pizardwenis96's recent activity
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Comment on The Password Game in ~tech
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Comment on Place to learn Japanese in ~humanities.languages
pizardwenis96 LinkI would say it depends on what your current level is, and what your objectives are. Do you want to become completely fluent, or just able to converse with people, do you want to live in Japan or...I would say it depends on what your current level is, and what your objectives are. Do you want to become completely fluent, or just able to converse with people, do you want to live in Japan or just have a nice vacation there?
If you're at the beginner level, I would try watching some beginner youtube courses of which there are plenty, just to get a hang of the language, while at the same time studying Hiragana and Katakana. Once you have the basics down, I would recommend that rather than focusing on trying to memorize kanji, you focus on trying to comfortably speak and interpret the language. The best way of doing so would be to actually going to a language school in Japan, but language exchanges are a decent substitute. Several years ago I had success finding language exchange partners on Mixxer, but I can't attest to if the platform is still actively used nowadays. Many people in Japan use HelloTalk though I've never tried the platform myself. Whatever platform you use, your goal should be becoming comfortable speaking the language and listening to others.
Once you reach this level of basic conversational fluency, my recommendations would be consuming Japanese media and building up your vocabulary. Unfortunately by Japanese media I don't mean anime, but rather Japanese youtubers, dramas, variety shows, podcasts, comedians, etc. This will help you both learn how people really speak to each other in various situations, but also build up your knowledge of Japanese culture so you can better interact with people upon coming to Japan. For building up vocabulary, I would highly recommend that you try to become completely proficient in the N3 vocabulary list (there are flashcard tools on Memrise or Anki that work well). Don't fall into the trap of just trying to study a bunch of individual kanji (unless you really care about being able to write Japanese by hand for some reason) or trying to jump ahead to the advanced N1 vocabulary. I guarantee you that if you could comfortably use all of the N3 vocabulary and grammar in natural conversation, you'd be more fluent than 95% of Japan living foreigners I've met. Finally, even though I don't find the majority of anime to be particularly useful for learning, manga is actually a great way to get comfortable reading Japanese. There are plenty of manga that use ふりがな which will make the reading experience a lot easier as you're getting started, particularly in the ones more targeted towards middle or elementary schoolers.
Finally we get to the really advanced Japanese. This is the level where if you're not planning to move to Japan long term, it's really not worth the time of effort. The first thing I would tackle at this stage is Pitch Accent. This is the reason that every Japanese person you speak to on the phone can tell you're a foreigner. I won't go into the specifics, but Dogen on youtube has a pretty famous series explaining it in depth. This is where I would also start working through those N1 vocabulary lists and building up your lexicon with words that make you sound significantly more sophisticated. I would also start reading actual books at this stage. Light novels are fine if that's your interest, or you could try picking up a Murakami novel as his style is a bit easier to read. What's really important at this stage is finding ways to be immersed in Japanese so that you can start thinking in Japanese rather than English. The easiest way is living in Japan, but otherwise consume as much Japanese media as you can.
Hope something in that was helpful to you and I can try to answer any questions if you have them.
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Comment on Thoughts on Final Fantasy 16 in ~games
pizardwenis96 LinkI'm enjoying it quite a bit personally. I understand this isn't the game some people wanted it to be, but for me coming in with no expectations, it's been a great run so far. Personally, I find a...I'm enjoying it quite a bit personally. I understand this isn't the game some people wanted it to be, but for me coming in with no expectations, it's been a great run so far. Personally, I find a lot of similarities to FFX which I am a huge fan of, in terms of the character arcs and the world building. I really don't understand the complaints about the side quests I've seen, sure they're fetch quests like basically every other game, but none of them feel pointless to me. Each one is building on the world in some way to reinforce a previous concept, or to add in some additional context. And the political development! When you get to around the 40% mark and are introduced to a conflict map breaking down all the major incidents, that really excited me to see clearly laid out.
That's not to say I don't have complaints. I do wish there were more customization options to the way you approach battle. You don't really have to understand your enemy at all to fight them besides dodging their basic attack patterns. There's no real use of tactics in battle, like certain elements being stronger, using appropriate debuffs, etc. I do still enjoy the combat, but I'm unsure if I will be motivated to attempt a NG+ after beating the main story unless things change later in the game.
Rules 26-28
Rule 26: Your password must contain twice as many italic characters as bold
Rule 27: At least 30% of your password must be in the Wingdings font
Rule 28: Your password must include this color in hex
Unfortunately Paul died before I could get 28 working with all the other rules