Learn Japanese from scratch on your own. Learning Japanese - goals, methods, results. Learning Japanese

Every day, novice Japanese learners ask themselves the question - where to start learning Japanese? Of course, teachers of various calibers immediately come to their aid: real and virtual. They talk about books and techniques that show high efficiency. Alas, all this is a terrible lie. People are different. Everyone assimilates information in different ways, and in this regard, there is no universal answer to the question posed.

The Japanese grammar book from the "Minna no nihongo" series helps someone, someone needs a teacher for the first step, while others even begin to get used to the language by watching movies with subtitles.

The best thing to do in this case is to listen to yourself. It is useful to remember how you studied a subject in which you are already good. When I started learning the language, it all started with a confession to myself that: a) I have no internal discipline; b) I can talk best.

I found a private teacher from the university. Twice a week we met for an hour and a half, and I was asked a little homework. After a couple of months, I began to search the Internet for the Japanese and chat with them in the words that I remembered during the two months of training. Japanese words were mixed abundantly with English. One way or another, the training was successful. Another option is if a person has iron discipline and amazing perseverance. Then you can learn Japanese on your own in 2 years by studying a couple of books on grammar by Ms. Frolova and starting to replenish your vocabulary by reading fiction in Japanese. So start by admitting to yourself your weaknesses. And then find how to compensate for them.

If you are interested in learning Japanese, then the main thing is to determine for yourself why you need the language. Depending on the goal, the answer to this question can be very different.

If you like Japan and everything Japanese, and through the language you want to touch the culture of this country a little, then I advise you to try to master the two main syllabaries of the Japanese language, hiragana and katakana. Each of the alphabets has 48 letters (syllables). Having mastered them, you can easily read texts written in these alphabets. Pronunciation and reading rules in Japanese are elementary and are not particularly difficult for Russian people. Also, by practicing writing letters (syllables), you can try your hand at calligraphy. Why do we need 2 alphabets, in which all letters are identical in sound, but differ in spelling, this is a separate question. However, many give up already in the process of learning the alphabet - mastering 96 unfamiliar characters is not so easy.

You like Japanese anime, movies, music, and would like to understand a little what they are talking about and try to watch videos in the original. If the goal is only this, then I would not even advise you to meddle in the alphabet, grammar, and even more so in hieroglyphs. In such a genre as anime and pop music, a lot of colloquial words and constructions are used, which are not always even found in the dictionary. Japanese youth often combine words with English, and such expressions, at times, are not even understood by the Japanese of the older generation. Therefore, for a partial understanding of all forms modern culture, it will be enough to find some resource on modern Japanese and just memorize the words and expressions. Believe me, if you remember 30-50 words, then you will definitely catch the words you know in any song or anime by ear.

If you want to communicate with the Japanese, then you should master not only 2 alphabets, but preferably about 500 more characters and a huge number of words and expressions. Of course, here it is better to turn to the help of tutorials or live teachers. When looking for a teacher, many people think that if they find a Japanese tutor, they will speak in a month. This is one of the biggest misconceptions and mistakes of beginners. If the tutor has a specialized education, that's great. But if he is just a carrier, he is unlikely to be able to give much useful information. Imagine that you are telling a Chinese about the difference between perfect and imperfective verbs in Russian. Are you sure that you can correctly convey information about your language to a foreigner? It is the same here: the carrier is good practice for the learned, but by no means a learning tool at an early stage.

You want to work with Japanese. If you have set yourself such a goal, then you need to be patient and learn Japanese a lot and every day. Unfortunately, I have not met many people who would learn the language on their own and use it in their work. Still, for work, the language must be learned in a systematic way, preferably at the university for five years and every day in a row. Japanese grammar may seem elementary compared to other languages. There are only two tenses: the present (it is also the future) and the past, parts of speech do not decline by gender, number or cases. But Japanese is a high context language, where one word can have a huge number of meanings depending on the situation in which it is used. And in order to learn to understand and use the right word in the right place, you need to read, listen, speak, write a lot. Only then will the Japanese be able to submit to you and reciprocate.

I try to collect in this article in brief all the most important and necessary. If you know something useful that I forgot about, leave a comment or email me:

Animeshnikov divorced a dime a dozen in Russia. Every second cherishes the hope to learn the moonspeak sooner or later, and often cherishes it for the sixth year already. Meanwhile, anyone can learn Japanese to a level at which you can watch TV shows and even read simple books in a year and a half.

Language university

If you have looked after a good Japanese department of a language university and are ready to enter it, then, of course, it is worth doing so. The speed of learning in language universities is average: in the first year you will pass the basics of grammar and about 500 kanji. However, the university provides a comprehensive education - not only language, but also history, literature, politics.

Most importantly, you will, willy-nilly, be constantly among people who are learning Japanese. You will find friends, later, perhaps, a job related to your hobby.

JLPT surrender

Yarksy

A Japanese-Russian dictionary, a kanji catalog and a universal japonist tool exists for various operating systems and platforms. The same indispensable tool as Wakan - especially if your English is not very good.

It contains the largest (except for Varoday) electronic Japanese-Russian dictionary (60,000 words), a database of hieroglyphs with Russian names and interpretations, supports search by many features, search by pattern.

How to use: as a dictionary, a reference book of hieroglyphs, especially as the first thing to refer to if you do not fully understand or doubt the meaning of kanji. Yarksey has an excellent system for indicating values, where examples of use are given for each value.

• Yarksi-online- a dictionary from Yarksy on the Internet.

Anki

Flash card cramming program. A recognized leader, he knows everything in his field: any settings, mathematics, appearance maps, dozens of plug-ins, versions for all operating systems and mobile phones, Internet version (all synchronizing with each other).

How to use: install on all your devices, set up synchronization, create decks and cramming.

You can either make a deck yourself, adding cards manually, or download a ready-made one from the server using the program. When downloading ready-made decks, remember that they often contain words of several levels at once - in Anki you can choose to "cram only cards marked with certain tags."

Downloading a ready-made deck is easier, but creating a personal one is often more convenient - for example, if you want to learn kanji in a certain order. I use two decks: "words" (downloaded from the internet) and "kanji" (composed by hand). In the latter case, it is possible to build a deck automatically from kanji marked for study in wakana (see jp-tools below).

Be sure to install the plugins "examples of words in kanji" and "examples of sentences per word".

