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Benny’s Language Hacking Guide Review

Posted on March 15, 2012 by ハヴネス

I put this is in my recommended products page quite some time ago and have been meaning to a proper review of it for a while now. Benny the Irish Polyglot is a champion of the output method of language learning, and whilst I don’t learn exactly the way he does, there’s a lot of merit in his Language Hacking Guide, which has grown in size and scope and is now hosted on its own page. So, before I go into a full-blown review of this product, let me introduce you to Benny and recap what the output method is.

Benny the Irish Polyglot is an Irish guy (no, he doesn’t drink for those of you who like to stereotype) who travels around the world learning languages in short amounts of time. Typically, he aims to be functional in a language after a mere 3 months, and he’s very successful at what he does. Now, his level of the language, while being remarkable in a short time period, would probably not land him a job in whatever country he happens to be in, and he definitely couldn’t attend a university there, but he still functions better than most foreigners do! With that said, allow me to recap the output method.

If the input method is learning through primarily reading and listening, then the output method is learning through speaking. It is Benny’s belief that you should start speaking from day one, and learn how to speak and understand a language by speaking, writing, etc. He’s learned quite a few languages this way, including Kingon, and is currently well on his way towards his goal in Mandarin Chinese.

So, why did I buy this ebook? For starters, I do like to include some output in my own method. My method is a combination that consists mostly of input and academic with a dose of output in there as well. However, when I’m tutoring students (I tutor in economics and psychology) who don’t speak English very well, I do like to be able to use some of their language. Basically, when rephrasing doesn’t work, I often switch to whatever language it is they speak and meet them in the middle.

Because of this, I have to be able to speak at least some of the language quickly, and hopefully be capable in the language just a few months into our studying lessons. For this purpose alone I bought The Language Hacking Guide, and I credit it to much of the success I’ve had in this venture.

First of all, the guide dispels a lot of myths regarding language learning and focuses on your mentality. It’s not about specific tools (I suppose this would be difficult to do because the focus of this guide is on learning in general, not geared toward a specific language), but about a philosophy on learning and how to implement learning by speaking on day one. As such, if you’re looking for lesson plans, etc., then this book simply isn’t for you.

If I had to compare it something, I’d say it’s kind of like The Quick and Dirty Guide to Learning Languages Fast, except with the focus on output.

Anyway, this is a book I highly recommend, especially if you travel a lot. If you want to learn a new language well enough to communicate with natives, but not necessarily hold down a job, or need a way to learn quickly, then this is an excellent book for you.

Categories: Products | Tags: Guide, hacking, language

Playing Japanese Games Part 2

Posted on January 23, 2012 by ハヴネス

4 Comments

Part 1 was focused on retro gaming, and now it’s time to figure out how you can play modern games in Japanese. As I said, I don’t like using emulators for moderns games because they’re buggy, slow, and an even bigger pain to configure, so I prefer to actually try and play the games on consoles. Here’s how to get these games.

1. Find games that give you the option to change the language. I’m thinking of games like Sonic Adventure 2: Battle for GameCube, where you can adjust the language. This is a very cheap and good way to get Japanese games, although there aren’t many games like these.

2. Buy a Nintendo DS Lite. These are completely region free, so you can buy Japanese games without having to buy a Japanese system or mod a system you already own. As before, try to play games you’re already familiar with when starting out, but I’d like to recommend a couple anyway.

Pokemon Black/White: This games is great for both beginners and more advanced students. The gameplay is self-explanatory, so even if you haven’t played this particular game in English before, you’ll figure it out quickly. Also, it gives you option to play it with or without kanji, so if you’re not ready for full-blown kanji yet, you can change it to all hiragana.

The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass/Spirit Tracks: To be totally honest, these are pretty weak games as far as the Zelda franchise is concerned, complete with gimmicky controls. However, these games are excellent for learning/practicing Japanese, as you can tap the kanji you see to get a reading of it! No more scrunched up, hard to read furigana! That feature alone makes these games worth it, although I didn’t care for them as much as other Zelda games. Oh, but I found “Spirit Tracks” to be much better.

3. Mod your system. For me, the cons outweigh the pros here, but modding your system to allow you to play Japanese games, as well as homebrew games, is pretty popular. Now, I’ve only ever done this once, with an old Wii I got, and I didn’t mind it. I’m glad that I didn’t do it on my actual Wii, though, because modding a system means that you can no longer update it.

