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[JaredH]

Any one have any suggestions on the best language training out there for the best price. I know the best training is to actually be in the country of the language you're wanting to learn. I've been in China for 8 months and have picked up more Chinese than I did Spanish after studying for 3 years.

However, Im heading home in Feb for approximately three years and will be transferring my studies to Japan in 2008. I want to get a head start on my language studies though. So any suggestions will be appreciated.

[IanG]

After a recent exchange visit to Germany, my son's staying in touch with people over there via IM.  Once I get a webcam and microphone he'll be able to practice his oral skills as well his written ones.  Could you do something similar?

Ian G.

[JustinChase]

Try the Rosetta Stone language system.

They are what the govenrment uses to train diplomats, the Peace Corps uses it, etc.  The entire disc set is in the language you are trying to learn.  There's no translation ever.  It's mainly pictures, with a native speaker saying what it is, and you learn to associate the words/phrases with the pictures.

There's over 500 hours of instruction in the Spanish discs I'm using.  It works great.  I don't knwo if you can get fluent with them, but it's a great start.

I cannot recommend it highly enough.  It's a great program.  It's not cheap ($200ish), but totally worth it.

Good luck.  Try ebay first.

[park]

I live in Japan at the moment, and a few of the things that have helped me along the way:

Learn Hiragana and Katakana before you arrive. Well before you arrive. It'll help you navigate stations when you take the trains and be able to read some of the items on the menu (but the majority of the written language is kanji, so dont expect much more usefulness than that). Also, if you study here, all the books will be taught in hiragana from the offset, so best to get some advantage.

Whatever words you learn before coming too, shouold be kept in a notebook, in hiragana. Your knowledge of kanji from China should be really useful. Just a matter of learning the correct pronunciation.

I'd recomend studying and completing the first "Japanese for Busy People" book before you arrive too. Learning how adjectives and verbs work before you come and learning a few and how to change them to the negative and negative past etc. will put you on good ground. I spent a lot of time just trying to get the rules straight in my head before I could think about using the language flexibly, so if you already know how it works, it will be easier to pick up and use new vocab straight away once you're here.

You should really try some language exchange. There's no shortage of Japanese people who want to learn English. Getting the pronunciation right from the beginning is vital. There's no stress in the language, and so when we put stress into Japanese words of more three syllables for example, it sounds totally different to how it should. There arent that many sounds in the language, so if you have a good model at the beginning, then it will never be a problem in the future.

As a general point about language learning as a whole, I would say that a good notebook, with words grouped into noun, adj, verb etc. is important, but also, make "themed" pages too, like; words related to family, time, probablity, movies, weather, illness, similar sounds or easily mistaken, etc.
It can be motivational to keep and update and draw in etc.

At the end of the day, it depends on how long you want to stay in Japan. That will decide how much effort you need to put in. It's not incredibly useful anywhere else in the world, and it's perfectly possible to live in a "bubble" of English anyway. Generally, the people who will approach you to chat will be people who want to speak English, and if you only need English at work too, then it will actually be a challenge to find situations to practise anything more complicated than the usual daily expressions ("this please" "thanks").

On the flipside, by making the gesture, and trying to do things that require you to use the language (I do aikido in a small dojo where only one guy speaks English, and I want to speak to them because they are now my friends) you will gain respect for trying and inevitably be able to have a wider experience.

But you live in China! and probably know most of this already, so forgive me if I sound patronising.

[JaredH]

Nah, not patronising. I understand completely. Ill have to admit, I've been quite lazy with learning the written Chinese language. Ive had a oral teacher, but not written. Mainly because I havent really needed it. Kind of regretting it now. But Ill have three years to work on my Japanese before I transfer my studies. My end goal is to open a premarital and newlywed counseling practice in Tokyo. So by that time, my Japanese will need to be top notch. It would be nearly impossible to counsel with anything less.

I've heard a lot about this "Japanese for Busy People" so ill definately look into it. Im also considering buying the Rosetta Stone level 1 and level 2 set. Im even considering taking a minor in Asian Studies alongside the Psychology major.  Anything to ease the transition when I transfer.

[gpvillamil]

I used the packages from Declan Software to learn hiragana and katakana early on, and it was very useful.

I am currently studying Japanese language full-time as well. What I have found is that immersive conversation alone does not work for Japanese. So many of the grammatical structures are different from European languages that trying to "guess" grammar through repetition will fail.

The program that I am in uses Japanese exclusively in class - however, there is a companion book to the course that explains the grammatical structures, in English.

In addition, kanji practice is integrated in the course. Understanding the different readings for the kanji is really necessary to make sense of a lot of the words.

My suggestion: hiragana and katakana first, as soon as possible. Next, some kind of introductory study that *clearly explains* the grammatical rules. "Making Sense of Japanese" by Jay Rubin is pretty good for some of this. There are a number of guides to particles, sentence patterns and verbs that are useful as well. Finally, study the kanji - especially the compound forms. Of course, conversation with native speakers is helpful and necessary!

What you will find is that the Japanese that is taught in schools, while correct, is very different from what is spoken. If you only learn colloquial Japanese, you run the risk of making some social mistakes. Best learn "formal" Japanese, in parallel with conversation.

[JaredH]

This is beginning to sound like a bigger monster than Chinese. Of course when I first arrived here, I thought learning Mandarin was going to be like rocket science. Ive found out that its much easier than I ever imagined. So I'm hoping that Japanese will be much the same way. Difficult to study in the US, but easy to pick up on in Japan. I still believe that total immersion is the best way to learn a language fast. Sink or swim. You learn or you drown. Only problem is that in these days its fairly easy to find a little niche of people that speak your native tongue in almost every society. There are people that have been living in one of the many Chinatowns across the US for many years and have yet to learn much English. That to me is just plain laziness. Luckily I've got an interest in languages on my side. It's one of few things that I dont allow myself to get too lazy with. And, yes, I apparently forgot to learn about paragraph breaks when I was in grade school.  

[gpvillamil]

Yep, Japanese is harder than Chinese - but manageable.

What you will find is that total immersion, while necessary, is not sufficient. You won't be able to figure out (or learn) grammatical structures just from conversation.

But hey, gambatte, it can be done!

[GHammer]

Try the Rosetta Stone language system.

Good luck.  Try ebay first.

I agree with that. If you are not in the country whose language you want to learn, this system is very good. I used it for Russian before I moved there and had very little to relearn once I arrived.

I got my first course direct at the HIGH list price. The next I got from EBay at about 20% of list. Not much reason to keep a language course around once you have learned it.