Where can I get lists of words and kanji for Anka?

• Download ready decks.
• Create from a list of learned characters in Wakana.
• Learn the characters that are most important for reading your favorite book.

Competitor of Wakana, which does not have a translator, but only a dictionary and cramming kanji and words. However, many like (and newer).

AppLocale

A utility from Microsoft that allows you to run applications with a different system locale. Needed to run old or poorly written Japanese programs (often games), i.e. almost everyone -___-". If you see that the application shows hacks instead of Japanese, run it from under AppLocale, setting the locale to 日本語.

Windows 7: To install under Windows 7, you need to run the installer with elevated rights.

Japanese text readers

Almost all Japanese books on the Internet can be opened with Notepad or any other text editor, the main thing is to choose the encoding. But reading books is so inconvenient. Usually they use special programs - readers.

They can, firstly, print the text vertically from right to left (get used to this form right away!), and secondly, show the furigana not in brackets, breaking the text, but as expected - on the side.

There are many readers, google "aozora-bunko reader", "japanese reader ruby" . If you don't know which one to choose, try ArisuViewer.

It is usually impossible to copy Japanese text from such readers, therefore, in order to look up words in a dictionary, it is useful to keep the same book open in Notepad in parallel.

AGTH /ChiiTrans /ChiiTrans Lite

Applications for translating or helping to translate Japanese visual novels. With their help, you can play novels, easily and conveniently figure out the meaning of unfamiliar words or even translate entire sentences on the fly.
AGTH is older, ChiiTrans builds on top of it and is richer - lots of translation methods, including word only, read signing, output over game, etc.

Rikaichan

Pop-up translation of words in the browser from Japanese to other languages. Dictionary of names, number and frequency of occurrence of hieroglyphs and more.

ruby support

The XHTML standard has tags for writing ruby ​​(signatures for hieroglyphs). Some browsers support them automatically, others require plugins and add-ons:

Russian dictionaries!

• Varodai- electronic version of the large Soviet Japanese-Russian dictionary: 90,000 entries, more than 113,000 expressions, if you count the variations.
• JR Edict– about 6000 words in EDICT format (compatible with many applications).

Links

• WWWJDIC- one of the web interfaces to the EDICT dictionary (the largest electronic Japanese-English dictionary). It is convenient to assign a search in your browser to some quick combination, for example, "jp", so that you can search for a translation directly from the address bar.
• Yahoo Answers Japan- the last resort in the translation of incomprehensible expressions. When there is no expression in the dictionary and Google did not help, you can ask the Japanese a question. On this and other similar sites, the most complex and confusing phrases are cracked to you in a few hours. Don't forget to thank the Japanese people and choose the "correct answer"!
• tanos.co.uk- everything according to JLPT: grammar, words and kanji for all levels, examples of past assignments, tests. In English.
• Google translate- Google translator. You should not trust him, use him as a generator of unexpected thoughts.
• /tran/, /fl/– /tran/ - sections of the imageboard. One of the places where you can get a hint (and give a hint to another, don't forget about it).
• [email protected] – Jabber conference for talking about foreign languages ​​(including Japanese)

Hiragana, katakana and basic grammar

Hiragana And katakana- Japanese syllabaries. Read about them carefully on Wikipedia. You must memorize them.

Start with hiragana. Print out its symbols on a sheet of paper with readings, hammer them into, and repeat for hours - on the subway, at breakfast, at lectures.

Having memorized most of it, read fairy tales. Stubbornly make your way through the texts, looking for the symbols on your sheet and parsing the words.

When you get a little comfortable with hiragana, start learning katakana. Everything is the same, only there is no need to rush, and there are almost no texts on it. You will know Katakana worse. Everyone knows her worse, and at first they are more confused about her. Not scary.

Both hiragana and katakana need to learn how to write. Let the letters be ugly, but you must remember their shape.

Grammar

In parallel, read something about the basics of grammar. Any simple book for beginners will do, even those ridiculed by everyone, like Japanese in one month. They have enough information.

You must learn:

• Word declensions (present, past, suggestion, command, opportunity, passive voice)
• Simple and polite form (tobu/tobimasu) and how they are applied.
• The general structure of the sentence (va, ga, subordinate clauses and the replacement of va by ga in them).
• Roles of all simple particles(but, neither, de, o / in, then, e, kara, made, and others)

Hieroglyphics

Find and Learn general rules kanji designs. Learn how to write these twenty kanji correctly (300-500 copies of each, 25-50 per run).
If you are not going to learn how to write kanji (and many do not want to, because it is optional and wastes time), then now write not 20, but 40-50 kanji. This necessary minimum, then you can quit.

Transliteration

When kana is written in Russian or English letters(e.g. "jinsei" or "jinsei"), this is called kiriji and romaji. There are different versions of this entry:

• Kana: マリイちゃんの
• Hepburn system: Marii-chan no jinsei wa chotto fukuzatsu
• Kunrei-shiki: Marii-tyan no zinsei wa tyotto hukuzatu
• Polivanov's system: Mari-chan no jinsei wa chotto fukuzatsu
• Different options not according to Polivanov: vat, jinsei, jinsey, clearly, cotto, fukuzatsu and so on.

There are irreconcilable disputes between supporters and opponents of the Polivanov system. Opponents argue that the words in Japanese do not sound like "sh or sch" are clearly audible, and that they look funny (for example, 死者 "shisha" - a dead person). Polivanov's advantage is that this is the only unambiguous system; there are no clear rules among the notation “not according to Polivanov”: someone writes “shi”, someone writes “shchi”, someone does it anyhow.

It is not so important which system to use in chats and forums. In articles and books, it is better to use Polivanov, because it has become a tradition, this is a good tone - although, of course, in each situation you need to look at the circumstances. And when studying Japanese kiriji and romaji, it is better not to use it at all, even at first: all readings should be taught only in kana.

Pronunciation

When you start learning anime Japanese, you usually already know how sounds are pronounced in standard Japanese. Practice your pronunciation by reading the stories out loud. The sounds of Japanese are close to Russian, just keep in mind that no matter which writing system you prefer (Polivanov or Kiriji-Hepburn), you need to pronounce the sounds "si" and "ji" the way they are heard, and not any of the options recorded in Russian.

