Quote:
Originally Posted by zalder
Particular question, the software I am using has all the alphabets romanji to katana I know to stay away from romanji and except for the first time through grammer parts I generaly do, but of the others which should I focus on? Hirigani I am beginig to understand... kanji and furigani scare me...
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Is hiragan
a and furigan
a. Kanji is the only one that ends with an "i".
Furigana is just hiragana when its right next to a kanji to show you how to pronounce it. The three types of characters are hiragana, katakana and kanji, and you need to learn them all if you actually want to learn the language.
Learn the hiragana first, then work on the katakana and kanji. Hiragana are the most basic characters and are everywhere. Katakana is a lot less common but you still need to know them, as they are used for loanwords and non-Japanese names (oh, and onomatopoeia like sound effects). Learn the kanji last. If you really put your mind to it, you can get the hiragana and katakana down pretty well in a few weeks, maybe even less. You'll spend several years learning the ~2,000 "basic" kanji.
I've always been under the impression that Rosetta Stone is really bad for learning Japanese and your post only reinforces that. It sounds like Rosetta stone is just throwing things at you with no real rhyme, reason, or any useful guidance or explanation. The fact that you had to ask how that question about hiragana, katakana and kanji means the program didn't tell you how to go about it. I also noticed that you mentioned nothing about grammar or sentence structure. Has it even explained anything about the grammar, or is it just throwing vocabulary and phrases at you?
You should really look into getting some sort of actual books designed to teach the language. I've been using Yookoso for my classes and its worked out pretty well for me. Just note that HAVE to buy the workbook too; its not just more exercises, that's where all the kanji information is that you need to actually learn it. This thread also has other book recommendations. Actually reading the thread would be a good idea.