Just before coming to Japan, I had a week of intensive tuition with others about to depart for teaching posts here, but unfortunately (from my point of view), most of the instruction concentrated on the intricacies of hiragana and katakana; personally, I felt “infantilized”, as if I was back in primary school being made to learn my “ABC” but denied any access to the spoken language the squiggles were designed to represent. My feeling of inadequacy wasn’t helped by the consistently low marks I gained in daily “spelling” tests, nor by the spirit of rivalry these tests seemed to promote among classmates . . .
To make matters worse, soon after arriving in Japan I found that several of my former classmates were surging ahead in leaps and bounds where kanji were concerned (and letting us all know it!). At the same time, the Japanese teacher and textbook kindly provided by my new employers seemed to rather dogmatically take for granted that I’d be fascinated above all by the writing system, which I wasn’t. The pressure was mounting, then, and I took what I probably rationalized as an “adult” course of action at the time: saying a definitive “sayonara” to formal Japanese study and the written language (linked by the feelings of inadequacy they both induced in me), I decided to drop out of the kanji race altogether, politely thanking my teacher for his trouble and saying I was unfortunately too busy to continue, and turning a “blind ear” when conversation among friends turned to the number of Chinese characters they’d memorized that particular week.
I was in a good position to “pick up” the spoken language, being surrounded by kind, helpful and largely non-English-speaking colleagues in the teachers’ staffroom, and I became quite adept at avoiding the necessity to read and write in daily life. But just how have I managed to remain illiterate for so long?
Did you know that you can learn Japanese online with our videos at Youtube? We have posted 75 videos for learning Japanese. You can learn how to read hiragana and katakana. We have video lessons to teach you Japanese words and phrases. We have samples our our products as well.
In this video lesson you will learn about “housework”. Don’t forget to write a comment.
家事 － かじ
Key phrases:
せんたくを しました - I did the washing.
そうじきを かけました – I vacuumed the floors
せんたくものを ほしました – I hung out the washing
トイレを そうじしました – I cleaned the toilet
Learning Japanese online is cheapest and most effective way to learn Japanese. I think it is even better than taking private Japanese lessons. There is lots of free quality content, including Japanese podcast lessons, video lessons and lots of blogs and sites teaching Hiragana and Katakana. Start learning Japanese today.
Welcome to a Read Japanese Fast Kanji lessons. In this lesson we have included grammar explanations. 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.
The lessons below comes with video tutorials – to learn more visit Read Japanese Fast
To speak Japanese fluently is usually the ultimate goal of anyone studying the Japanese language. To reach the level where you can speak Japanese fluently can become quite a time consuming challenge. Not because the language is so difficult, but because most of the methods people use to learn or study Japanese are unproductive and too confusing. In my experience the best foreign speakers of Japanese are usually people who have taken no formal Japanese classes, can’t read or write hiragana or katakana, don’t know any kanji and don’t have a clue about Japanese grammar. They are also usually non-English speakers as well. How are they able to speak the language so well? They are forced to because of there job. Due to their environment or situation they have no option but to speak Japanese.
When living in Japan I met hundreds of English teachers who could speak Japanese, but never at a fluent level. They were taking classes, studying for the Japanese Language ProficiencyTest, and investing quite a lot of money on text books and audio programs. They studied hard but just couldn’t get to a fluent level. Then occasionally I would met someone from Turkey or India. They would speak the language like a native. Yet, they had taken no classes or purchased little in the way of study material. These speakers of Japanese wouldn’t learn or study the language in the traditional sense. They wouldn’t spend time learning hiragana or katakana. They certainly wouldn’t learn kanji or study grammar. In fact they would no nothing about the language except they could speak fluently. They would just soak up and use the language from their environment. They learnt the language from example and experience. The fastest and most effective way to study anything, especially a language.
In order to speak Japanese fluently you need to surround yourself with Japanese speakers and also not speak your native language. If you put yourself in a situation where you are forced to speak the language daily your Japanese will improve in leaps and bounds. If you spend too much time on rules about the language you will become knowledgeable about the structure of language and whatnot, but your speak ability will progress very slowly.
To develop the ability to speak you must observe how Japanese interact and then basically model what you see over and over. You have to become a bit of a actor and become Japanese. Japanese has to become a part or most of your life. Now, the problem is not many of us can just drop what we are doing and fly of to Japan. So how can you learn to speak Japanese without studying the language?
Surround yourself with as much Japanese as possible. Immerse yourself in real language as much as possible. This means making Japanese friends, getting a Japanese girlfriend or boy friend, watching Japanese television and listening to Japanese radio. You need to listen to Japanese speaking the real thing. Don’t listen to podcasts that are designed to teach you Japanese. There is too much in the way of explanation and unrealistic examples. Most of what is taught is too formalized anyway. Focus your life on mimicking Japanese. Speak to yourself in Japanese. So now you know what you need to do if you want to speak Japanese fluently. If you follow my advice you end up saving yourself a whole lot of time and money.
I have finally managed to work out how to blog in both Japanese and English so I thought I would post a kanji symbol lesson. In this lesson we will focus on just one kanji symbol and see how it can be used in a number of Japanese kanji compound words. Did you know that a kanji character can have several readings. A single symbol will almost aways have an on-reading and a kun-reading. The on-reading of a kanji character (音読み・おんよみ) is the Chinese based reading. Kanji originated in China, and Japan started to adopt and adapt the writing system in the 4th century. On-reading kanji often have the same or very similar pronunciation to the Chinese version of the kanji. The kun-reading （訓読み・くんよみ） is the Japanese reading of the kanji.
Watch the video kanji lesson below.
Let’s revise!
車 has two readings; くるま and しゃ. Which one is the Chinese reading?
Here are the questions and vocabulary from the video;
As a student of Japanese it is very important for you to learn the Japanese writing system. The advantages of learning to read Japanese are well worth the study time. Learning to read Japanese involves learning and memorizing the two syallbaries, Hiragana and Katakana, and then about 1000 to 2000 Kanji.
Consider Hiragana as the baby of the three. It is the first syllabary Japanese learn. It is primarily used to write out things for which there are no kanji, such as verb endings and grammatical elements such as prepositions. It is also used for writing out things for which there are kanji but which do not warrant kanji to be used, such as some simple words, or writing out names without kanji. For example, my wife’s name is normally written in Kanji, but her parents choose to have her name written in hiragana instead of Kanji. So always writes her name in Hiragana.
Katakana is like the teenager constantly changing with the modern culture. It has two purposes. The main role of katakana is writing out foreign-derived words often referred to as load words which have been integrated into the Japanese language. The number or loan words is growing rapidly. The second purpose of katakana is to put emphasis on words, similar to the western use of italics, underlines or asterisks. This why you will find a lot of Japanese written in Katakana in manga. Katakana in manga is often used to express anger or surprise.
Kanji, the old, traditional and meaningful script. The wise half Japanese, half Chinese Grand Daddy. Most students of Japanese know that the bulk of Japanese script is not actually Chinese in origin. And the Japanese kanji that are in use today are merely a subset of a vast number of kanji that were in use up to less than a century ago. Ths problem with Kanji is in the “readings”. There are two readings for Japanese Kanji; one that comes from classical spoken Japanese called kunyomi and readings that come from classical Chinese are called onyomi.
The problem with these readings is that it is not always clear when to use which reading. There are no rules that state that a kanji is read in a particular way when used on its own, or when part of a word. The only real way to make sure you are using the right reading for a kanji when encountered in a context that
you had not seen it in before, is to look it up – while sometimes one can guess whether a kunyomi or onyomi is used, it is typically impossible to be certain.
