Level of Japanese in DB/Z

[Mr. Robot]

Hey, guys, I'm sorry that almost all of my posts have been new topics, and after this I promise to stop. However, this is a question I'd really like answered.

Could anyone who actually knows Japanese (and at least semi-fluently, not just "I know how to say hello!") please tell me how hard the Japanese in Dragonball is? I have just started learning Japanese.

Specifically, I am interested in reading the manga, but also seeing and understanding the animation (when I get the Movie Dragon Box, specifically.

I know that in the original Tankobon (at least the first few volumes) there is Okurigana--or small kana letters above the Kanji to show pronunciation--to help younger readers. Does anyone know if there is okurigana in the new Kanzenban releases?

Thanks a lot, and I promise to stop posting so many new topics.

[*PINHEAD*]

Sorry, I don't really know Japanese. But I can read it, and as an owner of a tankoubon and kanzenban collection, I think I might help.

I can read a few lines of Japanese in Dragon Ball. Since it was aimed at younger children, I'm guessing the Japanese won't be too difficult. But the only things I can really recognize are the character names, a few phrases, and "I will kill you!"

Yes, there are small kana characters above the Kanji, even in the Kanzenban releases.

[DBW]

Sometimes it's simple to understand, other times it's more complex. You might be able to understand 90% of the dialogue in a particular episode, but then the 10% you're missing out on might be crucial to the development of the plot. As you know, sometimes characters simply yell out "DIE!!" and other times they spend several minutes having complicated conversations.

If you're a beginner to the language, then I'd say it's not really about how much Japanese you know, but how much you actually know about Dragon Ball. If you watch the third Dragon Ball movie raw, and you don't know the plot of the movie, you will most definately be lost, since a lot of the movie revolves around lengthy conversations and complicated plots.

So, technically there's no way of saying "Yeah, it's easy to understand" or "No, it's very difficult to understand" since the complexity of the dialogue changes depending on the scene. If you're familiar with the stories and plots, it shouldn't be too much of a problem, though. You should be able to pick up basic words and piece the sentences together based on your previous knowledge of the scene in question.

[Mr. Robot]

Thanks. I think, since I'll be getting the movie box anyway, the best thing to do is keep on plugging with those 2,000 kanji needed for basic proficiency (at least it's not Chinese...shudder). Other views are welcome though, and thanks both of you who have responded.

[Daimao]

My advice would be to put the kanji away for now and concentrate more on studying grammar until you know it backwards and forwards. Become familiar enough with conjugating your tenses that you don't have to think about them, you just do them. Having a native speaker to talk to is invaluable for developing those skills. As you learn more vocabulary, I would suggest also concentrating on your "helping" verbs, like kureru, ageru, yaru, iku, kuru, and yes, even yagaru. Sometimes the whole meaning of a sentence hinges on them.

After you've got all that down, then start on the kanji. Find a store that sells the kanji juku books that grade schoolers use. Not only will you learn them faster, you'll retain them better, and your handwriting won't suck.

[The S]

I took two and a half years of Japanese in high school, and I still don't know my sentence structure, let alone kanji. Of course my sensei... wasn't exactly a bright woman. She was born in Japan, lived there 29 years, but yet spoke terrible Japanese and English, but spoke perfect Korean o_O

Yeah, I really need to get some money so I can take some Japanese college courses.

[Mr. Robot]

Yeah...I'm in high school and my teacher didn't start teaching us the kana until halfway through the year. Instead, we learned stuff like "Arigato Gozaimasu?" in the roman script. Currently I only know 50 kanji, and like you, my sentence structure really isn't that great...

If you don't have the money for a college course, I've heard that the Rosetta Stone (www.rosettastone.com) is a good CD based course. I've never actually used it, though, besides a demo which seemed pretty good. I might use it though, seeing as I'm going nowhere with school.

[MajinVejitaXV]

My advice would be to put the kanji away for now and concentrate more on studying grammar until you know it backwards and forwards. Become familiar enough with conjugating your tenses that you don't have to think about them, you just do them. Having a native speaker to talk to is invaluable for developing those skills. As you learn more vocabulary, I would suggest also concentrating on your "helping" verbs, like kureru, ageru, yaru, iku, kuru, and yes, even yagaru. Sometimes the whole meaning of a sentence hinges on them.

After you've got all that down, then start on the kanji. Find a store that sells the kanji juku books that grade schoolers use. Not only will you learn them faster, you'll retain them better, and your handwriting won't suck.

Hm, thanks for the advice. Is there a particular set of books/resources you'd recommend for any of this (I'm guessing there are a few publishers that do kanji juku books...)?

Thanks,
Corey

[Mr. Robot]

To anyone that's interested, I found a book that's actually pretty cool. It's called Kanji Pictographix by Michael Rowley, and it has graphics to help you remember the Kanji. Unfortunately, there is no stroke order, and some people say rote memorization is better for them.

A quick question: is Japanese grammar hard, compared to say, English or French grammar?

[Bejiita]

For what I know English is one of the hardest languages to master perfectly. It's the most commonly used one too.

I don't really call myself a fluent Japanese speaker, but I learned how to read Katakana and Hiragana pretty easily(when you put your mind to it) but understanding the language is a different matter, especially when you are learning yourself.

My advice would be to learn Katakana and go on several websites to see if you are learning by trying to translate words, while you do this learn common phrases and learn what words mean, then move to Hiragana, and for sentence structure, I'm sure Dragonball Z in Japanese with accurate subtitles can help a lot, really.

Japanese is actually supposed to be an easy language to pick up on, for example, in school I did French for nearly 4 years and didn't learn jack, but I learned Japanese at home all on my own, and know more Japanese than French.

Kanji...only bother to try learning these symbols once fluent in both the other styles, this will take a lot of time and practice, and there's no point in writing them all and trying to remember them because you won't. This will be the hardest task to learn, and trying to learn these befor learning the other two alphabets is like trying to run before you can walk and you'll probably give up.

[Daimao]

Hm, thanks for the advice. Is there a particular set of books/resources you'd recommend for any of this (I'm guessing there are a few publishers that do kanji juku books...)?

Thanks,
Corey

Jim Breen has put together a nice collection of essential grammar topics here. If you have all of these down cold, you're doing pretty well、so use iｔ as a checklist. The pages uses fairly simple, straightfoward examples (this assumes that you already know your basic sentence structure, your grammatical particles, and so on.) You might want to also have a window open to Jeffrey's J<>E Server, so if you can't read the kanji there yet, you can cut, paste, and look it up.

I went with Obunsha's "Kanji Kyoushitsu" juku books. They have stroke order, points to watch when writing them (so your 熱 doesn't get mistaken for 勢), tricks to remember when to use which ji (is it 厚い, 暑い, or 熱い?), tricks to remember some of them by (正しい　言葉　は　証拠　に　なる), and other cool things. Use whatever books you can get your hands on, though. Do them in grade order, and don't skip the practice pages.

[kenisu3000]

Hm, thanks for the advice. Is there a particular set of books/resources you'd recommend for any of this (I'm guessing there are a few publishers that do kanji juku books...)?

Thanks,
Corey

Jim Breen has put together a nice collection of essential grammar topics here.

Yeah, Jim Breen's online dictionary is fantastic too. Though that's what started up my whole concern about "Zakeyagatte" (Remember that thread...?).

[*PINHEAD*]

Learning Japanese on your own is hard. At least, it was for me, which is why I gave up. Your best bet, as already mentioned, is to get a book or lessons or something and study from there.