Japanese Culture

What college degree is the Japanese Language Proficiency Test level n1 certificate is equivalent to today? I am thinking of getting that proficient at Japanese, but I am just starting out at Japanese.

It doesn’t have a degree equivalent. Passing the N1 is not like earning a degree in college in anyway, it just marks that you have reached a native-level of Japanese in reading and listening skills. Passing the N1 doesn’t really increase your chances of being hired by anyone, the JLPT is better for showing the test taker their current strengths and abilities, not showing employees.

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

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.

Seems like people are asking about Japanese language more than Chinese Language.
I could be wrong , but it seems like it.
It is because the Chinese language is harder than Japanese language?

I am just asking.

Thanks.
Wait a minute , I am not here asking about the race issue , I am asking about the languages.
Thank you.

chinese is harder
and japan is funner to visit
you’ve got everyone on a small island
its packed, bright, festive
and not to mention
anime, japanese cars, and technology
people want to go see the source of it all.
As for chinese, no one really wants to go see factory workers.

I speak Japanese and English but I only speak Japanese with my family. I live in the US but I was wondering what other non-Japanese people thought of the language. I often hear people saying that they think Mandarin is annoying and that German is not pretty to listen to. (and no Mandarin and Japanese are completely different).
What do you think of Japanese? Personally, I think it’s a pretty cool sounding language and when spoken right, it is pretty-but that’s maybe because I’m biased.

I think it’s a beautiful language~! ^^
I would love to learn how to speak it if I could, ahh so cool! ><
I was really in love with J-pop, J-Rock, Anime, Manga, J-dramas for a long time ?

Just like you I only speak Cantonese with my family (my dad really). For a long time I didn’t really think much about it or have an interest in learning more (because I struggle a bit). But I’ve come to realise it’s a lovely language and hope to learn more~!

I kind of get what people mean about mandarin, it usually has a kind of sharp tone to it compared to cantonese which is softer spoken.
I took German for a couple years in school, it was fun. At first when they let us listen to songs and things it kind of made me laugh a bit (especially because they were covers of American music). But to people that don’t know a language it’ll always seem strange at first.

All languages are lovely~!
It’s natural to find the sounds strange when hearing one you’ve never heard before ^^
But even if you don’t understand it, you can get used to hearing it.

It’s good to be proud of your mother tongue! ? and for other people to be open minded~

I really want to have a masters degree in petroleum engineering and a bachelors degree in the Japanese language. Is something like this hard to do?

You can do both at the same time as long as the school that you attend offers both./

So I added the Japanese language input onto my computer. But when I try to type in Japanese all that comes up is the English letters even when the input setting is on Japanese. Does anyone know how I could fix this?

If you’re talking about the language bar, the IME standard input thing, then this is easy to answer.

Is your language bar minimised onto the Taskbar? If so, click on it and select, "Show the Language bar." In the Japanese setting, you will see a long bar of options. One should show a capital A—this is the input setting.

When it’s showing the A, it means it’s set to Romaji. Click on it and select what you want, whether it’s Hiragana or Katakana. I had this problem at first, too.

Usage note: When it’s set to hiragana, it will automatically search for the kanji equivalent of a word when you’re done typing it. Simply press Enter to keep it in hiragana, Space to browse options.

??? — ??

Hope that helps.

Japanese tends to have so many words and so little that I know and understand. I know it’s a big language. Oh by the way, this doesn’t count for the other dialects. I’m only counting real standard Japanese words.
Thomas, that’s not what I meant. I meant the language itself. Those are writing systems. God, get your facts straight before you answer another question like this.

Get ready ….. "over 600,000" it sucks cause I’m learning Japanese too .You don’t have to Know every word to be fluent A lot of Japanese people forget words sometimes and consult a dictionary. I believe to be fluent you only need to know about 10,000 to pass the JLPT with a 1 (the highest level). If you pass with a one you are Native level and You can function in Japanese society.

I’m confused… I’ve heard there are tens of thousands of characters in the Chinese language. I’ve heard that an educated person in Chinese needs to learn around 6000 characters? How is a person supposed to remember over 6000 letters and then use them in words. That sounds crazy! I’m a little confused on how the language is structured. In English there are 26 letters and different combinations make different words, but I’ve heard in Chinese one character can mean a whole word. Also how is Japanese structured? Is it the same as Chinese or is it different.

the hard part is learning japanese because it is mainly build on 4 languages being hanzi one of them. Your logic is flawed. Even though english is composed of 26 alphabets but you still have to remember the order of the letter to make a word, so you will have to remember all the orders for the word. In Chinese, there is also structure meaning some words are combined to form a word. Like metal will combine with another word to form a new word because that new word (a material) is related to metal. So words are combined together that related to the two words that it originates.