Cramming kanji and words

Find the kanji lists for N5/N4 (ex JLPT4/JLPT3), print them out or hammer them into Anki. Teach in large numbers (20-30 new, 2-3 hours total per day per class). Take breaks sometimes.

In parallel, read either fairy tales, or - as soon as you can, no matter what it costs you, simple light novels in Japanese.

How to read books.

Start with simple books, and the plot of which you know well from the translation. Read in a row, quickly, so that reading does not have time to get bored. Skip hopelessly difficult paragraphs, medium difficulty and easy - translate by copying the words into the translator. Try not to copy entire paragraphs, guess simple expressions yourself.

Look for learned kanji. Combine their sounds, trying to get a familiar word. If you don’t know all the kanji in the word, try to guess anyway, and when you guess, drive the sound into the dictionary and check if it is.

You can and should start reading simple light novels with 300-400 kanji. You can do this without crying with 1000+ kanji and 4000-5000 words, so get ready for the fact that the first time will be hard. This is how it should be - only by plodding through this difficult section will you learn to read easily.

As your kanji portfolio grows, add more from the books you read and the words you learn. Go to JLPT N3 and create, if you haven't already, a deck for the Anki characters you know. Feel free to add characters to it that are not included in the JLPT you are currently studying. Learn the most common kanji first, and let the JLPT be just a guide.

Kanji and words

Cramming individual kanji is useful, but they are remembered much faster as part of words. Therefore, be sure to install the plug-in for anki "examples of words with kanji", and run through the examples each time with your eyes. Remembering the hieroglyph, repeat not only the reading ("KAN"), but the most famous combinations with it ("yeah, this is KAN from KANZEN!").

Get yourself a separate deck for words, or download a ready-made JLPT for all levels. Choose only two lower levels in it, and cram this set of words. Install the plugin for anka "examples of sentences with words", and try to understand the meaning of each word, and not just memorize its translation. Learn from examples in which situations the word is used - this way it will be remembered faster.

At first, you can learn 10-20 kanji per day, and 80-100 words each. If this is too much and your debt in Anki is growing, reduce the dose. No one forbids heroically passing 500 words in one day, but this is not necessary. As kanji and words become rarer, the learning rate will drop to 2-3 kanji and 10 words per day.

When learning words, show their readings right away, because often words get ahead of themselves and use kanji that are not yet known to you. As the word is remembered, you can begin to close the reading with your hand, and try to guess it first, and only then - the meaning.

Never cram without understanding. If some kanji means "eave" or "white gauze", find out the meaning of these words, find photos. Having stumbled upon the "chamber of advisers", read about political structure Japan. When you come across an ambiguous or strange word, find and add to the card a few clear examples of use. Learn the meaning, not the letters.

• How to make it more memorable(in English.)

Grammar

Reading will automatically make you comfortable with the medium grammar that most texts are built from. Nothing special can be said here: having met an incomprehensible or too complex sentence, work on it - take it apart in parts, try to guess the meaning.

Buy yourself a grammar book of medium difficulty, for example, " Practical Grammar Japanese language" Lavrentiev. When analyzing a proposal, re-read the articles about each of its elements. If nothing works, ask your senior comrades for advice.

Running expressions

Sometimes you will come across proverbs and sayings, set expressions, Japanese memes. Learn to notice them, even if you've heard them before. A simple rule that will help at first: if the phrase sounds meaningless, and the words suddenly do not apply, you may be reading a set expression.

How to fight: choose the most characteristic, strange, unique, invariable part of the expression and copy it to Google, enclosing it in quotes. Learn in what situations it applies. You can add "意味" outside the quotes: sometimes the phrase is in Japanese dictionaries, sometimes someone has already asked about its meaning, and he was answered.

What to read

Where to get books in Japanese:

• (it is not difficult and not so expensive - less than 400 rubles per book).
• Download from internet:

Modification of the hieroglyph components

Kanji are often modified to fit into other characters:

水 (mizu) - water, 注ぐ (sosogu) - "pour", the left component is also "water".
手 (te) - hand, 扱い (atsukai) - "leaving", the left component is also "hand".
人 (hito) - person, 住む (sumu) - "to live", the left component is also "person".

It is useful to remember such simplifications over time by studying tables of radicals and parts of hieroglyphs.

Radicals and consonances

Often, entering a more complex hieroglyph, simple hieroglyphs have a special role in it:

• Used as a key when looking up in a dictionary
• Influence its meaning (sometimes even ask it)
• Influence its Chinese sound (OH).

The first will not be useful to you, because now there are electronic dictionaries that are searched for anything. However, it is worth knowing that there is an algorithm for highlighting the main part (key) in the hieroglyph, according to which it is entered into the dictionary.

The second and third helps from time to time. When studying kanji, you will notice that among the elements there are "strong" ones, subordinating the Chinese sound almost always:

青い (aoi/SEI, SHOU) - blue.
清い (kiyoi/SEI, SHOU) - "water" + "blue" = transparent, unpolluted
晴れる (hareru/SEI) - "sun" + "blue" = to clear, brighten up (about the weather, for example)

生 (ikiru/SEI, SHOU) – life
性 (saga/SEI, SHOU) – gender, gender
姓 (SEI, SHOU) - surname

It even happens that both readings coincide:

中 (naka/CHUU) – space between something and something
仲 (naka/CHUU) – "person" + "gap" = relationship between someone and someone

Story memorization method

To remember the meaning of the hieroglyph, you can come up with some kind of "explanation" of how this meaning is "logically" obtained from the components of the hieroglyph. For example:

脅かす (obiyakasu) - to intimidate, to threaten. In this picture we see three components of "power" and one "moon". A bunch of evil people secretly, at night, came to a man and threaten him.
囁く (sasayaku) - "whisper". One mouth and three ears: clearly gossip.

You can invent completely nonsense, if only it helps you remember:

露 (tsuyu) - "dew". Leg, "each" and rain: all legs in the rain, the grass is wet. So it's not rain, but dew.

Often you can’t come up with a complete description, but in one component it’s easy to see a hint:

主 (nushi) - "master"
注ぐ (sosogu) - "to pour". What can be poured? Water. And here it is, water, to the left of the "owner".
住む (sumu) - "to live". Who lives in the house? Man, his master. And now, to the left of the "owner" - a man.
柱 (hashira) - "pillar". What are the poles from? From a tree. And here is the tree, to the left of the "owner".

