Useless Info Dept. What do Konica, Yachica, and Leica Have in Common?

Hmmmmmmm - what other "ca" camera companies were there? Drawing a blank here, the entry says "many others". Bronica? That's all I can think of...
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Well, I didn't know that. I knew that 'ka' in Japanese often indicates a person is asking a question, such as 'how are you'; "O Ganki Deska?"

Fujica also, I guess, although it is now FujiFilm.
 
Why hello, Mr. Mattock. Long time no speak, hope you've been well. Duh - Fujica! LOL - the Compact Deluxe is my favorite RF. Talk about overlooking the obvious. No wonder I can't find matching socks in the morning, when my wife magically finds them in two seconds...

Yes, "ka" in Japanese is a question marker.
Genki des, o cogi suma de
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NickTrop said:
Why hello, Mr. Mattock. Long time no speak, hope you've been well. Duh - Fujica! LOL - the Compact Deluxe is my favorite RF. Talk about overlooking the obvious. No wonder I can't find matching socks in the morning, when my wife magically finds them in two seconds...

Yes, "ka" in Japanese is a question marker.
Genki des, o cogi suma de
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Click to expand...

I am having to relearn my Japanese. After twenty-some odd years, some is still there, strangely; while other bits have completely fled. Still, it is fun.
 
LOL - I suck at the "ca" camera game. Yes, there were many others.

Mr. Mattock -

As far as Japanese, not sticking with guitar lessons and not learning a second language are two laments in life. So, I had access to Pimsleur Japanese and have been listening to it in the car for the last year and 1/2. I bought a used copy of Rosetta Stone (which I don't really like, personally). I also bought Declan software to learn Kana (easy) and Kanji along with Japanese for Busy People.

It's a rough language to learn. Their writing system, while visually artful, is friggin' tough. But it's a fun diversion and at least I'm learning something on my way in to work and checking something off that "life list". Every so often I pick up a subtitled Japanese flick from Netflix and that's a humbling experience. I figure it will take at least 5 years to be just "somewhat" fluent.
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NickTrop said:
LOL - I suck at the "ca" camera game. Yes, there were many others.

Mr. Mattock -

As far as Japanese, not sticking with guitar lessons and not learning a second language are two laments in life. So, I had access to Pimsleur Japanese and have been listening to it in the car for the last year and 1/2. I bought a used copy of Rosetta Stone (which I don't really like, personally). I also bought Declan software to learn Kana (easy) and Kanji along with Japanese for Busy People.

It's a rough language to learn. Their writing system, while visually artful, is friggin' tough. But it's a fun diversion and at least I'm learning something on my way in to work and checking something off that "life list". Every so often I pick up a subtitled Japanese flick from Netflix and that's a humbling experience. I figure it will take at least 5 years to be just "somewhat" fluent.
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Click to expand...

I have never attempted to master hiragana or katajana. I muddle along with romanji. Would you recommend the Pimsleur, then? My re-exposure has been a bit more in-person, which both helps and hurts. I also had the chance to learn to play guiter and did not, wish I had. However, it's never too late. One thing at a time, though.
 
bmattock said:
I have never attempted to master hiragana or katajana. I muddle along with romanji. Would you recommend the Pimsleur, then? My re-exposure has been a bit more in-person, which both helps and hurts. I also had the chance to learn to play guiter and did not, wish I had. However, it's never too late. One thing at a time, though.
Click to expand...

If you're on a budget, the best bet is the classic text, Japanese for Busy People with the CD (so you get the pronunciations...) That's only $25 or something... If you have access to Pimsleur, that's really good imo but not worth the $350 or so per each unit (1,2,3...) You won't have a huge vocab but will have a good handle on the grammar and would be a "master" at "survival Japanese" and a very good basis to build from. but certainly not conversationally fluent.

The reason I'm not a huge fan of Rosetta is their immersion method makes learning grammar to hard. See that "ka" example you mentioned? Imagine having to figure that out from looking at a bunch of pictures, 100% Japanese audio without instruction in English? Good for vocab and basic verbs... Bad, bad for grammar and sentence construction. If I didn't go through a good bit of Pimsleur before trying Rosetta I would have been lost.
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If you want to learn Kana here's a great interactive free site. Declan is good too (software, inexpensive) but this is just as good and free:
http://www.realkana.com/
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bmattock said:
Thanks very much! Yes, budget is quite important.
Click to expand...

Japanese for Busy People, then. Do get the CD though. There are, I think, 3 books. I only have the first and it covers about 1/2 of what all three Pimsleurs covers. Here's a free Kanji learning app:
http://web.uvic.ca/kanji-gold/

Also, I've heard from others that there's a lot of good podcasts for learning Japanese on the web - never tried these though. Also, believe it or not, there's some decent stuff on Youtube.
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