Modding can also be hugely expensive. I haven’t found a PS3 equivalent of this (and of course not a PS1/PS2 equivalent), but if you want to save money on modding your Wii, there’s a software this guy is selling for much cheaper than the hundreds of dollars you have to spend to have someone else do it for you, and for cheaper than buying a chip. Just ignore the blatant, in-your-face advertising this guy does to try and get you to buy his product.

4. Buy a Japanese Wii/PS3/PS2/PS/etc. This is pretty expensive, but it’s how I like to do it. A tip I’d like to share, however, is don’t buy from Amazon Japan (their shipping will kill you if you live outside of Japan), but buy from a site like PlayAsia. If you live in Japan, go ahead and buy from Amazon Japan, but for those of us who live outside of Japan, that can get expensive very quickly. Granted, anytime you buy a Japanese language game, no matter where it’s from, it will always be a bit more expensive than the English version!

I’d also recommend you stick to a Wii, which PlayAsia is finally offering again (I’ve waited months for them to restock these!), or a PSP. There’s nothing wrong with a PS3, if you really want one, but they’re horribly pricey. XBox 360 isn’t very popular in Japan, so finding good Japanese games for it just isn’t worth it.

Well, I’d say that’s that. It’s much cheaper to just buy manga and anime, but if you really want to play Japanese games, then hopefully I’ve covered all the different ways. Good luck!

Categories: Games, Insight, Products, Websites | Tags: games, video games

Playing Japanese Games Part 1

Posted on January 23, 2012 by ハヴネス

3 Comments

I’m doing a two-part post today about playing Japanese video games. The Japanese love their video games, and a lot of Japanese learners love them, too. Before I go into how to get them, I’d like to point out the pros and cons of playing them, so that you don’t hastily go out and get them only to regret it.

PROS: I highly recommend watching anime, reading manga, and playing video games as a way to get a feel for what real Japanese is like, even if you’re not into sentence mining. Anything you can do to bet away from the sanitized Japanese that your textbook has to offer is a plus. Modern games often have voice acting with captions, so it’s like watching J-Drama with captions.

CONS: The game screens can make reading Japanese a huge pain. This isn’t as much of a problem with some of the newer games as well as games that are all in hiragana, but sometimes reading kanji on a SNES/Sega Genesis/NES/N64/Atari/etc. screen can be a pain.

Also, if you’re a beginner, it’ll be hard to find games at your level. You can either play an overload of Pokemon, as well as some other games for little kids, or you can wait until you feel more comfortable with reading and understanding Japanese.

So, here’s part 1, which focuses on retro gaming! I love retro gaming, and there’s a ton of good games out there. Here’s a few ways to get them in Japanese.

1. Virtual console on the Wii. Even the English version of the Wii has a few Japanese games to download for its virtual console. Wii points cards are $20 each, which really isn’t too bad. This is affordable, and a great way to support Nintendo.

2. Buy a retro gaming system. Head to eBay or look for used game systems. Sometimes these systems can get expensive, but you’ll be able to play any Japanese game you want on your TV. This is my preferred way, since I like to feel like I’m living in my nostalgia, except in Japanese. Then again, I’m a bit of a collector, too.

3. Go download an emulator. This is the easiest way to get your hands on older Japanese video games. Go to a site, like Emulator Zone, and download an emulator for the console you want games for. To get games for your emulator, you need to look for ROMs to load, but there’s a ton of sites for these. I recommend ROM Hustler.

Basically, you get an emulator for the system you want your computer to emulate. Install it and configure it (configuration can be a pain sometimes), and go look for game ROMs that you want to play. It’s easy and cheap. Technically, you’re only supposed to download games you already own, but I tend to make exceptions for these older games because they’re next to impossible to find sometimes.

Now, this offers easily the fastest and cheapest way to get Japanese video games, and there’s a ton of them at your disposal. However, I’d like to make a few suggestions before downloading.

1. Go for older systems. I know there are emulators out there for everything, including the PlayStation on up, but from my experience ROMs for things like PlayStation, GameCube, etc. tend to be buggy and can crash a lot. I’ve had fair luck with N64 emulators, but beyond that you’re better off buying the system instead of trying to set up a working emulator. More on buying systems in part 2.

2. When starting out, try and find games you’re already familiar with instead of downloading a game you’ve never played before. I know, we all want to play those Fire Emblem games that haven’t yet made it to the US, but you should start with something you’re already used to playing. Eventually you can work up to playing games you’ve never heard of.