One word - several kanji

Japanese is older than its hieroglyphic writing. Some words in it are ambiguous, and when kanji were borrowed from China, for different values different kanji were chosen. For example:

伸びる (nobiru) - to stretch, to extend (in length)
延びる (nobiru) - stretch, extend (in time)
直す (naosu) - straighten, fix (thing)
治す (naosu) - to cure an illness (of a person)
会う (ay) - meet, see (about people)
合う (ay) - come together, meet (about things)
遭う (au) - to face (unpleasant life circumstances)

There are also more subtle cases where the choice of kanji conveys only shades of meaning. Sometimes a word is traditionally written in one kanji, and the author writes it with a rarer one to emphasize some kind of intonation. Sometimes the chosen kanji is not even related to the word at all.

Choosing the wrong kanji is a mistake, although not a critical one. Of course, the selected kanji cannot be conveyed by voice, so in oral speech the meaning of the word is guessed from the context.

One kanji - several words

It happens that several Japanese words correspond to one kanji. Then on the record they differ only in the ending, for example:
通う - kayou, walk (to work), drive (to work and back)
通る - tooru, to pass (along the street, through the alley)
笑う - warau, to laugh
笑む - emu, smile
In some forms, the words even look the same, and it is left to guess from the context: 通って is kayotte or tootte.

Some pseudo-Chinese words also have multiple readings: 真実 shinjitsu / 真実 sana (truth), 昨日 kinou / 昨日 sakujitsu (yesterday).

Word types

There are four broad categories of words in Japanese:

1. Original Japanese words. Usually written in one kanji ending in kana, the ending is declined. Examples: 笑う (warau, laugh), 支える (sasaeru, support), 読む (yomu, read), 擦れ違う (surechigau, pass each other). At the same time, kunas are used to read kanji.
2. Pseudo-Chinese words. Obtained by compiling 2-4 kanji and reading them. Examples: 想像 (souzou, imagination), 要求 (youkyuu, demand), 真実 (shinjitsu, truth). They do not bow, and if you need to get a verb, the official Japanese verb "suru" is added to the end: 想像する - to imagine, 要求する - to demand.
3. Onomatopoeia and similar words. They are written in kana, less often kanji, usually two repeated syllables: にこにこ, ちょくちょく, こそこそ. In fact, this is something like the Russian "shorkh-shorkh" or "vzhik-vzhik", only there are ten times more of them and they exist for things for which there are no sounds, such as silence, irritation or dizziness. If you are not afraid of English, I recommend it.
4. Borrowings. They are written in katakana and sound similar to the foreign words from which they originate: ドール (dooru, doll, doll), ドライバー (doraibaa, driver, driver/screwdriver). Often they have some unexpected, not quite ordinary meaning. Long words are often abbreviated: パソコン (pasokon, PERsonal COMputer), バイト (baito, side job, from German arubaito - work).

Speech styles

Men and women speak Japanese differently. Men's speech is coarser, they often swallow syllables (see below), use "da" and "da yo" instead of "desu", and refer to themselves as "ore" or "boku". Girls speak softer, call themselves "watashi" or "atashi", and the phrase is built in the form of a semi-question, ending with "ne", "kashira" or "des wa".

When communicating between senior and junior, boss and subordinate, polite speech is used - keigo. In addition to these, there are many other styles and embellishments of speech. They are used depending on the character, situation and mood. A fashionista girl, a modest girl, a boy, an old man, a young guy, a young girl - everyone will speak differently.

Some of the elements of speech diversity are:

• the form of the main verb and style words change ("desu", "da", "da yo", "da zo", "da na", "desu ne", "de aru", "de gozaru")
• the form of the phrase changes slightly (in female speech, for example, a semi-interrogative tone is adopted)
• syllables are swallowed (in male speech: "surya" instead of "sureba", "sinakya" instead of "sinakereb")

In addition to standard Japanese, there are a number of dialects that differ in pronunciation and form of function words.

Other information

• Kokuji are hieroglyphs invented in Japan in the likeness of Chinese. They are usually devoid of them.
• Ateji - hieroglyphs chosen to convey the sound of foreign words. Usually not used, but kana is used.

Additionally

Notes

Recommend some tutorials for a beginner, so that it would be easier to start)

Any you like. Go to a major bookstore or Japanese literature store, look through it and see. I like Lavrentiev's grammar guide, for example (a green one, not a red tutorial). I once read “Japanese in one month”, which is normal for a beginner. Many people love Nechaev (this is a tutorial, I didn’t really like it, but I don’t like them at all).

Has now appeared
www (dot) dicter (dot) ru

It's just a wrapper for Google Translate, it seems. There are dozens of them.

Yes, absolutely. (sarcasm)

I can't link, it's illegal. But if, let's say you own a paper copy, the electronic one can be found in torrents and Perfect Dark.

Thanks for the resources! Helped a lot.

If you speak English well, then perhaps Tae Kim's Guide The best way learn grammar http://www.guidetojapanese.org/learn/ and Remembering The Kanji (http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/Remembering-Kanji-1-James-Heisig/9780824835927) is a great helper in memorizing kanji. Tae Kim is good because it does not force you to learn the same keigo at once (which many tutorials sin on), and after careful reading, it allows you to quite comfortably read various visual novels using the AGTH + Notepad + Rikaichan bundle.

A very motivating article, in general, I actually started learning Japanese from it, but after eight months of studying Japanese, it became clear to me that I was at best up to N5, although, as practice shows, I did not study according to JLPT, because to my I was surprised to find that I know a little of all the levels. (For example, I found familiar characters not only in N5, but also in N1). So that's actually the question: can you tell me how you motivated yourself for such an intensive study of the language? How much time did you spend daily in Japanese?

I wanted to read the early novel 🙂 I spent it: on the way to work and home, an hour and a half or two in total. There is nothing to do in the subway anyway, but you sit like that, repeating kanji. And why do you think that you can only reach N5? N5-N4 are quite simple, hieroglyphs can be printed out and learned in a few weeks.

