The 2008 (and 9) weaboos learning Japanese thread *chairs are thrown at miles*

I took two classes, and Jesus, the stories I have about the anime nerds. Interestingly, however, when I was in Hawaii and took my first year of Japanese there, there weren't any kids who were nerds. Japanese over there isn't unlike Spanish over here (I'm from southern California) and I guess that the "cult of Japanese pop culture" doesn't take off the same way it does here.

Anyway, personally, I hate Genki (the text), but that's just me. I have seen a better one, myself, the one we used in Hawaii. I think it was called Youkouso. But, Genki can do it, too, I suppose.

If I could relate any advice after the two years I took it's to keep in mind that Japanese is like any other language. I got giddy at first (secretly) that I was learning Japanese and I even began speaking (with my initial horrible accent) and thinking in my head how cool and awesome I was. Of course, unlike the most of you, I lived in an area with so many Japanese people that I spoke all the time outside of my class with Japanese students, which helped me come to the realization that real Japanese is actually pretty... generic.

It's like Rollins(?) said about not watching anime but drama series. Definitely, anime is too fantastical in speech to be taken seriously. Think about it for a few seconds... do you actually want to speak like (ack) "Naruto"? If you want to drive the point home, watch the series in English and see how stupid they sound - and realize that whenever you mimic the Japanese, that's how you sound. Although drama series are better, I'd remind the prospective student that in drama shows though they tend to speak correctly in a grammatical sense, and although they use everyday phrases, they do so in a dramatic way. Don't pause too much and glance at the moon and speak with your eyes closed - though this is standard fare in drama series, no one really speaks like that, I promise. In this case, it'd be like speaking like one of those lawyer/doctor/teacher shows on at prime time here. You know how they are very melodramatic in their speech? That is similar to the drama series.

If you can, speak with real, normal people (and if you can swing it, not fellow otaku) from Japan and copy them. Listen to them, even if they want you to speak more "generically" than you would like. I can't pinpoint how many times I made an utter fool of myself by using really ridiculous language. (Case in point: if you're male, please please please avoid the use of super-cool "ore" to speak about yourself for at least a year, and even then be careful. It's just not worth it.)

Finally, give it the attention it deserves. I didn't and as a result barely scraped by my last year. Japanese really will require something like two hours a day of study, and if that's too much for you (i.e. you work outside of school) I'd question the choice. All language learning requires time but Japanese requires learning two new alphabets and a whole slew of kanji that you can become completely overwhelmed.

Jam it back in, in the dark.