Do you know Japanese?

I was just wondering how many people here actually know japanese.  I don't but I will hopefully be learning it in college one day, for now I am trying to learn the basics on the net, so if you know of any great sites or books please share.

Hi, this thread might help you with links and references. Other than that, there's always about.com for starters.

I've learned the basics on the net, and I have a decent site that I couldn't find in Aazealh's linked thread:

http://contest.thinkquest.jp/tqj1999/20190/eng/index.html

Very good site for easy reading material. You can click on the words in the stories and
the definition pops up in the right side of the screen. Even has reading comprehension questions at the end of the readings...good stuff.

That site is just for basic reading material though, it won't teach you grammar.
There are plenty random sites on the web that you can use to learn different peices of
basic japanese grammar.

The site I learned from was yesjapan.com. It's great for learning basic grammar and vocabulary, but you'll have to pay monthly for it. I found it worth the price, though.

You might also want to invest in a starter dictionary (like kodansha's kanji learner's). And maybe some kanji cards. Some websites also provide sheets with squares for you to print out, to practice kana/kanji.

I remember reading that thread awhile ago... forgot about it though.

I can't believe how many people here know japanese, it's crazzzy.

anywho here is an mp3 site, good stuff:

http://www.hickorytech.net/~nic111/

I'll just add my two cents as well. The Kodansha books are very good as well as some by Wolfgang Hadamitzky, Mark Spahn (Tuttle Publishing, I believe). Especially an extremely large Kanji Dictionary: 47,000 compound total, plus all the jyoyo--er (I'll save myself the trouble since I can't type in Japanese at work - I hate romaji). They just have lots of seperate charts with useful Kanji grouped together for easier access. Hope any of that helps.

When I was at EB Games I found this software a while back called "Lets Learn Japanese" by a software company called Nodtronics for $10. Don't know where you'll find it, could even be just in Australia but it's a great little program.

Makes things seem pretty easy; It has any words, sentences or characters spoken to how it would be pronounced by Japanese so you aren't lead astray to how to say things.

It takes you through what you need to know step by step, makes it easy to remember by making little memory games to remember Hiragana, Katakana and various other different vocabs without much difficulty. I keep playing the games to memorise it and within a period of time I start to remember.

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/Let-s-Learn-Japanese_W0QQitemZ7209152839QQcategoryZ3788QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Great little program, great investment. I have learned a fair amount in the time i've had it; it has been over a year but i'm pretty lazy and have been taking it quite slowly. If you see it, get it.

For those who have never read it :

You want to learn Japanese ? -> http://pepper.idge.net/japanese/

I find this one hilarious ^^

For learning and translating I use http://wakan.manga.cz/ this resourse.
And my Japanese teacher as well.