Well, that’s it for part 1. The next part is focused on modern games as opposed to retro gaming. I decided to do that part separate because consoles are region locked, for the most part, and emulators are buggy for newer systems. Stay tuned!

Categories: Gadgets, Games, Insight, Products | Tags: emulators, video games

All About Particles

Posted on November 3, 2011 by ハヴネス

1 Comment

Note: Last Monday was Halloween, and I meant to do a horror film review, but didn’t get it done in time, so I might still post that up.

Japanese is an extremely interesting language, as anyone learning it can tell you, but it can also be very frustrating at times, especially when it comes to verbs and particles. Now, when it comes to the former, I’m afraid I don’t have any neat tips or tricks (at least not yet), but there’s an amazing reference book out there that makes learning particles amazingly easy! I already mentioned it in my post about reading in Japanese, and I keep this book by my side as I read, so when I get stumped, I can just look up the particles in question. So, allow me to introduce, All About Particles.

This is a great book that covers every single particle, , adn every last way to use them. For each particle, a description is given for each of its various usages, followed by several example sentences for each usage. It’s very brief, but very clear as the thumbnail below shows.

As I’ve already said, this is a reference book, so trying to study it or memorize it is both unproductive and headache inducing. As you reference it while doing something that is productive, like reading, you will eventually learn them through repetition.

I also wouldn’t use the example sentences for sentence mining, as they’re boring. I tried this and wound up deleting that Anki deck a month later because the sentences got too redundant.

So, here’s how I use it. Firstly, I grab a book. Second, I start reading, looking up the particles that trip me up. Thirdly, the particles slowly become like second nature to me. I also reference it as I write journal entries on Lang-8.

I recommend this book to everyone learning Japanese, regardless of your chosen method for learning. In fact, out of every book I’ve referenced on this site, this is what I recommend the most. It just makes dealing with those frustrating, confusing particles that much easier, and since it’s only around $11, it’s not like it takes a huge financial commitment, unlike a $40 textbook.

Categories: Products | Tags: all about particles, book, chino, Guide, Japanese, learn, learning, naoko, naoko chino, particles, reference, review

Review for Gakuu!

Posted on October 18, 2011 by ハヴネス

1 Comment

When I reviewed TextFugu for a second time, I mentioned Gakuu and how TextFugu members could get 80% off. Well, I decided to give it a go and see what to make of it. What I discovered is a goldmine for sentence mining, and a great way to understand the way the Japanese talk, especially when things aren’t nice and clear like they are in textbooks. My first impression was that it was TextFugu for intermediate and advanced students, and what I found was something different, and almost better. It won’t overshadow TextFugu, which will continue to grow into its own advanced material, but is excellent as a supplement for a textbook, or an amazing find if you’re an input person. Output people, I’m afraid this might not be your cup of tea.

Apparently the Gakuranman, as he studied Japanese through textbooks, discovered that they just weren’t doing it for him the way they were when he was a beginner. Basically, they didn’t seem to be teaching “real world” Japanese, and thus most of his learning at this stage took place outside of the classroom. His new website, Gakuu, is dedicated to bringing the odd and bizarre of the Japanese language, and presenting it in a way that even the most incompetent gaijin can understand.

Now, this is a website that’s excellent for sentence mining. You can find sentences everywhere, from anime, to pictures of billboards, to websites, but deciphering them can be a real pain. Let’s face it, the Japanese don’t talk like English speakers do. If I have a headache, I say that I’m going to take ibuprofen or something. In Japan, you would say that you’re going to drink ibuprofen. They just have different ways of saying things, and sometimes this can be downright confusing.

For example, go to this Japanese wikipedia page in your Firefox browser with Rikaichan enabled. Now, Rikaichan might be able to give you the definition of each word, and you probably know enough grammar to understand things like the various verb forms, etc., but are you still having a hard time understanding exactly what it says sometimes? I even tried to make it easier by directing the link to the wikipedia page for The Legend of Zelda – something you might be familiar with.

Now, I’m going to bet that it was rather difficult to really understand it. You might get the gist of it, but the real understand just isn’t there. That’s what makes Gakuu so wonderful; the ability to tell you how to put it all together. Sentence mining only works properly if you know how it all comes together, and this site gives you a good head start towards understanding real Japanese. You can take this knowledge and apply it to other areas of Japanese, or add it to your Anki deck when you collect sentences.