So I know all the hieroglyphs from N5 and most of N4, and in fact I already correspond quite freely with the Japanese on the network (though on simple topics), I start having problems when I start talking with the Japanese, and here it turns out what to learn it was necessary not only to translate the hieroglyph, but also all the readings. In correspondence, this is much easier, because the microsoft IME does not require absolute knowledge of the pronunciation of the word. By the way, I want to recommend you sites for learning the language: busuu.com and livemocha.com (I got most of my knowledge through these sites, because there you can ask questions specifically to the Japanese, and chat is also a very useful thing in conjunction with google transalte, I already called back all the Japanese there (it turned out to be more than 100, but I think this is not the limit))

Wow, so maybe you are being unfair to yourself in vain? JLPT does not test communication skills, it only needs to read. I passed JLPT N2, but I still can't talk freely. So maybe your JLPT is higher than you think.
And by the way, 100 acquaintances - you are a very sociable person 🙂 I just don’t have so many acquaintances!

Excuse me, what's the point of your level 2 if you don't own it? Why a certificate then?
Language proficiency means, first of all, the ability to speak it.

I'm afraid this question should not be asked to me, but to the authors of the exam. Apparently, that's how he intended it. Why do I get a certificate? This is stated in the article: out of interest, in order to assess your level, compare it with the level of others. After all, everyone takes the exam according to the same rules.

Oh, thanks for the reply, just like at the beginning of this year, motivation, motivation, motivation! (Probably only a techie understands a techie (especially IT), because when I showed your article to one girl from linguistics, she absolutely did not appreciate your work, but under his influence I never even thought about courses (Well, only sometimes, in moments of despair ) and when I thought about girls (because there are only girls in Japanese courses), by the way, you are from the Mekhmat, but have you ever been to the “Japanese Center”? once a month you can meet and talk with real Japanese live there, I even went there once, but due to my weak conversational Japanese, it somehow didn’t go very well.Here is their website: jcenter.msu.ru they don’t have these daisies, probably because the summer has just ended).

Yes, and about friends: out of 100, I found only 4-5 Japanese friends there, with the rest it was the same, only once I had a chat. (The most sociable are Japanese grandmothers).

I haven’t been, I haven’t gathered somehow during my studies) Lazy, unsociable, and so on. thanks for useful information. I see you've tried a lot yourself. If you have interesting observations, please report 🙂

I fully support Misha333, that the article is very motivating, especially considering that I am also a techie, I graduated from Meh-Mat. This is the very first article I read when I decided to learn Japanese, and I have read it many times. Just like the Author, I really wanted to read the ranobe, to find out how this or that story ended. All thanks to the Japanese animators, who will remove, God forbid, 50% of the full film adaptation. Already planned for years what to read. And somehow, even imperceptibly, he wanted to become a translator.
And I think that I was lucky with the teacher, I found a teacher in my little Tula, who lived in Japan for 10 years and, in fact, is a native speaker, I think this will be a big plus for all efforts. And even this Sunday (9月23日) a real Japanese is coming. I hope to see him, although it will probably be of little use)))
ありがとうございます,himselfさん.

Thanks, I'm glad it was useful to someone.

The article is simply invaluable, how many times I have already come across it, and each time I discover something new for myself =) There are just a lot of things :-))) In addition, I already have some experience in learning the language, and I know what is said here from yourself. Although this is about light novels, I realized for myself that the main thing is to read. I didn’t read light novels, but manga, it seems to be easier, and knowing the plot of your favorite manga, it’s not scary if you don’t understand something, but a lot of moments in the spirit of “oh! that's how it's said in Japanese! that's how it's spelled!" It is remembered well.
Pretty inconsistent review, it just amazed me today that I’m not coming back here for the first time :-))) Thanks to the knowledgeable person for sharing :-))) Perhaps I’ll take the advice and try Anki and learn words a lot a day, and not like that, like me, in a sparing mode - because when you want, then I teach =))) Now I have to learn level 3 kanji in a short time, so gambarimas :-))))

Thank you. Happy studying 🙂

Something I can not find lists of words and kanji for JLPT N4-5. Do not tell me where to get them? And yet, maybe you know where you can buy cards for this level in Moscow?

Thanks for the article, very motivating. However, there are questions, is it really worth learning without any textbooks, or did you not indicate any names for other reasons? It's just that when I try to learn without textbooks, just from fairy tales and lists of kanji and words, I feel like I'm missing something. Can you recommend any primer for beginners? It is desirable that it be from scratch, with grammar, because. It was in it that I did not understand well, for lack of a textbook.

It seems to me that it is worth teaching without tutorials, i.e. textbooks that lead by the hand from lesson to lesson. Other tutorials and reference books may be helpful. But I don't know many of them. I named a few in the article and in the comments. I learned the simplest grammar in “Japanese in one month” (it is really very simple), the more complex one – just by reading books, googling strange phrases on the Internet, referring to reference books like Lavrentiev (on grammar).

Oh, and I would also like to ask for some reference to a good database of Japanese fairy tales, of varying complexity. From learning hiragana to learning kanji. Otherwise, no matter how much I searched, I did not find any suitable and rather big database of Japanese fairy tales.

And another question, do you think it is possible to raise conversational Japanese without language schools?

You can, if you find someone to talk to (Japanese friends, or you live in Japan).

Question. Why is it better to learn katakana after hiragana? In my opinion, it is more logical at the same time. I learned, for example, the symbol あ - and after it ア. And so on with each character.

You can learn how you like. But katakana is more difficult to learn, there is almost nothing to train it on. Therefore, even if you learn cards with letters equally, when reading hiragana, you will still remember better. Unless you find some kind of text generator in katakana and deliberately force yourself to read a lot of them in order to get comfortable with it (optional, but a good investment of effort).

Well, there is, for example, RealKana, where random katakana or hiragana characters are thrown, and you need to determine which character it is. Probably good for practice.

No, it's cramming. Same as Anki or printed cards. Cramming is needed, but practice is when you read the text.

Hm. Many people start learning Japanese because of anime, and there are a lot of katakana in the credits.

In subs you mean? In general, Japanese subs are a good thing, but you need to be able to find them. But katakana there are not so much more, in my opinion. As much as in the early days.

To practice katakana, try to find an old edition of Golovnin's textbook on the Internet. Half of the first volume is almost entirely in katakana. There is phonetic text and katakana words for each lesson. So you can practically fix the entire alphabet, so that later there are no problems. When I started, that's how I learned it, even before hiragana.

According to Golovnin, she studied Japanese at the university. True, there were a lot of katakana. A good textbook I think for practicing the syllabary.

