TUJ Circle

日本語の勉強、頑張って！！(Rosetta Stone)

• Author: Jasmine Louis (Click to see my profile)
• Posted: July 1, 2009, 10:19 am
• Categories: Campus Life, Tokyo Life
• Tags: campus, japan, japanese, language, learning japanese, nihon, nihongo, rosetta stone, student, study abroad, temple university, tuj
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日本語の勉強、頑張って！！[nihongo no benkyou, ganbatte!!] (Roughly translated as: Good luck with your study of Japanese!!)

Learning Japanese is… ugh, there’s too many words I want to use. Difficult, fun, challenging, tricky, rewarding, empowering–to name a few.

There are countless websites, podcasts, and textbooks dedicated to a student’s advancement in Japanese, but I haven’t found THE outlet that makes me feel like I am actually getting closer to mastering the language. The outlet that makes me say, “SCORE!! I AM LEARNING!” …I’m trying a variety of methods right now but only one has filled me with satisfaction and glee.

First off, I’ve been studying Japanese for a total of 8 months.

The first 3 months was on my own, browsing through Japanese language site like http://japanese.about.com/ and http://www.timwerx.net/language/jpverbs/index.htm but the tremendous help came from a computer program called Rosetta Stone. If you haven’t heard of it (and even if you have), and you want to learn the basics of Japanese relatively fast, the only thing I can say to you is “GO BUY IT NOW!!” Especially if you are starting out with no prior experience in Japanese. Rosetta Stone has been the best thing that’s ever happened to me and I’m trying to find a way to buy discs two and three/figure out a cheaper substitute.

The greatest thing about Rosetta Stone is that is completely fits my personality and my needs. If you are 1) impatient 2) like to SEE progress 3) want nothing more than to speak with people; then Rosetta Stone is for you. Rosetta Stone works so well because there isn’t an Japanese-English translation– there isn’t any English at all–and it works through picture presentation and speech recognition.

For example, a series of pictures will appear on the screen and one by one, the program tells you the name of the item in Japanese.

いぬ (inu)

This is obviously a dog. With your eyes and ears, you associate the animal with “いぬ” (pronounced ee-nu). In the alphabet (or romanji), it’s “inu.”
Because of the repetition of the sound and the picture, you will no longer think, “okay… dog in Japanese is ee-nu.” No translation in your head. It’s not even a “dog” anymore, it’s simply “いぬ.”

From my experience, this program has enabled me to simply put Japanese words into my English brain. When using textbooks, it was as if I had a separate brain just for my Japanese vocabulary. One part of my brain, and the other part was reserved for Japanese vocabulary. Every time I wanted to use it, I had to take a minute, open up that side of my brain, think about what I wanted to say in English, translate it in my head, and then say whatever it is I wanted to say in Japanese. It’s so time consuming and frustrating.  The pictures drill into your head what the words mean without really trying. And the program is like a game because it won’t let you pass to the next level until you get the pronunciations right. So this means you have to actually SAY the things you’re learning, further reinforcing the words, sentence structures, and concepts.

However, I don’t mean to paint a pretty picture of Rosetta Stone. The first problem is that it’s pricey. At $260, one may wonder if it’s worth it. I assure you, it is. With disc one alone, I had learned hiragana, katakana, some kanji, and useful phrases and verb forms you won’t even touch until you get to the latter half of Beginner Japanese. While class is great for writing (I didn’t write a lick of Japanese until I had class), Rosetta Stone is much better for truly grasping the meaning of words and sentence structure.

The second problem is, you’re not talking with a real person and there are things, such as proper intonation, as that you’ll still be unfamiliar with. Well, that is, if you only have disc one. I’m not sure what the other discs have.

Unfortunately, I am back in the textbook/classroom stage because I finished disc one. Albeit, I have to go back through the lessons again just for extra reinforcement, but I really really want discs 2 and 3.

So now, I am trying to find different ways to learn Japanese. There are many methods I’ve been picking up, throwing out and picking up again. These methods include, watching Japanese television, studying/going to Japanese class, speaking with my very close Japanese friend, going to my favorite Japanese bar on Friday nights and speaking with the other regulars, etc.

I will explain the many joys and many many frustrations of my current methods in a later post. Don’t get me wrong, they are helpful… but if you’re like me, they’re not fast enough :)

Stay tuned.

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