If there’s a con to Gakuu, it comes from its non-linear style. This isn’t a problem for me, but for people who like plans, charts, and lessons, it’ll be a bit daunting. Gakuu isn’t a textbook, it’s a site striving to bring learners of Japanese the real language, in its raw, uncut form and bridge the gap between the two languages so you can grasp its real meaning.

I also don’t recommend Gakuu for early beginners going the textbook route, at least not yet. Sure it has hiragana and katakana charts, but you should have some basic grammar under your belt before diving into this. If you’re an inputter, then I’d say go ahead and sign up. The cost really isn’t that bad and there’s plenty of information here.

All in all, Gakuu defied my first impressions and turned out to be a really great resource that I’ll be coming back to a lot. The explanations are clear and concise, it helps make sense of some of those stranger expressions, has slang, and is perfect for sentence mining.

Categories: Products, Websites | Tags: gakuranman, gakuu, sentence mining, Textfugu

Ways to Use Anki

Posted on October 13, 2011 by ハヴネス

4 Comments

In my last post, I reviewed Anki, a flashcard srs (spaced repetition system) program that is almost essential for language learning. Now, I’m going to talk about the most common ways to use this flashcard program, as people have come up with ingenious ways to use this program to help them learn that I for one wouldn’t have thought of by myself, but I’m a bit slow I think.

The most obvious way to use flashcards is to memorize facts. When I was in second grade, our teacher was obsessed with using flashcards to teach us math. We would have contests and competitions over these flashcards and who could get the most right or recall the answer fast enough. To share a little secret with you, math and I still don’t get along, despite the flashcards.

When learning a language and being told to make flashcards, most people try to make flashcards in the same way that they use them for mathematics or science, or any other subject. You write out the Japanese word on one side and the English translation on the other, allowing you to quiz yourself. This is kind of how Smart.fm used to work, except it would provide example sentences and a few other exercises to show how the word is used, and it was a spaced repetition system as well, so the frequency of which you saw each card was dependent on how well the software thought you knew it.

This is all well and good, but Khaztumoto introduced me to another way of using flashcards, and that’s what he calls sentence mining. For him, flashcards are the crux of his method of learning, not a supplement. He believes in doing as much in the language, or for the language, as possible, and a good way to remember it all is to mine interesting sentences, since he also believes that if you’re not having fun, then you’re not learning properly and will burn out.

This is how it works. First, you read an interesting manga (or watch an anime, movie, jdrama, or read a book) and as you’re going through, you find sentences that seem good to learn. If you’re a beginner, you start with simple sentences and work your way up to where the whole book or manga seems easy, or at least that’s how I interpret this part of the method.

The reasoning behind this is simple – words without any context and grammar points without context (I added the grammar bit) are meaningless. For example, what would be the point of knowing the English word “like” if you don’t know how to use it. There’s a lot of different ways to use the word, and without example sentences for each of them, such as, “I like to learn languages,” or, “Learning a language is like boiling ramen,” a textbook explanation of the word will probably be lost on you. Looking through a dictionary, there’s a lot of words like this, and you have to see them in a sentence in order to fully grasp how they’re used.

As such, finding interesting sentences is a great way to see how everything comes together in a sentence, and using Anki makes sure that you remember them. As you come to understand how sentences are put together, you can make up your own without a textbook to necessarily teach you how. Definitely check out the site, as Khatzumoto explains in much better than I can.

Finally, someone decided that it would be a good idea to program something that would allow a user who has a movie or anime episode with both English and Japanese subtitles to sentence mine the whole thing, complete with audio and even visual if one so desires, without an epic struggle. Introducing Subs2SRS, which has become a bit popular with people who do the sentence mining thing, for it really shortens the process, and it’s pretty reliable. There’s even pre-made decks on the learn any language wiki!

I really like this software, but it can be very hard to find Japanese closed captions for anime. Finding anime with subtitles in .srt format isn’t too bad, but finding Japanese captions for anime is near impossible sometimes. If you want to do that, here’s a few sites I recommend.

AnimeTranscripts: This place doesn’t actually provide subtitle files, but it does have transcripts, which will help you immensely in your sentence mining mission, regardless of whether you’re using Subs2SRS or just looking for interesting sentences. It’s a website created for Japanese people learning English through anime dubs (the thought scares me), but they also provide some transcripts in Japanese for English speakers wanting to learn Japanese through anime. It’s pretty interesting and even has a forum.

Kitsunekko: This seems to be a popular place for finding subtitles in Japanese, although he has a habit of going down for long periods of time. Unfortunately, it doesn’t have a lot of anime that I watch, but I definitely recommend you take a look.

