Learning Japanese question

[Cha0tika]

Hey guys and girls! A few questions to ask you lovely people ^_^

First off, I was just wondering if anybody who has learnt japanese could give me a push in the right direction in what resources to use/what to buy? My problem is there seem to be more than enoguh books out there to confuse me, before I've even started learning! I'm in England if that would change where I can order from if I need to buy anything online.

Secondly, if anybody has a bit of spare time, could they do a quick trans on 2 Shakugan No Shana pics I found minus translations?
( http://img152.imageshack.us/img152/2726/1140058316058fv4.jpg and http://img244.imageshack.us/img244/7493/1140058374088os8.jpg ) The feel of the second one is more obvious, but the words elude me ;)

My final question/query is When I'm viewing some webpages, even though I have japanese fonts installed show squares and jumbled coding when viewing what is supposedly Japanese characters, does anybody know how to fix this

Thanks in advance for any help anybody can give me. ^_^

[Victory]

from my bookmarks
http://meiko.web.infoseek.co.jp/ kanji
http://kanji.free.fr/gakushuu.php kanji
http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/cgi-bin/wwwjdic.cgi?1B dictionary
http://www.guidetojapanese.org/ grammar

Personally I just got a japanese grammar and a book with the kanji in it
I like the kyouiku kanji order best (the one taught in elementary school) ... just makes more sense to me

regarding the last question you have to mess with the encodings
it's under the view menu if you're using firefox

more info
I would start with guidetojapanese.org as it gives a very nice learning order, and gives out tips on everything. I use the grammar I have for reference purposes as it's more comprehensive but uses linguistics terms

If you have firefox, get rikaichan (http://www.polarcloud.com/rikaichan/)
I use it all the time!

About kanji, I prefer the elementary school list to the JLPT one... I thought that one had a "gaijin-san is setting up shop in Japan and needs business terms ASAP" feel I didn't like. Makes little difference to the bottom line as they both pull their kanji from the general-use list... I think

Picture translations... I haven't watched shana but I'd say
"Wait, Yohan. I left that place for you right now."
エンゲージリンク engagement link? the ties that come from being engaged?
「約束の二人」の片割れ one part of the promised couple
that's the lady's name at the bottom but I don't know what it means
"Being close like this... My beloved one is here"
Him: *freaking out* haha.
questions for better people: why does she add a て after 待って?

[Cha0tika]

:O Sugoi! Thanks a lot for helping me on all of them at once, you've been a great help. Are there different ways of teaching like I think you touched on, like business and the way school children learn? I'm not thinking of going to Japan any time soon (even though I would love to, alas.) so I think a business course wouldn't be the best thing for me. Thanks a lot for the links, but one small thing: the first one seems to be all Japanese making it quite hard to understand, although after I figured out it was a kanji list it was a bit easier, but without a single English word it might be hard for me at first :P, unless I'm missing something, and the second one is in French I think, although the tables will be useful ^_^ the Jdict and grammar look interesting, looks like my bookmarks have some new buddies. And thanks for the translation, I see Japanese can be quite open to interpretation when translated into English but your translation is nice, I envy your abilities :P

Just wondering, has anybody had any good books they use to learn Japanese? I need something to keep me on my toes away from the computer :P

Edit: just to say I love Rakaichan, that's the best type of dictionary I could ask for.

Thanks again, Cha0 out.

[hiroaki]

questions for better people: why does she add a て after 待って?

待って is wait, 待ってて is wait for me.

This is Shakugan no Shana's character (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shakugan_no_Shana)

[Victory]

Are there different ways of teaching like I think you touched on, like business and the way school children learn?Those are kanji lists, the actual method you use to learn them (and the grammar to put them together) depends on what resources you have

this is what I use
"systematic japanese grammar" 1 & 2 by reiko shinamori (I don't know if they have made this available in english sorry)
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0804820775/002-2554243-8288845?v=glance&n=283155
^mine is an older version so it doesn't look as spiffy but the essential is there
(plus anything in japanese for practice. you can read fricking cereal boxes... if you have japanese cereal boxes)

Regarding the links, the first one has funny gifs explaining what the character means... it's for fun only at this point since it goes by way too fast for me to read it. The link in french I found very useful, you can input the compounds in rikaichan to get their meaning as the mouse over feature doesn't work too great with that format (on my end anyways). At the very least the site gives you stroke order... I'm sure there are others with similar info online mind you.

About the translation, I'd be grateful if someone else could look it over and see if (more like where) I screwed up, as I don't feel very confident. in before comment on giving out book recommendations anyways

[Cha0tika]

Ah thanks! I'll check the book out, thanks for your help ^_^

[melda]

aww i want to learn japanese too this is great info!!! thanks for askin' the question
lol not that i could ever actually manage to master a new language
:~)