Mmm, this site has more dutch speakers luckily. When I start to study it, maybe anyone could help me with it, hehe.

> Japanese is actually the first language I had to begin from scratch with. I had no concept about its structure, its script or its sounds.
And that, I think, is one of the reasons I started to study it. No preconception, just a clean slate

I think I understand this feeling: actually when I'm going to start new language, I'm always happy and exciting, hehe. Of course from some languages that I've learned basic grammar, I could get another kind of joy which is similar to satisfaction, but "freshness" is more fascinated feeling even difficulties, I guess. Perhaps I want to be surprised at unexpected and "unbelievable" things even though I complain a lot about such things, lol.

> I'm always jealous of people who can speak 3+ languages fluently :-D

Me too! I have to confess I can't speak any languages fluently because my studying was only on the paper. Finally I started to talking in English on Skype since last year, but my speaking English is really awful and messy, and I'm often confused by my speaking, lol.

> So are you speaking about tomodachi form? Or what?

Well, my friend wants to speak in tomodachi form, and actually he uses "ore" for "I" as a proof that I'm his good friend. But most of Japanese verbs change to masu-form in him automatically, so his speaking way sounds so funny, lol. I know I shouldn't not laugh at that, but he sometimes laughs at my English when I'm struggling with it so hard. So I decided to laugh too, as my repay for that

By the way, also in Japanese, we often call "歩く辞書 (aruku jisho - walking dictionary)" about a person like you.

Your way about music might be similar to mine. I like rock and metal (especially Scandinavian and German), classical like Back and Bise, pop music like Laura Pausini and Celine Dion etc. Actually I don't listen to Japanese music mostly, but I like some musicians like Tatsuro Yamashita and Kazumasa Oda. I don't have any albums about Japanese pops, but if you're interested in them for your language practice, I recommend Kazumasa Oda. His Japanese pronunciation is clear and beautiful, and the lyrics are understandable, I think.

Shizu

Thanks, Shizu-san ^_^

I will definitely look into Kazumasa Oda. And that is kind of cool, how our tastes correlate

Neat! I am so going to use that as usernames for places I go to!! Heehee. That's what friends do I mess with my friends a lot and everything.

I almost can't grasp that; not being able to speek as well as you write something. In Japanese whatever I can write I can speak. Though some of it is slow and stuff, I still can do it concisely. Idk. Just thinking about someone like you (being able to write English very well. I can only find few errors in your writing) not being able to speak it in the same calibur that you can write it is so, weird. Whenever I write I always speak it out in my head. Idk, an odd concept for me.

Whoo.., I thought you would be fluent in English Shizu-san

I read a lot of your posts and like Aldrian said, there are not many errors in it, just the normal typo's.
Hmm.., I think you could have problems with the pronunciation in English.
Lol, I have the reverse. My Japanese pronunciation is a problem at the moment

To correct that I am reading Japanese childrens books out loud to a Japanese friend of mine. Books like 「いっすんぼし」や「うらしまたろう」や「かぐやひめ」や「こぶとりじいさん」や「つるのおんがえし」。
This has given me 4 things in 1 go
- My reading errors and pronunciation are corrected by my friend
- There written for little childern so there mostly in hiragana and some basic kanji. This gives me also the chance to learn the gramma in a normal story and not just from example sentences.
- I get some of the Japanese culture, because Japanese fairy-tales are different from the once I grew up with
- And there just FUN to read

I think the best way to get the grips with a language is just doing it. Talk, talk and talk. Don't be afraid to sound bad the first times, we all are when we start a different language. Talk to yourself, build the sentence in your mind and let it out

Find someone who is willing to listening to you making a fool of yourself but who also can give you good advise.

Using a language on all fronts, read, write, hear and speak is, I think, the best way of comming to understand it.

Nice topic I've got some small list too, probably like everyone else. Currently I'm studying japanese and korean, cause both share similar grammar rules. Though I know lot more about Japanese grammar then korean, I can read korean and understand some parts much faster then Japanese, probably because I got used to it in last 6 years by listening lots of korean music. Besides that I can speak my native Lithuanian, and also English fluently (I believe so).
In past I touched a bit of german. Have quite a few friends from Germany so they teached me some basic sentences. I Can aswell read/write/speak not too complicated russian, since it was my 2nd language after english at school. For upcoming years I just want to learn Japanese/Korean well, to be able to read news, understand music lyrics. And for very far future some Spanish. So that sums up that most of us have some sort of goals for languages which is cool thing Oh and I'm 24 currently, hoping to be good at Jap/Korean by 30

Konnichiwa!

Yay! This seems to be a very interesting topic. The only language I'm studying now is Japanese. Well, I'm an ESL. Here in the Philippines, as soon as you study (Kindergarten), English is included in the curriculum. So yes, besides English, it's been only Japanese.

I was amazed cause before when I hear people speaking in Japanese, I'm like.. they are like aliens. hehe. but now, I'm doing fairly good i think, I understand maybe 50% of what is being talked about when I'm around Japanese people. Same as with anime and songs.

I buy books which I think can help me learning the language. BUT! I'm lazy to read books. zannen desu ne. Meaning, I haven't utilized any of the books I bought.

I also have several ebooks which I use for reference.

I spend most of the time in our chatbox here at the site and I learn much from there. ^_^

So hmm yeah.. soon I'll be good enough to teach in the chatbox and in real life. ^_^

Jaa

チョコ

It is so nice to see everyone interested in this, and have a lot of aims for languages and such.

Speaking of which, I need to go learn some more kanji, hahaha.