Can someone actually learn a language online Free? I really want

Learning something is all about you, dude. You can learn to read a language by simply reading a book and studying it. Most people need a lot of help, and honestly, you probably don't care enough to learn another language, this is just some passing fancy of yours, and the moment you realize you've actually got to put forth a lot of real time and effort you're going to say "fuck it whatever" like you have to all the other shit in your life that sounded cool for 5 minutes until you realized it takes work.

Japan is probably the most pointlessly difficult language to learn. It has 3 scripts, two traditional ones have something like 2000 characters, and it's just completely alien to a Westerner. It requires thousands of hours of study/practice just to get to a level where you can read 60% of your mango without flipping through dictionaries ever other panel.

We've all gone through weeaboo phases. Japanese is not worth it. It's a dying language, tied to a dying and racist people, that will never want you in their society. It's fine that you like their culture, but it's not worth putting yourself through that shit. It's like the equvialent of wanting to learn Latin just so you read Julius Caesar's, and Mark Anthony's dairies and books. It's fucking stupid.

>>18539681

mostly this, at least the parts about learning this. the major problem with japanese is that its not as simple as reading an alphabet.

imagine if you wrote a letter to someone and isntead of it being written in english it was a bunch of shapes and symbols. given time you can memorize a lot of them but doing it simply online while also matching it to the correct sounds and breaking it down further into hiragana is pretty fucking rough, you'd need to be studying like 4 hours a day.

You can do it, OP. The Daily Japanese Threads on /int/ are your friend, grab the resources linked there and get started. And don't give up for a second.

>>18539737
>>18539681

At least it's not Greek

>>18539737

and for the record, I've taken japanese class for two years and lived in okinawa.

>>18539737
Right. This guy knows his shit. I forgot how the language tier lists go. But languages like Japanese and Chinese are in the tier that require the most study hours, in the thousands. For comparison, other Western languages, like Spanish, Italian, French, and German can be learned in as little as 500-600 hours. You can probably easily learn at least 3 Western languages for the price of 1 moon language.

If you think about it like that, then it especially doesn't make sense. I'd much rather be able to speak German, French, and Italian, than just Japanese.

>>18539759
By the way, would you recommend teaching English in Japan? I'm finishing a BA soon enough. But it seems like every weeaboo college grad does the same thing. Do they treat us like shit over there? What can you tell me about it?

>>18539800

i was there via military, so its a lot different than teaching english. for instance, all the people on the island were used to the military presence cuz we've been there since the end of world war 2. in addition to that i had an entire american community to fall back on. Okinawa also claims to be a seperate entity from Japan. They consider themselves to be like Puerto Rico in its relation to America, politically under its power, but culturally its own unique thing. It was pretty fucking japanese imo, just slight island differences.

so i can't really say. the closer you are to tokyo the more understanding and accepting you are. if you go there to teach just be prepared to come home if it goes south. it sounds like you are really passionate about japan / japanese so i dont see why not do it for a year just to see what its like. just have some funds allocated for returning home if the need arises.

I think once you live there though you'll realize that watching anime and living in japan have virtually nothing in common, the same way watching TV has nothing to do with living an American life. Those are embellishments, and anime is even more emblished because of its cartoonery. Beyond that, its also produced by a niche set of people. Gays were common in japanese anime and other media because gays were drawn to the arts, so they created fictional worlds that made gays seem like a common place normal and accepted thing in japan. this is definitely NOT the case.

thats just an example though. in anime even the shy girls are shown to be really outspoken and up front and flirty and such. irl interaction with the opposite sex is almost rare outside of a school setting, and een in school its pretty formal. it varies from plae to place just like america but its like they are missing the gap between 'strangers' and 'friends', like regular acquaintances aren't a thing there. its hard to explain cuz its purely cultural.

>>18539800
>>18539822

regardless I think its worth at least trying if you got nothing else going on but you will likely go there, realize that you are kinda just 'alone' and not want to live there forever.

you never know how 'alone' you are until no one in the room can understand a single thing you say. even if they do know english they dont understand you or what you do or where you're coming from.

>>18539822
>>18539825
Thanks, I'm not the weeaboo OP. I'm the jaded post-weeaboo guy, telling him not to learn Japanese.

