Speaking Japanese Now

[Brigandier]

Are there any good, inexpensive resources for learning the Japanese language?

I'm dying to play the Mother series.

 

[Imp]

Rosetta Stone... It's not the best, but a beginner's college course (first one of three!) starts around $150 locally. I keep getting spammed ads from RS about sales practically weekly: $310 for 5 levels.

Otherwise, find a Japanese friend.

 

[MontyAC]

RS is good or catch some youtube learning videos.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

Aren't there decent translations of those games? By coincidence I'm halfway through my first time in Earthbound as well right now.

 

[Zeze]

I can't stand RS. It entirely skips all the grammar and foundation of language. Sure it's good for getting few phrases quickly, but if you're serious, it's not good.

RS seriously messed me up trying to learn Spanish.

 

[effowe]

Can't recommend anything, but if you're dying to play Mother there are fan translation patches that you can apply to the roms, and places to get them already translated.

 

[SheHateMe]

RS stone is shit. Overpriced crap. It might have changed since I last played around with it...but it will not make you proficient in the language at all.....not without supplementing it with REAL learning materials.


I took 4 years of Japanese at the College level an it was probably the best experience I could have gotten. I do a LOT of language exchange and I have a few Japanese elders (in Japan) that I help with English from time to time.

I must say though that I do not like anime or japanese games...I am learning the language purely out of curiousity. I'd like to learn German or something too if I have time to get into it.


I have a few resources you can check out.

Kanji practice
Online Denshi Jisho - Super useful for vocabulary.
Really useful for looking up Grammar
Verb Conjugator. Grammar practice
Renshuu.org USE IT
In all Japanese. You don't need to be able to read it. The basic gist here is being told what characters you should know depending on how long you've been learning Japanese.


As far as books used. I got my foundation from the "Genki" series books. I used Genki 1 and 2 for the first 2 years of Japanese. For intermediate to advanced...I used a textbook that is mostly in Japanese called "Jokyou e no tobira". I don't know if you can find that in the US, our textbooks were imported. Try thejapanshop.com they should have them....but, do not use this book until you have an intermediate-advanced understand of Japanese language, writing, and grammar.

 

[mistercrabby]

Agree 100% rosetta stone is what shehateme says.

The class is the way to go. Immersion is best. Find Japanese speakers and hang out with them.

Good luck!