Learning Japanese

I studied Japanese for two years in college, but came to Japan barely able to ask directions to the bus stop. My original plan was to study in college for two years, really apply myself, and get a job as a translator upon graduation. Didn't quite work out that way.

Advice for the Beginner

The first thing I would advise you to do is this: Don't use romaji!. The sign on the door to Japanese fluency reads Abandon Romaji All Ye Who Enter Here. I started off writing all the words I wanted to memorize in a notebook, and that's where they stayed. When I started writing my vocab lists in hiragana was when they really started staying in my head. And, the constant repetition or writing word after word in hiragana made me memorize it without really trying. There are several books that help you learn kana through association with pictures. My opinion is that memorizing 52 symbols shouldn't be that hard if you write them down enough. Even if you see a ス and think about superman, will you be able to write it?

After mastering hiragana I still had a devil of a time with katakana. When I got into Kanji was when I mastered katakana, again, without really trying. I was making kanji flash cards. In Japanese dictionaries, the 'kun' (Japanese), reading is usually written in hiragana and the 'on' (Chinese), reading in katakana. I decided to make my flash cards the same way. I made hundreds of kanji cards and once again seemingly endless repetion was the key.

Kanji 漢字

Japanese kanji is the Mt. Fuji of language learning, Chinese kanji is the Mt. Everest. I can offer one word of encouragement in this category: It gets easier as you go along. The first 300 came really hard. The next 500 came a little easier. After you get a thousand under your belt, it starts getting easier. I eventually reached a point where I could see a kanji once, look it up, and I would remember it.

There are three purchases I reccomend.

500 Basic Kanji Workbook I don't know author or publisher, I'll look for that next time I'm at the bookstore. It is actually two workbooks with 250 in each one. Volume one has a red cover and volume blue has kind of a tampex box blue cover. It has excellent reading drills confined to the vocabulary it has introduced so far.
A Guide to Remembering the Japanese Characters. It has a silver cover. I think the author's name is Kenneth Henshall. I'll verify that the next time I'm in the bookstore. It has all the Toyo Kanji (about 2000) with all readings, example compounds, and historical origins. He also includes neumonics, but I didn't find them very useful. There are lists in the back of all the kanji by stroke count and by reading. I photocopied this and used it to make sure I didn't make duplicate flash cards, for drills, and to keep a body count of kanji I knew.
Canon Wordtank 9500-IDX If you plan on using non-study oriented material (newspapers, novels), this electronic dictionary is essential. You can get by with a cheaper model, but the example sentences and cross-refrencing capabilities make it worth an extra couple of thousand yen.

As far as writing kanji goes, learn how to read and write your first 300. It is important for learning stroke order and components that will make it easier to retain them later. After that, leave the hard work to wa-puro and pcs. Though I have found it entertaining to memorize stroke order and produce extremely difficult and rare kanji on the spot. 犀 and 憂鬱 are good ones.

Here is an example of my kanji cards.

Target Kanji
English equivalent. Some kanji have more than one meaning. Write all of them.
'Kun' reading in hiragana. If there is more than one reading, include them all.
'On' reading in katakana. Include all readings.
Combination example. Include multiple examples if there is more than one reading. Include a short definition if you can't recall it readily.

Grammar

I had a lot of trouble finding a decent grammar book. I like to study by reading stuff that Japanese people read; not textbooks of contrived examples. I can make two reccomendations:

A Dictionary of Japanese Grammar by The Japan Times. A good start. It's explanations are easily understandable, and some of the example sentences will make you laugh. It is far from comprehensive, limited to very basic grammar.
Sanseido's Concise Japanese - English Dictionary - revised editon This one is better than Sanseido's Japanese - English English - Japanese; it has more example sentences. It was the source for many of the entries in the dictionary I'm working on.

Now you've heard me speak of the virtues of example sentences how many times? Ok ok I'll shut up. But feel free to have a look at the fruit of my labors, A dictionary of connectives. since I couldn't find a comprehensive, ordered dictionary of Japanese grammar points, I wrote one. It started off as just a study file, but got big enough that I'm thinking of making a commercial version some day. But I'll have to get a lot of copyright permission slips or rewrite almost all of the entries. I lifted almost every entry. I read Jurassic Park in Japanese, so you'll notice a lot of entries about Drs. Grant and Sutler. I also got a lot of sentences from 遠い海から来たCOO which I reccomend for intermediate level readers.

And don't forget to take a look at my sure-fire method for studying verbs.

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