Hello, himselfさん！How strange that over the years no one has asked, perhaps the most interesting (for me) question! You wrote more than once that you watched anime, do you continue to watch it to this day? I started learning Japanese 15 days ago, I already know Hiragana, Katakana, and the simplest sentences like 「これは何ですか？」, I know no more than ten kanji. My goal, in general, is to understand Japanese speech (watch anime without subtitles) and read books in the original. I am concerned about the question, please tell me, do you hear, in anime, for example, do you understand speech? According to her it is not necessary to disassemble? If yes, please tell me, if you remember, after what time did it start to work out for you? What is the minimum number of words approximately needed to understand speech in the same anime? So far, this is my incentive, I am extremely interested in how long and how many kanji I, albeit with difficulty, but will begin to understand speech.
Thank you very much for your attention!

In order to understand speech by ear, it is not necessary to learn kanji at all (although this will help to consolidate the skill). The main thing is words. I am sure that, if you wish, you will achieve noticeable success in six months. But keep in mind that the speech is different: in serious fiction and historical anime, the language is often complex, and in anime about everyday life and simple comedies, it is often much simpler.
I didn't learn Japanese for a long time, but I just watched anime. And I began to understand Japanese speech in simple anime long before my studies. Even without specifically learning it, just remembering which words had which subtitles. If you undertake to teach seriously, then things should go faster. Good luck in your studies!

Good afternoon, Vladimir! Thank you for the excellent article, I read and re-read it with great pleasure and it seems to me that I will return to it more than once. Involuntarily I envy your ability to learn the language: in such a short time and so far to advance. I myself have been learning Japanese for a year and a half, and things, as they say, are still there. In terms of: it’s hard to read, you naturally have to wade through the text, periodically interrupted by soothing hand-wringing and running around the room. It’s easier with a conversation (at the everyday level I cope), with listening perception - worse, but it also works.
From my experience, what may be useful for those coming after: I read texts from books aimed at developing reading among foreigners. That is, Japanese Graded Readers, Nihon Bunka wo Yomu and others - there are many different ones. The essence is the same: original or adapted texts with audio recording. Reading, hearing, shadowing in one bottle.
I also write small texts, dialogues for practicing vocabulary or grammar. By hand - in vertical writing - and on a computer - to throw into the network of language learners like italki. They do not always check there, but sometimes they make useful comments. I write kanji a lot and for a long time - it calms me down, and I'm also a graphomaniac.
From the useful resources not mentioned above: manythings.org/japanese, I use the kanji section. What I like: the field of kanji can be cut in any way. If you want - learn in JLPT, if you want - in Japanese school curriculum. You can hit the language of news and newspapers, there are quizzes on the most commonly used words in which the studied kanji is used. Minus: the site is generally not very fast, and during the activity of America, it almost does not respond.
Regarding different teaching methods: I probably tried everything except Russian textbooks. There was Rosetta, there were courses (and there are), there was an exchange visit to Japan, there were Skype lessons with a Japanese teacher, textbooks, books, self-study. What suited me and left: Skype, books, self-student, courses from a Japanese philologist. Such is the story. I hope it will be useful to someone too.
Thanks again! ^_^

How did you motivate yourself to learn the language?
Now I have in my luggage the first volume みんなのにほんご (by the way, what level does the first book correspond to?), it seems that I want to learn and study, but somehow the textbooks are already uncomfortable, I want variety. Now only in Anki I repeat the passed words.
And is it possible to correlate your knowledge regarding JLPT, mb there are sites?
By the way, when applying for a job, knowledge of the Japanese language influenced me a little, pushed me to the fore in comparison with other applicants, although the work is not related to Japanese in any way))))))).

Maybe try reading? It's difficult and interesting. You can try your hand at JLPT on their official website (there are examples), or you can find literature for preparation, assignments from previous years (usually it's all in Japanese).
I didn’t specifically motivate in any way, when I began to do it right (that is, a lot), it was interesting simply because everything worked out.

By the way:
> You can and should start reading simple light novels with 300-400 kanji.
Are simple light novels, in principle, almost everything? If not, can you recommend any simple_light novel based on your experience? Or maybe you just know of one.

There are more difficult light novels, usually sci-fi or historical. I did not include a list in the article, because I can not make a good one - there is much more to read than I read. But, for example, the first volumes of Haruhi are quite simple.

It seems to me that it is more important for a beginner that he has already read or looked at this book in translation. I would choose five or six light novel anime that I liked and seem simple, and then I would read a couple of pages and see which one is easier.

Can you tell me if I understood correctly. Do I need to quickly go through grammar, remembering something along the way, then take light novels and translate to strengthen grammar, and then start learning kanji?

But how will you translate light novels without knowing kanji? The article is in a different order.

Well, for example, you can take a manga that has a furigana. I was rather worried about the question of how well you need to go through the grammar at the beginning, quickly and not really remembering or trying to learn something

Then yes, it is better to fix it in practice right away. Remember, of course, you still try.

Great article, thanks. Last summer, I took advice from her as my main direction and was satisfied like an elephant - reading from 1200 kanji is already doing well.

However, there is a question about the set of kanji used. You have read a lot and you have a lot of experience? I myself use VN-ki for practice (extracting text on the fly with a furigana signature by hookers speeds things up a lot), and at almost every step I stumble upon “uncertified” kanji there. Of course, there are also a lot of 常用 and JLPT lists, but besides them, 人名用 every now and then come out not in names, but by meaning, or kanji that are not in any lists at all, or a word usually written in kana is suddenly written in kanji (よろしい　＝ 宜しい　しゃべる　＝　喋る). Is this a normal situation for an artist, or did I just come across VNs exclusively from highly intellectual snob authors? To memorize, I still memorize them, they won’t be superfluous, it’s just interesting.

Normal, especially your examples - shaberu is like that at every turn. 常用 were formed a long time ago and not only in popularity, but since then the fashion has also changed. In terms of usage, 喋 is only on the 1389th line.

常用　the last time in 2010, it seems, was reviewed, catching up with the list to 2 with a piece of thousands? At least that's what the wiki says.
Well, okay, an artist is an artist. Thanks for the answer 🙂

Another stupid question, can you advise where to download the original light novel of the same Haruhi?

Must write in Japanese: 涼宮ハルヒ

Help with listening ((. Too fast speech. How to develop listening skills?

