I cannot read japanese...can you?

[wobbadude1]

Anybody knows how long might it take to fully learn Japanese?

If you're serious about learning it will take years to master, so I would start as soon as possible! But after one or two years you should be able to speak conversational Japanese if you keep at it!

Obviously, it'll be a LOT quicker if you went to live out in Japan! Lol!

I am quite good at languages as I can speak French and a bit of Spanish (as well as English! Lol!) And I am planning to start Japanese, but it'll be a lot harder than French or Spanish as it is very different from English. At the moment I am at Hiragana/Katakana learning stage...

 

[kohei]

According to my university school dean (English, born in London but been living here for 30 years now):
"Living in a country is the best way to learn the language. That is why I still cannot master Arabic.
Of course I'd love to master Arabic, but that'll mean resigning from this job and moving to the UAE.
You wouldn't like that now would you Kohei?"

 

[>Feelings<]

Years? How many years? I'm serious about learning it. Will two years be enough?

 

[Phanima]

Obviously, it'll be a LOT quicker if you went to live out in Japan! Lol!

Actually, that's quite true. You'll learn a lot faster through experience. Of course, obviously, if you can't afford moving to a foreign country to live and learn, just go to a class, get a tutor or if you're desperate, get those self taught books.

Learning the basics are easy really, you can pretty much get down general speech and hearing in a few months if it's your sole focus. Writing and reading will take longer but it's mostly up to how quickly you learn and natural ability.

 

[invisible-chan]

I remember a time before we could read. During this time, we played Pokemon and used the moves that hurt the other guy's Pokemon. It isn't that hard to play without reading. Also, learning hiragana and katakana isn't that hard. With Katakana, you should be able to read most of the important thing. Storyline won't come as clear, but battling and probably contests should be simple enough.

 

[Azumi]

A little, but it wouldn't help me at all in Platinum. But now I am already going for the league and I don't have a SINGLE problem somehow.

 

[wobbadude1]

Years? How many years? I'm serious about learning it. Will two years be enough?

If you stick to it by learning 10/15 mins a day of Japanese. I would say in two years time you would probably be fluent conversationally. To be 100% fluent you would need to live out there!

 

[Chibi-chan]

I really wish I could learn Japanese...if only I had the time to!
In college though, I plan to learn Chinese because it's the most advantageous language to know. If I went into a Japanese class and they asked me why I was there...I could only say so I can translate games! XD

Yeah, immersion is the best way to study; maybe I could go there for the summer in college or something...

 

[Lucy Lu]

I would love to learn Japanese. But I think knowing how to read and write it is super hard. I would love to learn to speak it first. The reading and writing will come later. XD There are some words I learned from translating sites and of course watching subs.

 

[ShadowofTime01]

I think writing and reading hiragana and katakana isn't difficult, but learning vocabulary is hard in my opinion. And memorizing kanji is difficult too... I wish they could just write in a single alphabet... or that I could understand more than just an average 5 year old japanese child.

 

[Joey the Cockroach]

well, er, no, i cant understand Japanese, but would like to learn it. could be useful for translating certain things.