Japanese Culture

I’m learning, or trying to learn, Japanese. The book I have is good but it says "ryouri" is "food, cooking." Do they mean cooking as a noun or a verb?
I am confused because they also say that "Japanese food" is "Nihon ryouri." So if you wanted to ask the question above wouldn’t it be redundant because you would be saying "ryouri" twice?

"ryouri" is a noun; "ryouri suru" when used as a verb

most commonly used form is "nihon ryouri dekimasu ka?" or "nihon ryouri tsukuremasu ka?"

I’ve been studying Japanese for some time now, and I was wondering if there are some tips that would help me. Some study tips or some sites that help, for free though.
Do you have any? Or for any language really.

The best way to learn Japanese is by taking a class, enrolling in a course or investing in a good textbook. If you can’t take classes then the self-study method with the correct resources is a good way.

The key to learning Japanese effectively is to work on your grammar, listening, speaking, reading and writing. Its best to think of these as separate categories and focus on each specific category as these require different methods and techniques.

Start by learning the basics through grammar. These books really helped me.

• Shin Nihongo no Kiso I & II
http://japan-australia.blogspot.com/2011/06/shin-nihongo-no-kiso.html

• An Introduction to Modern Japanese by Osamu Mizutani & Nobuko Mizutani
http://japan-australia.blogspot.com/2011/04/introduction-to-modern-japanese.html

• Japanese Demystified by Eriko Sato a self-teaching guide
http://japan-australia.blogspot.com/2011/05/japanese-demystified.html

These books cover both polite Japanese, which is extremely important to learn in order to speak Japanese effectively and causal Japanese, which is great for everyday conversations.

I also recommend trying to learn a certain amount of vocab or kanji each day as this helps you build up your vocab and kanji ability. I tried to learn 5 kanji per day or about 20 a week and did the same with vocab.

Watching Japanese anime or any Japanese TV program is a good idea for improving your listening skills and also your vocabulary. Keep a notebook and jot down any new words you hear. Then look them up and find out the meaning.

Websites are not always the best way to learn Japanese. Most websites are run by people with no teaching credentials and are not even native speakers of Japanese. Some of them are just interested in making money and not in helping you in what you need to be successful in learning Japanese.

How to Learn Japanese
http://japan-australia.blogspot.com/2010/11/how-to-learn-japanese.html

Someone knows good books about the history of travel in Japan? I’m interesting from ancient times until the end of Tokugawa bakufu…. Some book of critical literature about Manyoshu can be good too!

Kamens, Edward. "Utamakura, Allusion, and Intertextuality in Traditional Japanese Poetry". Yale University Press, 1997

I live in a small town with very few items to choose from. We have a Walmart and an HEB grocery and both of the Asian aisles are frankly quite disgraceful.

I need a site that is reliable and fairly priced to order Japanese food from.

Anyone have a good recommendation?

http://www.marukaiestore.com

I’m from Japan and I have been to different websites to purchase Japanese food.
This one is the best!!!

Hey,
So I was in an Asian store buying food and I noticed that a lot of the food products have French writing on them (as well as Japanese)
Does anyone know why this is?
Thankyou!

It will depend on the country you were in, but in many SE Asian countries, Vietnam and Cambodia were French Colonies and French is one of their major languages.

The people in Japan live the longest, healthiest lives, with the lowest obesity rate. Therefore their diet must be good!!!
Japanese food is yummy but I have never prepared any myself. I want to start reverting my diet from more western to more like the Japanese, how would I start?
Like what groceries should I have right from the start, what are some simple but good meals I could start with, any meal ideas?
Do you think this is a good idea?

Japanese cuisine is renowned for its emphasis on fresh, seasonal ingredients with the key ingredients of most meals being rice, soup and a main dish. Seafood features heavily in Japanese cuisine. The following are some healthy Japanese food that you can easily add to your diet.

Healthy Japanese Food
http://japan-australia.blogspot.com/2011/02/healthy-japanese-food.html

The key to Japanese cooking is using the right ingredients. The following is a list of the essential Japanese pantry ingredients.
http://japan-australia.blogspot.com/2010/03/basic-japanese-cooking-pantry.html

I usually eat Japanese food during the weeks and of course I mean that I cook it myself. But this week I have had a stomach bug so my stomach is very weak. That is why I wonder what kind of Japanese food is very easy on the stomach and yet easy to cook. Plus I don’t want to go hungry since I will be doing regular exercise as usual. Any tips?
Any particular dishes you can recommend?

Normally in Japan, when we are sick or have a weak stomach, we eat Okayu, which is like a thick porridge or soup of rice. It is very easy to digest and eat when you don’t feel well.

What sre some good websites on Japan’s culture, writing, and language? I have been wanting to go to Japan (maybe even be a high school transfer student) but I am not that well educated on it. My mom is making me learn French for high school… (I am homschooled btw…) About how long do you think it would take me to learn Japanese if I spent about an hour on it daily?

erm.. this really varies from person to person, and also what kind of study methods you use. Hiring a tutor to teach you Japanese will definitely be faster than learning yourself.

The following below are all guesses based on my personal opinion of learning the language, formal study(class) and sometimes self-study for 2 years.
If you are self-learning from textbooks, I think you’ll be able to speak and understand basic(not complex) Japanese sentence in about a year or two. To reach fluency, it’ll probably take you another 3 years or so.
If you have a tutor, I think you’ll be able to reach quite a high level of fluency in about 2 years.

Well, I think for languages, you just have to be really consistent. Don’t think too much about the end result and just expose yourself to the language and learn it as much as possible. You will improve without yourself noticing and eventually you will get to your desired level of fluency.

EDIT: If you are looking for websites to learn from, the best I encountered is www.guidetojapanese.org. Japanesepod101.com is not bad too for listening practice as they have audio lessons

Hello,
I would really like to learn the Japanese language but I don’t know where to start. I understand that there are three alphabets/character sets in Japanese: Hiragana (main alphabet/character set), Katakana (mainly used for foreign words) and Kanji (Chinese characters). Am I right? If not please correct me. What is the best way to learn the Japanese language?

Sorry if i made any mistakes.

Thanks for reading my question!
Oh and I nearly forgot, is it hard to learn the Japanese language?

Yes, it is but it is the same for any other foreign language, I wouldn’t say it is more difficult compared to any other language.

I suggest that you start with a textbook if you don’t want to enroll in a class. As a complete beginner, it is very difficult to self-learn from just Japanese media and online sites. Textbooks provides a structure which you can pick up which is suitable for beginners who don’t know the method of learning the language yet.

I think you can easily borrow any elementary Japanese textbook from a nearby library. As for online sources, the best guide I found is www.guidetojapanese.org but if possible, at least get a textbook. It will make learning much easier in the beginning.

I want to watch bleach, but all I get is Japanese with English subtitles… I dont want to have to read the whole time, I just want to watch and listen, not watch and read. So can someone tell me if there is a way to change the language for the instant queue? Or should I just give up?

I don’t think you can. I find it odd that it’s not dubbed most of the anime I’ve watched on the instant play has been.
You might check out http://www.crunchyroll.com/search?q=bleach I don’t know if they are subbed or dubbed but the site is free (you can pay a subscription and get some perks-like no ads. I did notice that for the current episodes of Bleach to be free you will have to wait six days.) I have used the site and had no problems.