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Eh, this is harder than I thought. But if everyone who is interested writting lessons and is willing to commit themselves to roughly one lesson a week would make themselves known by pming me or just posting here, that would be nice.

yeah, I know, that's mostly my fault sweatdrop okay. so two people (myself and entivore) we might just start ourself and add people as we go.

Somebody's probably already said this, but it can't hurt to have it said once or twice more.

Not everyone that is part of this guild is going to know how to set up their computer to recognize and reproduce Japanese characters. If a Learning Japanese Thread is posted, one of the first posts should probably be instructions on how to set up computer recognition of hiragana, katakana, and kanji, or a link to a web page that has the information.

Just a thought.

I'd be more than happy to post lessons. I've taken japanese for about five years now, and I would be more than capable of helping out. Besides, it'll keep me up on my japanese. Now that I'm not in classes, it's harder to keep myself fresh with it.

Just let me know when to start.

Oh, and just as a question, would it be alright if I used my japanese book to help give me a little direction with the lessons? That way I can kind of teach it the way I learned it, and help make it easier to keep organized.

I see nothing wrong with using your book as a reference, just don't copy it word for word of course.

Koiyuki: I know it's been a while, I blame myself, but now I can focus more on organizing lessons. Let's regroup:

People interested in writing lessons:
Myself
Enocia
Koiyuki

anyone else interested please post so

Format:
I think everyone should be assigned a day of the week, and have until midnight Pacific time to post their lesson (or 1am, or 2am, whatever, we're flexible) If they miss a week, no big deal, if they're missing a lot, then they probably shouldn't commit to writing lessons anymore.

Each lesson should have some grammar in it, rather than a bunch of long vocab lists. Lesson writers should read previous lessons and build on them.

I'm not sure if we should start with desu/masu form then eventually introduce plain, or dive right into plain form. I personally learned desu/masu first and think it's a good foundation (and you use pre-masu form quite a bit) but plain is more practical for everyday conversation. We'll see what the consensus is.

Writing in romaji vs. hiragana: Since not all of our member are on computers with japanese support, if we write in kana we'd need to also write in romaji. If lesson writers think it's best to write kana then romaji under it, that's what we'll do. I think the boxes or mumbled japanese is distracting and would maybe rather have double posts (post one lesson in romaji then repost in kana) or even have concurrent threads (a kana thread and romaji thread)

Anything else, disagreements with what I just proposed? Let's talk and then get these lessons going!

I would agree. In my experience with Japanese, the language goes like this

Friends/people you feel comfortable with razz lain form

Business transactions/buying stuff/food/finding your way 'round town: polite form

People of much higher social standing than you: Super polite

I would really love to help out with this. I don't have a ton of free time, but I can definately devote part of it to this.

I agree that teineikei (polite) should be taught first. Anyone use the Minna no Nihongo textbook? I like the format they use. They teach how to conjugate ta-kei and te-kei and a few other forms from the polite form, and it's actually a lot easier than doing it from futsuukei (plain form).

About the kana and the kanji, they could be made into picture files for those who can't read Japanese text. The only thing is, it would take some work. I personally don't have time to do something like that.

I do have time, however, to help put together lessons. Though I would probably base my lessons of Minna no Nihongo, since that book did wonders for me, and I think it's the best Japanese text there is.

Let me know if you want me to do anything. whee