nihongo o hanashimasu ka?

I knew some Japanese, but most of what I knew is gone because I never use it. For some reason, "shawaa o abimas" ("I am taking a shower") became a catchphrase at our house and still gets said a lot.

I've been learning for 2 1/2 years (evening classes) and I'm still crap. Watashi no nihongo wa yokkunai desu. The textbook we use is called Japanese For Busy People, it's ok.

Japanese For Busy People is the one that doesn't use any kana, right?

I am interviewing for a job in Japan in two weeks. :/

Two friends and I have just started getting together for Japanese practice, following one of my college textbooks. It's sort of sad how much of the little I knew to start with I've forgotten. At least I remembered what homework is called!

Also, how does a textbook not have kana? I think that's one of the first thing my textbook teaches, and after chapter 2, it's all in kana.

The merest smattering is all I know.

xp: They're too busy for kana!

damn jessie what kind of a job?

There's a version of Japanese For Busy People that uses kana now. Still not a great textbook.

I did a summer of intensive study about 18 months ago, and I'm trying to remember everything I've forgot, so that I can go back into a similar program this summer. I've had virtually no practice in the meantime.

漢字は覚えにくいだね。

Yup.

I've never been able to use any of those textbooks meant for classroom use outside of an actual class. I've started working through Routledge's Colloquial Japanese.

soo desu kaaaaaaa?????? is the one catchphrase that stuck in my life after high school japanese

I think when the Emperor lost his divinity after World War II, he spoke some rarified form of Japanese that nobody outside the palace understood. When he went among the people all he ever said was "soo desu kaaaaaaa??????" and "ah soo."

I really, really hate Katakana. What's the point? I mean, you use it for writing out words of non-Japanese derivation, but couldn't they just use Hiragana for that? I still don't remember half of the characters. Grr.

katakana is not just for foreign words, that's only what some teachers tell beginning students.

you often use katakana when referring to animals, plants and food.

also: ハッピーホワイトデイ。

Anyone who who bemoans katakana or hirgana clearly has never studied Chinese. I've got nothing planned for White Day, but my wife is quite forgiving.

Anyone who who bemoans katakana or hirgana clearly has never studied Chinese.

QFT! 262 syllabary characters vs over fifty thousand ideographs with multiple readings...

^^^otm. my kanji is so woefully inadequate that I want to give up on reading anything.

you often use katakana when referring to animals, plants and food.

i forgot sounds/onomatopoeia as well...

and model names of giant robots

which i would imagine are usually borrowed from foreign languages so there you are, back at square one.

Ah god, 11 months on from the above posts and I still don't remember all the katakana (let alone fuckin' kanji), probably because I never practise it. Although, yes at least it's not Chinese.

Flashcards, flashcards, flashcards. I never used them before learning Japanese but they are amazing for learning kanji, etc. Also, doodle katakana and hiragana in meetings or whatever, I learned them by lining notebook pages with them during other classes in college.

To defend Chinese, at least the characters were designed for that language so it makes some sense. Japanese kanji have so many irregular readings (you ever try learning how to read people's names?) that it was actually releiving to start studying Chinese, where generally there's a one-to-one correspondence between syllables and sounds.

でもとにかくみんながんばれ！

are you reading Japanese? try finding some Japanese language menus for western food restaurants. lots of good katakana practice.

here:

http://www.dominos.jp/menu/allpizza.php

wakarimasen

McDonalds:

http://www.mcdonalds.co.jp/menu/regular/index.html

My personal favorite:

http://www.mos.co.jp/menu/

Ah Mos! Never tried it and as my parents are adament about not eating crap, I will obv not be having it in May. Anyone around Tokyo in May? I'll be staying there for two weeks (in my parents' place).

As crap goes, Mos is top of the shelf. I recommend trying it once. Freshness Burger is also pretty darn tasty.

Alas, I will not be in Tokyo in May, but will spend a glorious month there this summer.

i have 2 weddings the tail end of May/early June... just in time for that disgustingly hot rainy season that i've heard so much about.

Mos burger vegetable rice burger (as in the rice is instead of the bun) is good. Katakana is quite fun once you know it. I found flashcard programmes on iPod (Kana Flip) really effective for learning, just practicing a bit whenever I had a free moment. Now on to the third level of the Kanji version where it goes up to 986 of them and gets really hard

steve, i'll probably be around then.

The nice thing about the rainy season is that, when you're in a bit of town where the buildings have tiled exteriors, the humidity in the air makes it feels like you're in a massive indoor swimming pool. Everything else about the rainy season is... not so nice.

i default to speedanki.com for online flashcard-type stuff; also i am fond of a mac hoonja-doonja called eimantai, which is a basic vocabulary test program where you have to input everything yourself but can then just test and test and test.

things i regret not buying in japan: the kanji kentei ds game (and a ds to play it on).

can you give me a link? my mum still studies japanese every single fucking day. me? i can't be arsed.

(also discovered that camera gear is almost the same price! wtf man)

to eimantai? here: http://ist.ksc.kwansei.ac.jp/~katayose/members/okudaira/eimantai/index_e.html
there is a lot of data entry involved (i use vocab lists from kanji textbooks). but the data entry part also helps me remember, so.

the kanken ds game is this one: http://www.rocketcompany.co.jp/kanken/