Learning Japanese with Pimsleur or Rosetta
Stone
Japanese is a language that is
currently spoken by more than 100 million inhabitants of Japan,
as well as Japanese natives living in Hawaii and in North and
South America.
It is also widely spoken as a second language by Chinese and
Korean natives who lived under Japanese occupation until just a
few years ago.
There are three categories of words that exist in the
Japanese language. Native Japanese words constitute the largest
of these three categories.
The next category is those words which
were originally borrowed from China in earlier history.
The smallest category consists of words which were borrowed
in modern times from other languages such as English as well as
a few words that hail from other Asian languages.
The Japanese language has an open syllable sounds
pattern.
Pimsleur Japanese I, II, & III
Complete Courses
Dr. Paul Pimsleur
Japanese Levels I, II & III. Includes 48 hours of
spoken language practice in ninety 30-minute audio
lessons...
This simply means that most syllables
end in a vowel, which is very similar to other Asian
languages. The five vowels in the Japanese language are the
same as the English language. The vowel length however,
often distinguishes words. There are ten basic consonants
in Japanese and many are palatalized in front of the
vowels.
The Japanese language uses many word orders. The one
inflexible order however is the verb. In the Japanese language
the verb must appear at the sentence’s end. The core element of
the sentence is the verb simply because the verb expresses
actions or events which reference the other words.
This core is typically referred to as the head of a
sentence. The Japanese language always places the head of the
sentence as the end. Unlike many other languages, the verb in
Japanese does not indicate number or gender. The same form for
the verb is used with both plural and singular subjects and
there is never any gender distinction.
The verb simply inflects for tense, negation, mood and
aspect.
This is not as confusing as it may sound. Learning Japanese
is just as easy as learning any other foreign language. The
thing to remember is to focus on what you are learning to
ensure that you retain the information for use when you become
fluent. If you are planning to enlist the aid of language
programs then you can effectively teach yourself to speak
Japanese.
Many people have found that language learning programs give
them a wonderful resource for mastering a foreign language,
without paying the high cost of taking local college courses.
Rosetta Stone and Pimsleur are two of the most popularly chosen
programs for learning foreign languages today.
Both offer wonderful methods of teaching Japanese. The
Rosetta Stone program is a computer software program that uses
images and other aspects to help master the language. However,
this program does not offer the speaking ability of the
Pimsleur program.
Pimsleur uses CD’s which you can take with you to listen to
in the car or on a plane if needed. When used together, these
two programs can have you speaking Japanese, as well as reading
and writing it fluently with ease.
As with any foreign language learning you may feel overwhelmed
when you first begin.
It is not uncommon for those learning a new language to feel
apprehensive about what they are about to undertake. You can
learn to speak Japanese fluently as well as read and write the
language if you remember to devote the needed time to your
lessons and above all relax and have fun with learning this new
skill.
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