Akusento: This particular page I linked to is in English, although the majority of the site is in Russian. There’s some movie subtitles and anime subtitles here, including a few episodes of Rurouni Kenshin.

Project “Modelino”: Another Russian page, but you can view it in English or French as well, and I linked to the English verison. There’s a number of Japanese movies on this page, so it ranks high in my list of places to find Japanese subtitles. I recommend viewing it in FireFox with Rikaichan turned on if you’re unsure of the titles.

D-Addicts: Let’s face it, Japanese dramas can be really hard to come by, so downloading from this site is a good thing, and it also provides Japanese subtitles for some of its shows. So, if you can get a show with both English and Japanese subtitles, Subs2SRS takes care of the rest!

When in doubt, if you’re Japanese is good enough, I recommend going to Google and typing in the name of your anime in Japanese plus “字幕”, or　”じまく”, which means “subtitles”. Sometimes that yields results, too.

So, happy hunting, and have fun sentence mining!

Categories: Insight, Products, Websites | Tags: anime, Anki, j-dorama, Japanese, sentence mining, subs2srs, subtitles

The Best Flashcard Program Ever: Anki

Posted on October 12, 2011 by ハヴネス

6 Comments

Okay, so today’s topic is a bit different than I originally intended. I was going to do a post about how studying is supposed to be fun, not taxing, and then I realized that I have a ton of reviews to do for anime, games, movies, learning tools, etc. As such, today’s review is for Anki, my favorite flash card program.

Back in the day when I was first thinking of reviewing flashcard programs, it was going to be iKnow/Smart.fm vs. Anki, but since iKnow is no longer free, it therefore is no longer worth my time to use and Anki wins the day just for being free.

Flashcards can make life much, much easier for anyone learning Japanese, regardless of what method you go about using. If you study via the academic method, vocab lists are king, and flashcards can be pain to buy or make and quiz yourself on. The input method usually has the most flashcard users, as they rely on repition rather than instruction to give them the bulk of their knowledge, and even output people use them often.

Now, most flashcard software utilizes what is called a space repition system, or SRS. What this does, is it measures how well you know a card and then determines from that when it should show you this card again. For example, let’s say I take this sentence I found for a book review of ICO.

囚われの少女を救うため、過酷な運命を変えるため、少年は霧の城に立ち向かう！！

I have a plug-in for Japanese (there’s a ton of plug-ins for this software), so just in case I don’t know the reading for the kanji, the program will automatically insert furigana (kana above the kanji), and it’s usually correct. This next example isn’t a good idea of how it actually looks when you see the flashcard, but you can still see the readings, just not on top.

囚[とら]われの少女[しょうじょ]を救[すく]うため、過酷[かこく]な運命[うんめい]を変[か]えるため、少年[しょうねん]は霧[きり]の城[しろ]に立ち向[たちむ]かう！！

Now, let’s pretend that I don’t know most of the words. I’ll just manually type the words into the “meaning” box and it’ll be good to go!

囚われ – Imprisonment; captive 救う – To help out; to rescue; to save 過酷な – cruel; harsh; rigorous; severe 変える – To change; to alter; to transform; to amend; to vary 霧 = Mist 城 – Castle 立ち向かう – To fight against; to oppose; to face

I can even put a translation into it! This is also done manually, though.

In order to rescue a captive girl, to change a cruel fate, a young boy must have a showdown at the Castle in the Mist!!

Your flashcard will look like this as you make it, just in case I wasn’t clear. The “expression” box is the only thing you see when you review a card. Clicking “show answer” will reveal the rest.

So why is Anki so amazing? First of all, it’s free. I really have no idea why people want to charge a fee for their flashcard programs, but they do. Supermemo, iKnow, and plenty of others are good programs in and of themselves, but they charge you to use them, and since learning a new language already requires you to buy textbooks, or other media, why would you pay for a flashcard system? You could just make your own for the price of a few pieces of paper and scissors!

I don’t do the whole smart phone thing, but it’s available for that as well, and according to the site, you can even use it on your Nintendo DS and PSP if you want.

I also like the amount of customizing you can do for this program. It’s very efficient, and it’s open source. There’s already a ton of pre-made Anki decks out there, too.

So, yes, I definitely recommend this program. Go download it and see for yourself just how amazing it is. I’ll be following this post up with various ways you can use Anki to learn languages within the next few days.