I'm studying to be a teacher. And that's a career where you really have to buckle down and settle on a school/district, in order to get tenure. So before I basically 'ground myself', I'd like to go over to maybe Japan and Korea to get myself culture shocked and see how life is like in countries completely alien to me. I want to feel alone over there, that's kinda what I'm hoping for. America, despite its varied geography, is very culturally homogenous. Everywhere you travel, the radio stations play the same top 40 music, that all sound the same last month/year's music i.e. autotune garbage, everywhere you go, it's just McDonalds, Burger Kings, Taco Bells, and strip malls. Everyone I look at, looks very 'basic'. Everyone thinks they're unique and a special snowflake, despite all wearing the same skinny jeans/hoodies, or women in their yoga pants, and everyone is carrying around the same iPhones and Macbooks. I'm starting to feel like I'm in some clone society, sometimes, when I go out. Well, I'm going on a long rant. I'm just losing my sanity here. I want to take a break from America/Americans.

>>18539855

its definitely a worthwhile experience, even if you dont end up just loving japan, its worth it. all i can say.

i dont think you'll dislike it either. its like life anywhere, parts you'll love, parts you'll hate.

good luck i hope you do it. honestly id go and do it now if i wasnt so tied to my connections here.

>>18539618
I'm actually learning Japanese. I'm not going to lie, it's really hard and it takes a lot of time. You basically have to learn everything: the grammar is unlike anything you know, the vocabulary is almost completely new (though there's an increasing number of English loanwords) and you basically have to learn how to write all over again. Scratch that, you have to learn how to write several times. First you have to learn the two syllabaries and when you've mastered them (which will take you like a fortnight or so), you get to learn kanji (or at the very least, to read kanji). There's 2136 that are considered of regular use, so good luck with that.

However, if you're 100% sure that you want to do it, there's several free resources I can share with you.

First, there's a pretty good grammar guide that almost every Japanese learner uses: http://www.guidetojapanese.org/learn/grammar There's also an app that contains the whole guide and several exercises that's called obenkyo. You should probably start here, it's pretty good at guiding you through the whole process.

Next, there's Memrise, a webpage where you can learn through flashcards: https://www.memrise.com/home/ There's several courses where you can learn japanese vocabulary and the such, so it's pretty useful.

Then, there's Erin's challenge: https://www.erin.ne.jp/ It's based on a TV series and most of all it helps you get acquainted with the language through videos and gives you some exercises to practice. It can get childish at times, but it's still a useful resource.

They've recently created a Duolingo course for android and ios too. Basically, you practice the language by translating short phrases. Duolingo is normally quite useful, but this course seemed a tad disappointing. Still, you may want to give it a try.

>>18539873
Finally, if you really want to learn how to write kanji, there's a book that's called "Remembering the kanji". It basically gives you a set of mnemonics so that it's easier to remember vasts amounts of moonrunes. This one's not free (it's not very expensive, but still); but some people argue that learning how to write kanji is not that important because computers are a thing, and that you should be fine by just learning vocabulary.

Whatever the case, as I said, it's a huge commitment. You should probably ask yourself whether it's worth your time or not.

>>18539618
Read the sticky on >>>/int/

>>18539618
There are tons of free textbooks online. Use google and piratesbay to
find them.

>>18539618
Just do it bro. If there's something you wanna do and you can only do it in Japanese then you'll learn fucking Japanese. Also don't listen to the people saying Japanese is difficult to learn. It's only hard if you make it hard. Just focus on the VNs and crack open a dictionary/textbook when a character says something cool and you wanna know how to say it yourself.

>>18539618
Nigga if you really wanted to learn it, you wouldn't be here asking that dumbass question.

One word: commitment.

Do you have it?

>>18539618
you can, just do what works for you and try hard. remember learning a language you WILL have road bumps, and times concepts that will be difficult for you as a person (even if whatever resource you're reading doesn't say it's difficult).

if you are passionate about it, you will learn.

the other anons gave good advice though; don't think japan is some sanctuary place. the rate of suicide is high there for a reason. it has its positives and negatives, but it is currently a dying culture. first I would analyze why exactly you want to learn japanese, and if it's for a different reason other than being passionate about it, address that reason and see why that is.

I've been to japan, very fun place to visit, not a fun place to live. why do you think so many japanese want to leave there after college and come to America? the culture puts so much pressure and is extremely judgemental.