Studying Japanese Language/Literature/History

i don't study as much as i had been while unemployed. having a job is cutting into my study time rofl. but work will slow down in the fall so during the slower times i can probably do some writing practice or something just so i don't forget my kana =/ i feel guilty when i do anything not work related while at work though so i might end up not doing it haha

i'm not at that point yet that i can pick up enough to understand what's going on in raws. hoping to get there sometime soon.
i did bring my notebooks to work today and reviewed them when it was slow. it's not all my notes though some are on lined paper in a folder, a bit awkward to bring to work and back, whereas my 2 notebooks are just small hardcover writing pads really. both are notes following along with the irasshai videos. one is notes in english and roomaji, with a bit of everything, vocab, grammar etc, the other is hiragana writing practice. (ie each episode he introduces a line of kana and then some words to practice using them, so that book is just that part of the vids and any words that they show in hiragana throughout the lessons). the loose notes are mostly from livemocha, some from tofugu

頑張れよ。

(do your best./good luck. i think.. not too familiar with kanji yet lol i haven't fixed the language options on this computer yet so i just searched it on jisho.org and copied and pasted hahaha. by the way bookmark jisho.org if you haven't already ;) )

Recently, I've had a ton of success with using this site: http://www.timwerx.net/language/jpverbs/index.htm#contents

Even if it's not natural sounding, I have no problem communicating what I'm trying to say. I totally agree with everyone who says learning new verbs/verb usage is the most important part of learning Japanese and the most efficient way to improve your fluency.

Yokoso adenike. check out the sticky japanese language resources too. it's got a lot of useful info there.

i don't understand much when watching raw episodes. if i understand 20% of what i hear i would say that's alot. lol. but i'm not letting that stop me. i guess i'm preparing myself for when i get to japan and i understand almost nothing...shell shock!!! i kinda just listen to pick out words i know or what words i can hear clearly, try to spell them and look them up in my dictionary.

i was wondering about this. when u listen to stuff in japanese that u know by heart (eg. numbers or colors or whatever) do u still translate back to english in ur head or do u automatically get what it is?

Prim wrote: i was wondering about this. when u listen to stuff in japanese that u know by heart (eg. numbers or colors or whatever) do u still translate back to english in ur head or do u automatically get what it is?

I read somewhere that no matter how well you learn a second language, there is always a moment of translation even if it is less than a millisecond.

My opinion: I think it depends on the nature of the word. For things like objects or numbers and letters I get the image in my mind, not the English word. But for more conceptual things, I think I still experience translation to English.

Has anyone tried online Japanese classes. I'm looking at two programs right now: Japanese Online Institute (http://www.japonin.com/class_features.html) and Japanese Online School (http://www.j-os.com/courseprice.html). The links will take you directly to the different courses offered at each site.

I'm seriously considering doing this type of program because I don't really have the desire to and my life wouldn't facilitate a move to Japan to attend a full time language school, but I want to do more than the classes offered once or twice a week locally. I'm leaning towards JOI because I like the combination of group and private lessons.

Any thoughts or experiences?

congrats on the ipod touch and welcome to the apple family. i made a list of all the japanese language apps i've used in the resource thread so check them to see what will be useful to u