Eyes on Final Fantasy Forums > Reference > Study Hall > How long does it take to learn Japanese "by yourself"?

[Hsu]

You'd have to spend a lot of time and be really serious about it. I tried teaching myself through a books on tape thing and just got bored after a while. Now I'm in a class and even though I'm one of the better students in it, I know it's going to be a while before I'll actually be able to do anything worthwhile. If you do a little every day, though, you could possibly be a decent speaker in a year or so.

[MKusanagi]

I'm doing the same thing with Farsi. But I'm not going to lie to myself. I won't really get things down right until I'm actually immersed in a culture where people speak it. My best advice? Go to Japan. Advice to myself (Farsi)? Go into the army.

[theundeadhero]

Going to the Army won't seriously help you learn any language. After a year in Korea I could say hello and thank you. After a year in Germany I still couldn't get by if they didn't speak English.

[rubah]

I hear that immersion helps

[MKusanagi]

Lol I'm going into MI so I will have direct contact with the area. I am sure you've heard the stories about army intel. A friend of mine who recently returned from Iraq had one thing to say about MI officers:
" Them smurfers is crazy!"

[Chemical]

I have noticed that a lot of people say that it depends on your personal dedication and I agree that that this true.

From personal experience, though, I can say that I learned the [basics] of Japanese in little over than a year.

I imeddiately suggest that you begin by understanding the different types of japanese writing styles (kanji, romanji, katakana and hiragana). If there are more I am sorry I did not include them.

I do not know what to really say about Japanese writing outside from the fact that it is a colouorful and descriptive language like our own... only the devices used sem foreign from a "home land perspective."

you'll just have to explore nouns and couple then with descriptive concepets

[Peter_20]

I guess I'm rather hardcore if I've decided to learn the language fairly well in a couple of months, then?

I actually tend to have a very easy time learning languages; I also know some tricks that make everything even easier.

First I make sure to get a good grasp of sounds and grammar, and then I learn the most important words ("I", "you", "yes", "no", "and", "but" etc).
I also make sure to learn the words for objects that surround me in daily life, like houses, beds, trees, lamps and so on; I also learn the most basic verbs, like "walk", "eat", "sleep" etc; oh, and adjectives are good to learn too.
If you know this, then you can create a fair amount of own phrases yourself.
Once you start feeling comfortable with your own phrases, you need to start reading a book in that language; make sure it isn't too tricky, though.
Only read 15 minutes at a time, or else you'll just exhaust your brain.
If you run into a tricky word, which will happen very often in the beginning, look it up in a dictionary.
Then re-read the book again, and then start reading other books as well.

[Miriel]

Deciding to learn a language in a few months doesn't make you hardcore. Actually doing it, does.