Categories: Products | Tags: Anki, DS, free, Nintendo, phone, PSP, review

Rocket Japanese Reviews?

Posted on October 10, 2011 by ハヴネス

3 Comments

I’ll be doing my Friday review at some point, since I was too busy last Friday talking about the poopcycle. Anyway, today I wanted to make a brief point about language-learning software, specifically, products like Rocket Japanese that have affiliate marketers clinging to them and putting up false “reviews”. I’d been considering trying this software and reviewing it myself, but I decided to Google “Rocket Japanese review” first, as I like to get a gist of what the software does before delving in, and the company’s website, while looking promising, yet overpriced and hyped up, isn’t exactly unbiased. Unfortunately, every single review I clicked on was basically the same thing!

Here’s my problem with language-learning software: it’s so easy to get scammed. Most of the good reviews that come from an independent website are made by people who either didn’t use the software themselves or who are relatively not knowledgeable about language learning. Every single site I visited had affiliate links to the software after a “review” that was basically just more crap from the official page.

BEWARE OF HONEST JOHNS!!!

There’s nothing wrong with affiliate links. I use them myself occasionally, and it’s a great way to support your website; and I don’t want it to sound like you can’t trust anyone’s review ever, but spewing crap that you don’t understand just because you want to make a buck is just plain wrong and dishonest, and it makes it easy to scam people. Most of these sites I visited also touted Rosetta Stone as being the best thing since sliced bread. Why? Because they get a big commission from getting people to buy expensive products that shouldn’t cost half as much.

Here’s my beef with language learning software. Most of it is very basic and can be learned elsewhere in a more effective way and for a cheaper price. If you’re an inputter or immersion person, then occasionally these products look good, but you can’t get immersion from a piece of software. You have to modify your surroundings yourself, otherwise the only “immersion” you get is when you sit at your computer, and that doesn’t count. It also get boring very quickly.

It also sounds good, such as being able to watch videos of the hiragana/katakana/kanji being drawn, but you can find such videos for free on youtube, and Remembering the Kanji and Remembering the Kana are much, much better than anything you’ll find in software. In fact, you can learn the kana for free on the Internet, and it’s easy to teach it to yourself. I used Power Japanese, which is a language learning software, but the kana was the only thing it did right, so I actually recommended people torrent it.

Why am I ranting like this? I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking to yourself, “What an incoherent blog post! What’s the point?” Yes, it’s incoherent, but the point is that you should always think twice before accepting someone’s advice to buy software, especially if you’re not sure the person is the real deal. Seriously, I doubt most of these people actually speak the language, and I’m tempted to leave comments in Japanese on their websites and blogs just to see if they can read it and respond.

So, how can you pick out if a review is genuine?

1. Does the review sound biased? This is always your first tell-tale sign. Some reviews just sound terribly biased, and they usually back up their claims with either regurgitated information from the official site, or by “facts” that have no real source or are common knowledge and have no bearing on how well the products performs in relation to these “facts”. Some products are good enough that people praising them sound biased (I’m guilty of this), but when it comes from a blog with only one post, or a tiny little website that does nothing but offer a few reviews, then you can bet someone is just trying to get money.

2. Are there any other product reviews? This is an easy one to spot. Check out the whole site and see what else is being reviewed. If the site is dedicated solely to Rocket Japanese, Rosetta Stone, etc., then that person only has one thing in mind: to make money off you. If all they review are various expensive products (even inexpensive ones, so long as it costs money), and then give out a few “tips” and nothing else, then that person probably doesn’t even speak the language well and just wants to get your money. When you have people recommending both JapanesePod101.com and Rosetta Stone, you know something’s fishy. People who want you to succeed and who are passionate about the language will probably have a whole site dedicated to it, such as this site or AJATT or Tofugu, and not just try and sell you stuff.

3. Does the person reviewing the software tell you a tale that’s hard to believe? I found a blogger blog while looking for a review, actually, and it told a bizarre tale of how Rocket Japanese worked for him. First off, he goes on and on about how amazing the product is, followed by a statement to back up his claims in which he basically says he knows what he’s talking about because he once almost hired a private tutor to teach him Japanese. It was horribly expensive and she (the tutor) said it would take (gasp) 4 months to learn!

Firstly, you shouldn’t come to the conclusion that private tutors, classes, schools, etc. are the only way to learn Japanese! And secondly, what was supposed to be accomplished in 4 months? Conversational fluency? Total fluency? If you want conversational fluency in under 4 months, check out Benny the Irish Polyglot’s site first, then check out everything else. Otherwise, this guy is pulling our legs.

