From a fellow beginner :)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Raymond
dont know where to start! :(
I don't know how much you know, so I may be making a total fool out of myself.
But if you are an absolute beginner like me :bawling: ; this I would like to suggest.
First learn your 50 syllabry chart for reading~writing Japanese words.
1. KATAKANA: repeat the strokes while reciting the syllables out loud like
� Ah, � Ah, � Ah, � Ah, ...
い Ih, い Ih, い Ih, い Ih, ...
う Uh, う Uh, う Uh, う Uh, ...
え Eh, え Eh, え Eh, え Eh, ...
お Oh, お Oh, お Oh, お Oh, ...
until you're pretty comfortable with spitting out the syllables.
(The h's are there only to say that these are pure vowels, not the English glides.)
Now before I go any further, the strokes may be difficult at first. There should be a million of those stroke teaching pages on the web, but I found one right here (partial; but it's got the first 3 charts) http://www.wa-pedia.com/forum/showthread.php?t=13013
Once you're done, then there is the HIRAGANA for recent loan words. It has somewhat simpler strokes.
Don't worry about the KANJI words at the beginning. These loan words from Chinese have their own Japanified readings, and you can learn just a couple each time. Please don't let KANJI scare you away. Even the average Japanese have trouble recognizing every single KANJI, by the way :-)
Anyway, I would hate to scare you off by giving you more that I should, but there's one very nice site I just found today, here http://www.davidhallgren.se/nihon by one JREF member.
Check out the stuff, and ask around; I don't know much, but I almost completed one semester of college Japanese, which wore off in time. :bawling:
Good luck! :wave:
ps. Oh, when you're done with the kana's you will like this introduction http://www.wa-pedia.com/forum/showthread.php?t=12601 which has only 4 kanji. 私 watashi "me" 名前 namae "name" and two more which I can't read yet. But that should get you through down to 80% of the excellent introduction.!! Have fun!! :wave: