The language learning thread

I would recommend the later Pokemon games that have Kanji/Furigana. I tried playing the GB(A) titles and the Kana only was suuper hard for me parse

I think the best early reading practice comes from sending messages with people on the internet, since they will subconsciously use simpler language for you. Though maybe that can be too stressful, since this requires you to send your own messages, which at such an early level will by necessity be quite silly and embarrassing – and of course you have to manage to find a person willing to message with you in Japanese.

When I started learning Chinese I messaged a lot with a guy in his 50s from some small town for whom reading a single sentence of English a day was enough to make him feel accomplished. I think this is probably the ideal sort of language partner for just starting out.

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I ended up playing TTYD a bit more but eventually got a bit tired of having to struggle my way through so much dialogue.

Now I’m playing Mario Wonder which is a way smoother experience to play in Japanese. I can always learn new Kanji through the stage names and every third stage or so there’s like 3 dialogue boxes. Sometimes I don’t even have to look up a single word in a dialogue box and it’s such a good feeling!!

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Would anyone here be interested in starting a Japanese study group chat (maybe on Telegram or Discord)?

I joined some public discords for learning Japanese but they’re all very big and kinda impersonal… it would be cool to have something more tight-knit where people can post like a daily Kanji they learned and their funny mnemonics for it or sentences and passages that they’re struggling to understand.

One big sub-goal of mine for learning Japanese is being able to play Boku no Natsuyasumi, would be fun to also play this together as a sort of book club as part of the study group.

Is anyone down? Paging @freakscene who seems to be at a similar level of Japanese as I am.

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I like the idea but I know I’m in general a flaky person when it comes to a lot of my personal goals haha I’d give it a go for sure, might actually get me back to learning Japanese which I’ve put on the back burner for a few months now, but no promises or anything

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I’m interested! Don’t know how often I would post and definitely feel like I’m at a lower proficiency level than others (just started learning this year), but it would be nice to have a community!

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I would join

Heck yeah : )

I made a discord feel free to join here: japanese study group

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Bumping this for visibility.

Going back in on learning Swedish. I’m fluent enough, but I could always be more articulate. I catch myself using it a lot. I took a break to continue German studies.

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how fun! i’m swedish and would be happy to answer questions and/or just chat, if that’s something you’re interested in. DMs are open etc (i think? can you DM on here?). i suppose it’s not a language one gets exposed to a lot outside of scandinavia.

or the “hygge” in your screen name means you’re danish in which case we’re mortal enemies and i refuse to be helpful in any way. (jk)

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I miss Spanish class! I’ve been studying conjugations this summer, which I’m sure will help once I’m back in class, but I miss listening and conversing with my classmates and especially my Mexican teacher. I sometimes go to a Colombian lunch place downtown and order/chat a little in Spanish, and I say hi to my neighbors, but it’s different than being in class. To learn I have to ask a lot of questions and really wrap my head around the language, and I feel it’s rude to relative strangers to take up their time like that. I think I will look for some Spanish-language books in the library that won’t be so beyond my capability as to be useless.

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I’m also reluctant to use friends and acquaintances for Spanish practice although people always offer. Just don’t want to hassle people for free. I’m planning on making a run at more advanced level courses this winter, but what I’ve found is that once you get past basic and intermediate level then things get more expensive bc the community college can’t hack it no more :slightly_frowning_face:

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italki.com is good especially for just conversation practice.

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It’s my native language but I don’t use it as much as I would like to — I write and speak english 90% of the time these days. The little writing I do in Spanish is in my journal + whenever I’m reading a book in Spanish. I’ve taught my partner Spanish and have enjoyed it quite a bit, it’s fun to have to think about my language from an outside perspective if that makes sense. As for the forum, I’m happy to have a convo over on the spanish thread anytime, it would be mutually beneficial in my case.

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so… a year later, and I’m still at it!!!

I definitely have a long way to go and didn’t make my internal goal of reading a (small/easy) book entirely in Japanese, but I’ve kept up with daily practice, more or less. I stuck exclusively with WaniKani for most of the year until I felt like I had a comfortable enough base where I wasn’t immediately overwhelmed by a simple sentence. I’ve been ping-ponging back between tae kim and Cure Dolly to start understanding grammer. It’s a small thrill when I randomly see a sentence on the internet or kanji in a game and immediately understand what it’s saying. hard work pays off, even if it is sloooooooooow.

just wanted to make a small update for anyone that may be in the same place I was a year ago :slight_smile:

You can do it! It’s worth it just to try.

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Replying in this thread because it gets away from the original question, which I am not qualified to answer.

来りやなおるよ

Why is this kitariya naoru yo instead of kiriya naoru yo? Presumably a reading I haven’t learned yet

Using my limited Japanese-language search skills I found a source for these lyrics in this page, which notably has the line as

自由の世界がコリャ来りやなおるよ

rather than

自由の世界が来りやなおるよ

Why would that be?

funny to reply to this here, the only thing I can add is the KORYA in this context doesn’t mean the usual contractive “kore wa”, it’s actually a so-called hayashi-kotoba, along with the DOKOISHO and CHOINA CHOINA. I’d never heard of them before this song, they’re ‘meaningless’ words mean to modulate the cadence of the music (in this case, bathhouse workers doing yumomi, as seen below)

(apologies if I misunderstood the context of the question)

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That answers it perfectly, thanks!