Now, that’s not to say that I dismiss all software. As I said, I slowly get around to checking it out, and I will eventually get to check out Rocket Japanese and give a review of it, but most websites make me not want to. You really have to be careful of some of these “reviews” because they aren’t honest. Please, please, please be careful!

If you want an idea of what these kinds of websites look like, click here. Or here’s that blog “review” that didn’t make much sense. I’m not trying to pick on these people, but I want people to see what sticks out in my mind as a biased review. Heck, I saw one website where the reviewer, after allegedly learning Japanese with Rocket Japanese, thought fortune cookies were Japanese, not Chinese. FAIL!

Fluent in 4 months through a few hours a week with a private tutor? Give me a break! That doesn’t even come close to making sense, even from a conversational standpoint! And Rocket Japanese made him totally fluent in under that time? Is that what I’m supposed to believe?

Beware of Honest John, because he’ll sell you to a creepy place like Pleasure Island and ruin your life if it means he’ll get some cash out of it. Now, most affiliate marketers aren’t like this, as I’ve already said, and I doubt those reviewers I linked to are intentionally trying to hurt anyone. It’s just that when it comes to learning a language, you can’t just expect one book, one software, or one website to take you the whole way. Trying to convince people that they’ll get fluent (what a vague word) solely through their program is wrong.

I know I have a lot of links on this site, but I don’t make much money through affiliate sales off of them, and if this website is any indication, I’m only trying to share what I’ve found to have worked. I’m an active language learner myself, and I love Japan. I just want people to be careful and watch out for products that may or may not work because someone put up a site to promote it.

Categories: Insight, Products, Websites | Tags: affiliate, dishonest, fluency, Japanese, language, rocket, Rosetta, scam, software, Stone

Learn Japanese With Audio Online for Almost Free!

Posted on October 6, 2011 by ハヴネス

1 Comment

I have officially found the solution to Pimsleur’s price tag! It’s called JapanesePod101.com, and it’s full of audio files, .pdfs, and all kinds of stuff that makes Pimsleur look really outdated. Let’s face it, the Internet never fails to amaze me, even after all this time. It makes it possible to do so much, and, combined with an iPod, CD Player, or some other portable audio device, it’s possible to learn Japanese online and even while on-the-go, and not necessarily in your car, either. It’s fun, interesting, and provides a lot more information with just the audio portions alone than anything else I’ve come across, either online or the old-fashioned CD player or cassette tape.

Now, I’ve known about this site for quite a while now, and I actually signed up for it a couple months ago. It took me a while because I would see their ads over all these sites, and seeing ads makes me think, “Another Rosetta Stone! Yikes!” However, I’m happy to report that this isn’t the case. JapanesePod101.com, really is a very good way to learn if you don’t want to invest in textbooks and just want something you can listen to in the background, complete with study materials, and all for practically nothing at all.

So, since I already reviewed Pimsleur, what exactly does JapanesePod101.com do that Pimsleur doesn’t? For starters, it actually provides study materials. When you download a lesson, you may also download the lesson notes and even study material for kanji, which is excellent. The lesson notes aren’t long, but rather brief and to the point, as the real meat comes from the audio lesson. Also, anything that includes lessons in writing is good in my book, whereas Pimsleur was pretty much audio only.

I also like that the dialogues at JapanesePod101.com are a lot more interesting than any other audio tape, CD, or even podcast I’ve found yet. Most of them, especially tapes made for being listened to in your car, are very boring. It’s a good way to get in a traffic accident because you’ll almost assuredly fall asleep.

JapanesePod101.com has its lessons set up as a sort of radio program. There’s the English host, named Peter (he’s from New York, so he has a bit of an accent), and then a variety of native speakers who act out the scene and provide valuable insight. There’s a lot of banter and such that goes on so you don’t usually feel like you’re studying.

At the start of each lesson, either Peter will welcome the listeners and introduce the native speakers joining him in the studio and then start the dialogue, or the dialogue will start first and the lesson pick up afterwords. Usually it’s the former, and it isn’t long before you feel like you’re really getting to know everyone there.

I’d like to point out that the skits are usually acted out by three people, sometimes more, sometimes less, which means that they simulate real conversations a lot better than Pimsleur, which had its token male and female speakers reading an obvious script. This style feels more natural and flows a lot better.

