Re: Japanese pen Pals

Hm, and here's one thing - after you've learned a language to a good degree, it gets easier picking up other languages on your own because you know there are several steps to take before you can really get up to speed on self-studying:

1) The alphabet, or in Japanese, the Kanji/Hiragana/Katakana/Romanji ways of writing.

2) The way words and phrases are broken up. Easier in Western languages, difficult in asian languages that have no spacing between words such as Chinese and Japanese. You'll have to remember all of the particles (o, e, ni, de, etc) to be able to effectively break up parts of the sentences into something you can translate.

3) Sentence order & structure. Where the verb, object, subject, etc goes and can appear in a sentence.

4) Understanding of all the major parts of a sentence. Is 'o' a subject, particle, object, noun, etc?

5) Effective and fast determination of the root verb and root adjective from the conjugated form that appears in a sentence. Very important in japanese due to the many similar/same forms that can be made.

Once you've got the above down, you can pretty much go off and self study to a certain point. (Yes, there's another level - formal sentence patterns, phrases and sayings, proverbs, cultural references, etc. which will require another level of adaptation.)

Anyways, what may help you now is to get the pronounciation down pat - use:
Pronounce It Perfectly in Japanese
ISBN: 0812016262
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0812016262/qid=1133478842/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/002-9037340-2192860?s=books&v=glance&n=283155

Use this to get your basics down first.
It's the next best to having a native Japanese next to you correcting your speech patterns (which is even better because they'll catch the subtle mistakes you make - sure brought mine up fast!).

Then, upgrade to:
http://www.simonsays.com/content/browse.cfm?sid=128&pid=516362,369961
Pimsleur Japanese I-III

You can get both off eBay or any other online method cheap.
This series will turn you into a parrot so you can at least blurp out the basics w/o much trouble. Yes, you'll need more lessons after this, but you should be able to blurt out the basics when you're asked.
A good series for beginners doing self-study.

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anyways, go "google groups" and look up all of the many past posts on this and similar topics for beginners, and google "chiendh" in sci.lang.japan for all of the posts I've made on useful beginner's learning materials.

Japanese was ranked along with Chinese and Arabic as the toughest level (top out of four levels) as a language for an English speaking native to learn (eg. French, Spanish were much easier and lower ranked), in a government publication, so don't worry!

You'll just have to slug your way slowly through the basics like us all until you get to that special moment when you can actually do a baby conversation in Japanese (with the help of an Electronic Japanese Dictionary in hand for a few quick lookups of unknown words: http://www.silverace.com/japanese/ejd/) and later, useful self-study.

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Realistically, expect that at a college course level, at least 3-5 years before basic everyday conversation proficency (not just saying Hi! How's you're day, but actually being able to make it through day to day in Japan), 5-10+ years if you're going through it all on your own and taking your time to enjoy learning.

If you buddy up with a Japanese native who is bilingual and bicultural to a 90%-100% degree like my friend (so she can explain things in both Japanese and English either language), you can go far faster. 1 year here will get you to a basic & useful conversational level in Japanese if you're doing 6+ hours per week of lessons in person + 2-3 hours of homework each day for a full year like I did.

Here, near or fully bilingual and bicultural is the key! Most Japanese will not be able to translate "Usagi-san wa pyon-pyon...." into English if asked to do it in person! They'll just go blank (honestly! I've asked quite a few searching for a replacement tutor for myself!). The unique few who have a master of both English and Japanese will easily translate the above into "The rabbit hopped/jumped..."

This actually is a very effective and good test of the teacher you'll be getting! Why? The above are examples of easily understood 1st grade sentences that come straight out of Japanese 1st grade primers. Figure if a teacher can't translate a 1st grade sentence and/or explain what it means in the other language, how will they teach you anything more complex and be understood?!? (well, you can still learn, but trust me! It's far, far faster and more effective when you can ask your teacher in your native language what something in Japanese means, and they can answer in the same.)
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