For example, watch a lot of anime with subtitles, comparing what they say with the translation. Depending on the level of knowledge, you can look for simple audiobooks (but this is more difficult).

How to keep up with everything? I only manage to understand 1-3 words in a sentence. And still OK need to understand what sense proposals. Meanwhile, in the dialogue, the 2-3rd sentence is already being spoken. Will listening skills improve greatly if you read even more? Or any other method to improve hearing?

Reading does not help much: it is a separate skill. The more words you know, and the easier you remember them, the easier it will be to recognize them by ear. But if you are already reading, but you don’t perceive speech by ear, then most likely it’s not a lack of words, but the specifics of listening.

You just need to gain experience. Start with anime easier. If you understand at least some of the phrases, it's already good. When the phrase is interesting, you can stop, rewind, listen again. By the way, this goes without saying for novice translators, they are forced to listen to each phrase several times in order to write down and translate it correctly. But, of course, it's tiring, and it's better to pick up an anime where you don't have to do it all the time.

For me, in case I do not understand something due to fast speech, it helps to reduce the speed of audio / video playback.

Hello, thank you very much for this article and for your work, I just started to comprehend Japanese and almost learned kana, well, 10 kanji, not a lot of course :). Can you advise a beginner which books to download or buy, study guides and the authors will be very grateful.

Look in the store for whichever you like. Any simple grammar book will do for a start, you can find lessons on the Internet.

Do I need to learn how to read kanji? Is this checked in JLPT? So far, I know 1100 words in Anki + 50 hieroglyphs again in Anki (I added it because I wanted to learn how to write, I don’t see the point in memorizing readings, but I memorized it anyway), I read the basic grammar section of Tae Kim, I repeat it periodically so that it eats up in the brain =) I have never read either manga or light novels, I do it because it is interesting, but I don’t know what to do next - either continue to replenish my vocabulary (I downloaded the program on the emikata phone, words from different JLPT levels are given in lists there), or continue to learn kanji (kanji study application) I add a card with a character + words with it (but this is tedious, it takes up to 20 minutes for such an operation, as a result, my maximum is adding 10 kanji per day, http://fastpic.ru/view/78/2016 /0709/3eda34fb675c6e963cd5206bba7dad05.png.html this is what you get + words in the corresponding deck), or grammar from textbooks. I also try to watch ovrimonogatari in the original - sometimes I pluck out familiar words, it's a pity there are no subtitles for it in Japanese. I'm in my eighth month. Please tell me what to do next and how to work most efficiently, and I apologize in advance for stupid questions, because above you have already written a whole article just about how to work most efficiently. I would also be grateful if you recommend an interesting and light light novel (I myself only read kizumonogatari in translation, but this is probably too complicated) Thank you.

I taught both kanji and words at the same time. The more you do at the same time, the better it sticks. It's good when words are a little ahead of kanji, and anime and TV shows are a little ahead of words, so that first you memorize the word, then learn it consciously, and then recognize kanji and understand how it works. If you are too lazy to create cards, you can download ready-made ones and remake them to your taste.
I have not read Kizumonogatari, but in general the series is complex. Even with N2, it was not easy for me to wade through it. I remember volumes 1 and 4 of Haruhi seemed easy, and then most of Ore no Imouto.
If you had a short acquaintance with Japanese before, then eight months is not so much. Just take it slow and you'll be fine.)

I tried to search for 俺の妹 in Google, in Yandex (I gave a link to a rutracker with another ranobe on the scanned pages, there are no furigans, I don’t know how to read, probably not yet), and on aozora. Now I'm looking in Perfect Dark. In the search I enter 俺の妹　ラノベ it gives one result lol. And, yes, is it normal that the speed is 150 kb / s?
By the way, I’m familiar with Japanese from anime - somewhere around 100 titles - but I didn’t really listen and didn’t always watch with subtitles, so the words didn’t really stick in my head. And I also downloaded Fate with Japanese subtitles and furigana, this is nishtyak in general, although I still don’t understand anything.

In みんなの日本語 there is an excellent workbook on hieroglyphs, try to do a lesson a day (10-15 pieces per lesson). Plus small tasks at the end of the lesson for practice. These hieroglyphs cover N4-N5.
The main thing is to write every day. I started from the very first, now I can reproduce more than half of the book)).

Tell me, is it possible to determine for sure which conjugation the verb belongs to from the ます-form? MB have any tricks or simple rules? Well, for example, as in Russian: “if the verb answers the question
"what to do?" or “what to do?” - soft sign must be set."

Many verbs have been memorized in the ます form, and I often get confused about the conjugations.
For example１） かきますー＞かく
ょみますー＞ょむ
everything is in the first conjugation, which is understandable, since the ます form ends in (い)
２）　ねますー＞ねる　
みますー＞みる　　 (does not end with (い), and even 1 character)
why for example おきます　－　おきる
かります　－＞かりる　（ends in (い) but 2nd conjugation）
3) With the third form, everything is clear.

If you know the spelling -masu form in hieroglyphs, then you can look in the dictionary what kind of verb it was.
If the verb ends in -emasu, then this is definitely the 2nd conjugation, because for verbs 1, before -masu should be I.

In other cases, it is impossible to determine the conjugation. Moreover, several verbs of different conjugations can have the same -masu form, including those you yourself have shown.

okiru (2nd conjugation) - oki- (2nd form) - okimasu
oku (1st conjugation) - oki- (2nd form) - okimasu

kariru (2nd conjugation) - kari- (2nd form) - karimasu
BUT, TA-DAM!
KARU! (1st conjugation) - kari- (2nd form) - karimasu
狩る - karu - to hunt

In this case, the only way to determine what kind of verb it was is the context.
For example, you met an unfriendly hunter with a gun in the forest.
You: Doo suru tsumori ka? (colloquially, “what are you going to do?”)
Him: Kemono in karimasu. (polite, “hunting monsters”, not “borrowing a monster”)

However, if you had a monster, and it was tame, perhaps he wants to borrow it from you for hunting.

Verbs should be memorized in the 3rd form (in -u, i.e. oku, okira, youmu, etc.), for two reasons:
First, in the dictionary, verbs are always given in the 3rd form. I don’t know why in some textbooks they give the -masu form, apparently so that you can immediately make polite sentences, and you don’t have to explain that the verb must first be put in the 2nd form, and then add -masu. But then everything will have to be retrained! Also, the -masu form is used only in polite speech and only on the last verb in a sentence.

