[4Leaf]

I am currently learning Japanese and am doing pretty well for the amount of time I have been doing this. So far I have learned Hiragana, and am nearly complete with Katakana. I have learned some of the basics of conjugating basic Present/Future tense verbs in the formal masu from. And a little about conjugating in the informal form.

As of now I have the Japanese version of FFXI installed so I can type Japanese via my IME Hiragana keyboard. Is there anyone, and I mean anyone at all that knows Japanese well enough to help me out? Hold conversations with me and kinda guide me a bit? If so that would be fantastic. Also, could someone point me in the correct direction if they know a Bilingual person?


Thank you very much!

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

There is no need to crosspost this, even if you're on both servers. Wouldn' t it be easier to just try asking someone on the servers you reside on?

[Feba]

You really ought to ask Japanese players, or at least Japanese forums. Given how large of a native speaking population FFXI has, it'd be dull to try learning the language from a non-native speaker. Maybe try asking around some forums that are centered on English speakers learning Japanese, or vice versa, for people that play FFXI.

[4Leaf]

Well actually I /sh in Jueno looking for people that are bilingual, but so far I have gotten nothing. Anyways, going to Japanese web forums would be nice, but first I need to find out how to access a Japanese FFXI web forum. Oh and a forum based on English Natives learning Japanese would be most ideal, however... I have no idea where I could find such a place. Anyone know?

[Elwynn]

FFXI would be a bad way to go learning the language.

Raw (unsubbed) anime and untranslated manga is much better.

Watching raw anime (downloading it within hours of the original broadcast without waiting for a fansub) really did a lot for my comprehension.

And there's a method I came up with to increase my kata/hira reading speed, which is to read all the kana in a manga as fast as you can, ignoring any kanji that you can't read.

Just remember that not all manga is equal. Manga for younger readers has furigana on just about every kanji, and manga for older readers has almost none, except where something wierd is going on.

[4Leaf]

Hmm that is actually a first. I know many fluent Japanese speakers (many as in multiple) who have all told me installing the Japanese version of FFXI and speaking to other Japanese players really helped them tremendously. Each to their own I suppose

As for your methods. I am not sure how well they will work for me. Number one reason is my vocabulary right now is quite weak and very limited. After all I did start this about 4 Or so months ago. And my recognition of Hiragana and Katakana is also weak. Sometimes I will run across a word I know and I will not recognize it unless I look harder.

Think your method will work well for me at this point? Or do I just need to back off for a while and study some vocab then later come back to it?

[Elwynn]

It's not going to help you until you get a lot better first. Also consider what chat is like among English speakers. Though it's maybe not quite as bad as rampant misspellings, and lol in every other sentence, it's NOT the same as talking to someone in a normal conversation.

[4Leaf]

Yeah I suppose you might be right. Though, if you warn people you are not so good they will make efforts to help you I suppose. But anyways. Did you mean that for both your Method and FFXI?