Gail R.'s Page

I go back to the Philippines because my dad and little brother lives there, they can't come to the states. Im not too familiar with the geography but I stay in Manilla, Makati and Batangas when I visit.

Yeah, I was born in the states but sorta grew up in the Philippines when I was young. When back to the state ever since elementary school but I visit the Philippines for 3 months every few years.

I'm Filipino. Do you live in the Philippines?

This is the site that I found first. It has a good basic introduction to Japanese. It will teach you hiragana and katakana, as well as the proper pronunciation of them (it has sound files.) It also gives a good introduction to Japanese grammar.

I would recommend reading through that site. You don't have to memorize all the grammar, but it's good to be aware of it (and it's fun to learn about it!) I'd then recommend learning to read hiragana and katakana. I focused on reading first and didn't learn to write them (by hand) until much later. This worked well for me.

I then found some vocabulary sites with sound files. Here are two I used:

http://japanese.about.com/blsoundfile.htm

http://www.languageguide.org/nihongo/

I memorized all these words using my flashcard program. I don't recommend doing that, as that's where I got stuck. It's better to find somebody to practice new words with you as you're learning them (I will try to help you with this if you would like.) It is good for memorizing new words as you learn them, though. It was also very effective at teaching me to pronounce things correctly.

There are now a number of other sites that have audio files, so you're not limited to words from those sites; you should be able to get sound files for most new words you learn. I can help you figure out how to do this once you're trying to learn new vocabulary.

I'm a Mac user, so the program I used only works on Macs. I did make a much simpler version of it in Java once, which in theory should run anywhere. I made it for some Japanese friends for the purpose of learning English, though, so it needs some adapting. I'll try to make some basic modifications (like including both kanji and a kana reading for each vocabulary word) so that it can be used the other way around, too. Hopefully I'll get something working within an hour or two.

I do think that it is good to study in a manner where you can both see and hear the words you're learning, but don't feel obligated to use my program if you don't want to. Everybody learns a bit differently; so if you find a way that works better for you that's great too.

Let me know if you have any questions, I will do my best to answer them.

In regards to my previous comment please ignore the part about the bracket as I forgot to put them in but pretty much gozaimasu makes thank you formal :D

I would highly recommend learning hiragana first. There are some great apps on iPhone that help and just a bit of practice each day will get you learning them quickly :) Here are some words I would recommend you learning first. These are helpful. 

*note* the bracket makes the word formal used to talk to people who are older then you.

Hello - konnichiwa - こんにちは

Thank you - arigatou gozaimasu - ありがとうございます

Good bye - sayounara - さようなら

How are you - ogenkidesuka - おげんきですか

Are you ok/ I'm ok - daijoubu - だいこうぶ

My name is... - watashiwa namaewa ... desu - わたしはなまえは...です

Just so you know the Japanese use は (ha) at the end of konnnichiwa when it actually is pronounced as wa. 

Also this will help you a lot to know that to make a question for anything just add か(ka) to the end of the sentence. 

I will come up with a list of words to teach you. I would highly recommend buying a phrase book as they have many handy words you can learn. 

Self study is hard. I did it for a year or so as well before I started taking courses at college.

You said you're most interested in learning to read? That's how I started out, but it quickly evolved into a desire to speak and understand it too. I found that getting a grasp of the language was much easier for me that way than by just reading.

You should be able to learn to read and write the Japanese syllabaries and some basic vocabulary and kanji on your own without too much difficulty. I did all these things with (computerized) flash cards. There are online resources that can show you how to write the characters; let me know if you need some help finding them.

In order to go much further than that, I needed to take a class. Learning grammar requires practice, and without somebody to tell you whether or not your grammar is correct it is very difficult to get any meaningful practice. I can speak Japanese pretty well, so I could help if you would like.

If you're interested in learning to speak the language at all, I'd recommend deciding to do so sooner rather than later, so that you can be sure to learn words with the correct pronunciations. Japanese is a relatively easy language to learn to pronounce (at least for English speakers.) I tried to learn correct pronunciations from the start. I imagine it would have been more difficult to relearn correct pronunciations later on.

I used a flash card program that displayed an English word and an image if appropriate, then would play a sound file for the word after you answered. I made it, so it was very much tailored to my needs and might be a little confusing, but I could send you it, if you're interested (and if it is compatible with your computer. What kind of computer are you using?)

Let me know how I can help. I remember how frustrating it was to try to learn Japanese on my own.

Hi!! :) 

I would love to help you learn Japanese. I have been learning for 3 years and would love to share my knowledge with you. Just tell me how you would like to contact etc to learn like email, private message etc. :)

Good luck with your studies!