Secondly, this way you can immediately determine the conjugation of the verb, although there are exceptions:
http://www.nihongo.aikidoka.ru/505-verb.html
I draw your attention to the fact that there are verbs that are written the same way in kana, but they use different conjugations and different hieroglyphs:
変える - kaeru - change (something) - 2 conjugation
帰る - kaeru - to return (home) - 1 conjugation

I will also take the liberty of giving advice about listening - you asked above.

Pure listening is well trained by watching anime not with credits, but WITHOUT credits. If the credits are left on, the brain will jump to them. It's a simple anime to watch. The best is purely school, the main thing is that without any techno-magic, because. it is often associated with terminology unique to the series.

Firstly, the speech of the characters is quite simple (all of them are students high school) and covers most everyday topics. If it is not clear from the text what is happening, in most cases this can be guessed from the image.
Secondly, there is a lot of it, more than 10 seasons of 50 episodes each - enough for the eyes to fill the skill. Most seasons can be viewed separately from others, because. there are different characters. I watched 4 seasons and my favorite was Futari wa Pretty Cure Splash Star.

There is a second method that is closely related to listening - visual novels in Japanese. But this will work well if the reading skill is pumped up, but there is no listening skill - or vice versa. Because the characters' lines are voiced - and you immediately see the text of the lines in hieroglyphs. And you can press a funny button with a speaker in the log until you get bored - and re-listen to the text - and check with the inscription.

Help me please. Once again I take up the study, and try to do everything correctly and without gaps. Now I am filling one of them. How, according to Polivanov, is the combination of a long etated dakuten of the sa- group written? っじゃ，っじゅ，っじょ。If it’s clear with Hepburn and Nihon-shiki romaji, it’s not possible with kiriji (jjya, zzya, zdzya (dzya)? How to read is also understandable, but how to spell it correctly?

To be honest, I don't know. According to Wikipedia, the first consonant is doubled, that is: -dja. You can try with examples, but I don’t remember such words. Edict only knows タレッジョ… taredjo. Seems to be ok?

Hello. Once again, handing over the JLPT, I was convinced that something was wrong. Well, it’s not like big sentences (texts) that are complex and so on are not given to me, I can’t understand from which side they need to be translated and how to correctly understand the meaning, even if most of the words are familiar. A similar problem occurs with listening. Long lines are almost impossible to understand. In addition, because of the speed of speaking, I can’t even immediately repeat what was said, let alone translate ... this is some kind of dead end

Why did you only notice this at JLPT? Before the exam, you complex sentences Did you encounter them regularly, or did they not cause problems for you? What level do you take, how do you prepare?

The problem really had to be before the exam. Handed over N3. This time I prepared for 読解　 according to Shin Kanzen Master. It was difficult, but somehow I managed to understand the meaning and respond. At the exam, probably from the feeling that there is almost no time, I didn’t even have time to read the largest texts properly, not to mention the meaning.

For the past year, I've been preparing almost on my own. Vocabulary through AnkiDroid, learning words by itself are memorized and 漢字, listening to listening to dialogues for 2-3 weeks each (from one tutorial), but comparing with what was on the exam, I understand that it was very simple, one 留守番電話　 is worth something ...

Do you read a lot? How do you parse incomprehensible sentences?

Practical literature has not yet been read. All within textbooks. Simple sentences It turns out to understand almost immediately, if there are unfamiliar words, I look in dictionaries. With complex matters, the situation is worse; in practice, I cannot accurately formulate in Russian what is written in the proposal.

So try reading soon. If you're betting on N3, it's long overdue. It is not necessary to formulate each in Russian, it is enough to roughly understand. But it is useful to work on sentences, re-read, think about it, guess the meaning, sometimes google incomprehensible turns.

Thank you! Regarding listening, what can you advise?

When you know more words and grammar, it is also easier to perceive speech by ear. Well, as usual, the more you do something, the better it gets. You can watch anime and series without subtitles, for example.

Passed N2 with a good score for 1 year and 2 months of study from scratch. My journey in learning Japanese began literally with this article. The advice in it helped a lot, especially I liked (and still like) the sections “How to learn Japanese” and “Work plan”, which then encouraged and set a tough but worthy bar. Thank you very much and good luck in all your endeavors!

Thank you! I'm happy for you, I'm sure that everything will work out for you in the future 🙂

Good afternoon. I have a question that I think a lot of people have asked.
I am a student of the 2nd year, studying to be a programmer, in principle, studying is easy, but a huge number of subjects not really related to it and a terrible schedule, thanks to which I am exhausted and exhausted almost every day at the university from morning to evening. I have a little difficulty with English, although the guys with whom I sometimes have to communicate in English in online games like ARMA say that they completely understand my speech, but I often don’t understand them. Due to the fact that I basically need English both in life and in my profession, I have to learn it, and I also incredibly want to learn Japanese. Just the other day, I swallowed the motivation in this and a couple of other articles and began a leisurely study of hiragana.
Is it possible for a person who has a little difficulty with languages ​​​​in parallel with English, to study, with varying degrees of success, such Difficult language how Japanese and what difficulties can I meet?

I would seriously not study two languages ​​at the same time, but on the other hand, do you study English seriously now? Or just unhappy with the level? One way or another, slowly learning hiragana is not harmful and will come in handy later.

Why do you want to learn Japanese?

Listen, did you study Japanese on your own or at school/with practice? Now I’m trying to learn Japanese myself, well, my soul lies, however, everyone keeps saying that it’s simply unrealistic to do it alone, somehow the mood worsens and the desire to quit the whole thing grows.

So I studied how I write in the article. Is it said by people who have learned Japanese, or who only teach themselves? You can just not start such conversations with them. Teach yourself and teach.

I took a 4-month break, before that I finished the n4 level. until mid-June we will pore over N3. Getting ready for the MEXT program.
Thanks to the site and comments, they often motivate and warm up interest in the language)).

Please!

Where can you take the test? And what does working with hiragana mean, as I understand it, it’s like an alphabet, but what exactly needs to be done, cramming?

Good afternoon. The Wikipedia article says where the exam takes place. There are examples of questions at website, but few. Options for past years are published in books, you can probably google it.

Yeah, hiragana needs to be crammed - it's the alphabet, you just need to learn how to read it.