめ.
きょう は だめ － Today is no good.
In our next post we will look at more particles.
