Learning to read Kanji/ Japanese
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Well, as much as I see the idiocy in devoting time to this, actually learning another language for the sheer sake of enjoy direct import goods and foreign language websites, I still have to persist and ask:
Is there a good (Preferably free and user friendly) translation resource out there in the big ol' wide interweb or Japanese Kanji instructional to help one translate, read and understand their own manga?
I've been looking at Tite Kubo's work recently and how he uses kanji as a graphical design aesthetic in the action scenes of Bleach is...well, nothing short of impressive. While it may not be original - to do so- it still looks cool, but I couldn't for the life of me tell what it means. At a guess, it's probably the equivalent of the west's "BOOOOOM" or something or other...
Is there a good (Preferably free and user friendly) translation resource out there in the big ol' wide interweb or Japanese Kanji instructional to help one translate, read and understand their own manga?
I've been looking at Tite Kubo's work recently and how he uses kanji as a graphical design aesthetic in the action scenes of Bleach is...well, nothing short of impressive. While it may not be original - to do so- it still looks cool, but I couldn't for the life of me tell what it means. At a guess, it's probably the equivalent of the west's "BOOOOOM" or something or other...
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I'm in the same position, I want to learn Japanese for fun. I am thinking of sitting in on Japanese class at a nearby college (not getting any credit) just to learn.
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Best way is to take a class. Merely reading it off the web may be effective at some degree, but practicing it orally with a real Japanese person will do you a world of good.
I was actually going to take Japanese last year, but I decided to pursue something different. When I get out next year, I'll take at some college, probably.
I was actually going to take Japanese last year, but I decided to pursue something different. When I get out next year, I'll take at some college, probably.
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Ive taken like 4 years of japanese classes, and i can speak it well enough to get by in japan easily.. writing / reading is a bit more difficult (ie need like 500+ kanji knwoledge to read newspaper... my teacher still needs a dictionary to read hers)
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Short of formal lessons, if you want to learn Japanese to do fan translations, one of your best tools are Tuttle's New Nelson and "A Guide to Reading and Writing Japanese." Those two books are the most useful kanji and kana reading aids I've ever used. They're big like a PS3, but if they're probably the most comprehensive kanji resource in English anywhere. The New Nelson in particular has a lot of very helpful organizing systems for quickly identifying a character and its usage.
Watch out though, "regular" Japanese and "anime" Japanese, both written and spoken are very, VERY different.
Watch out though, "regular" Japanese and "anime" Japanese, both written and spoken are very, VERY different.
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To read much, you'll need to know more than just Kanji, Hiragana and Katakana are both important as well. http://yosida.com/en/learning.html has pages that show all the characters nicely and even shows how to write them. the Kanji page shows their meaning as well as how to pronounce it. this page here: http://www.freejapaneselessons.com/ does a slightly better job of teaching things you'll want to know.
It isn't entirely impossible to teach your self Japanese... it just takes a LOT of work, more so than if you took a class XP. i took a class, but i have other things to spend the money on and can't afford more so i'll be teaching myself for a while until i'm no longer poor :P If you are really willing to put in a lot of work and stick to it, it really isn't all that hard to learn Japanese.
It isn't entirely impossible to teach your self Japanese... it just takes a LOT of work, more so than if you took a class XP. i took a class, but i have other things to spend the money on and can't afford more so i'll be teaching myself for a while until i'm no longer poor :P If you are really willing to put in a lot of work and stick to it, it really isn't all that hard to learn Japanese.
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(also japanese is actualyl easier to learn than english.. if dont know either lol)
I personally like the Genki books for learning japanese
I personally like the Genki books for learning japanese
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Yeah, English is the hardest language to learn... why u think most countries have a class to just learn english through there school years...
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To answer your question Mo, it's because english is the world's language of business. Kinda like how french is for politics... Or at least that's what the UN's opinion.
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Its because all the peace and treaty talks used to be in france, which was a neutral country
ENglsih is busicness because all the business terms are in english (like tehcnology)
ENglsih is busicness because all the business terms are in english (like tehcnology)
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How many strokes is in the Japanese language? I've had some interests in learning it due to the immense popularity of the anime community...
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Couple thousand kanji, plus a double alphabet of syllables
A couple thousand JUST for the most basic kanji, the amount you're expected to know after completing elementary education. For each kanji there are usually 2 ways of reading it, derived from Japanese and Chinese, called "On-yomi" and "Kun-yomi". Different readings can be combined in different ways to form different meanings.
Unabridged, there are over 7000 Kanji that can be used, though you'll need about 3 thousand or so to be able to read a Japanese newspaper without reference.
And then there's the kana alphabets, which have a few dozen symbols to represent phonetic sounds and particles.
If you want to learn to do fan translations of manga and the like expect to be encountering a lot of strange, esoteric kanji, and many foreign loanwords. As mentioned, the New Nelson is invaluable because of its comprehensiveness.
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having some real reference got ya guys a break
i studied and memorized all the standard kana by writing down all the kana based from a "write-your-name" section of a Japanese game (Rival School by Capcom) on a sheet of paper, study how would each character sound by comparing them to a known name written in kana, and then eventually finding out that there was a pattern, which saved me the trouble, since the kana were laid out according to sounds
i did it the hard way since i didn't have internet, any books and CD's at that time
the knowledge i have acquired then was extremely limited since i couldn't bother to memorize kanji and their meanings and pronunciations, and i didn't even know the stroke order of the kana... but the least i was able to do at that time was simply read and write kana
btw, from where i got the kana, the characters where either too pixelated because of low resolution or too stylized...
...it was like a great achievement for me :P
now i have a book, and internet... what i'm really lacking right now is motivation... i hardly have learned anything since then other than stroke order, the "Yama" kanji character, sentence construction, pronouns and a little vocabulary
as for some reference, you could try searching the net for a Japanese Word Processor, kinda like word, but allows you to write Japanese characters, including kanji
besides that, it should have a built in dictionary
heh, not i don't have one
well, good luck
i studied and memorized all the standard kana by writing down all the kana based from a "write-your-name" section of a Japanese game (Rival School by Capcom) on a sheet of paper, study how would each character sound by comparing them to a known name written in kana, and then eventually finding out that there was a pattern, which saved me the trouble, since the kana were laid out according to sounds
i did it the hard way since i didn't have internet, any books and CD's at that time
the knowledge i have acquired then was extremely limited since i couldn't bother to memorize kanji and their meanings and pronunciations, and i didn't even know the stroke order of the kana... but the least i was able to do at that time was simply read and write kana
btw, from where i got the kana, the characters where either too pixelated because of low resolution or too stylized...
...it was like a great achievement for me :P
now i have a book, and internet... what i'm really lacking right now is motivation... i hardly have learned anything since then other than stroke order, the "Yama" kanji character, sentence construction, pronouns and a little vocabulary
as for some reference, you could try searching the net for a Japanese Word Processor, kinda like word, but allows you to write Japanese characters, including kanji
besides that, it should have a built in dictionary
heh, not i don't have one
well, good luck