The lessons run between 15 and 25 minutes, so while they’re not too long, they’re not too short, either. In fact, there have been times in my listening where I don’t really want the lesson to end! To have used this program for 2 months now and still feel this energized about it, it must be doing something right.

It also takes you a lot farther than I’ve seen virtually anything else. It’s got newbie lessons, beginner lessons, and three different levels of intermediate lessons. Some people complain that there are no advanced lessons, and JapansePod101.com responds by saying that they believe you should learn primarily from native Japanese media (books and movies) than through lessons at that stage. I agree wholeheartedly with this philosophy. It’s possible to learn through media earlier than that, but some people like to get the grammar and such down really well before diving into the real media. And, to be perfectly honest, I’m an advanced learner, and I still enjoy these lessons!

They also do a lot more than teach you words, phrases, and grammar (not to mention written Japanese), but they also teach you how to get through customs, provide cultural insight, and go the extra mile in general so that you feel confident about going to Japan.

I’d also like to point out that they also do video lessons sometimes! Sure beats watching those old NHK tapes!

It’s also very affordable – more so than any other program I’ve come across. The basic membership is $4/month, which is practically free. You get access to all the audio lessons and notes, not to mention the kanji lessons, which worth a lot more than the $4 they ask of you, and I doubt you’ll find a deal like that anywhere else.

The premium membership is only $10/month, which is still very affordable, and it’s what I use. You get everything in the basic, obviously, but you also get to use their dictionaries, grammar checker, take quizzes, see the dialogue translations side-by-side, get the bonus tracks, and a ton of other stuff. I recommend this membership the most, just because there’s so much content it’s mind-blowing.

The last type is premium plus, which is $26/month and contains a lot of one-on-one stuff, which I won’t slam by any means, but I haven’t upgraded to this membership type. I tend to dislike one-on-one tutoring, especially when their regular lessons are so well done.

Like all sites, there’s some bad about this one, too. In a lot of their ads, you’ll see, “Learn Japanese – Free” or something similar. This is a bit misleading. You get a 7-day premium trial after which you have to pick a membership type, so to use phrases like “free lifetime account” is gross misrepresentation, and due to that, many people who could greatly benefit from this website believe it’s a scam. Heck, even I had to do further research on it first, because when my trial ended, I was all like, “What the heck?” So be careful of that little snag.

Also, it bombards you with emails. I had to send the stuff to the junk mail and spam folder, as it was just horribly annoying. If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s massive amounts of emails sent by a single company. I even set up a separate email account just for when I register to sites, because I don’t trust them a lick. Be prepared to put them on your spam list because they’re horribly annoying.

It can also be hard to figure out where to start once you sign up. I think if you’re completely new to the language, you’re supposed to start at Newbie Season 2, then go through Newbie Season 3, then Beginner Season 4, as those all build on each other. The other seasons are stand alone seasons, and while they all seem to be very good, the sheer amount of them is overwhelming, and they don’t all use the same characters and stories. I highly recommend you browse the seasons when you first start and find the one you like the most and are learning the most from. Or just start on the massive 100+ Beginner Season 1 lessons and jump to Lower Intermediate after that.

The only other thing I can think of is that the forums are a bit slow, but there are so many good forums for learning Japanese that I can forgive this one.

All in all, it’s an excellent website and I highly recommend you check it out. If you’re an academic type of person, you might want to use a supplement with the site, but for inputters, a lot of this site is good as-is. By the way, if you learn through input (or are a ‘natural’ learner as some like to call inputters and outputters), then you should sign up for the basic membership as opposed to the premium. At least, I think you’ll get the most out of the basic.

Happy learning!

Categories: Products, Websites | Tags: audio, Japanese, japanesepod101, learn, online, Pimsleur, Rosetta, Stone

Reading in Japanese

Posted on October 5, 2011 by ハヴネス

4 Comments

Regardless of how you choose to do the bulk of your learning, whether through speaking and using the language, Japanizing (my new word) your environment, or by memorizing textbooks, you’re going to have to delve into some native literature. Why? Because it’ll get you ready for how the Japanese actually speak and write, and it can be quite a bit different from your sanitized textbook. Granted, you’ll have to watch actual Japanese shows, too, in order to familiarize yourself with how the Japanese speak, namely, with how fast they speak, but that’s for the next post.

No, this one concerns reading, which is easily the most difficult thing to do in Japanese. Now, I recommend you use Heisig for learning the kanji, so how do you learn the readings? Memorizing them from your textbook, dictionary, or any other reference tool just won’t work. Been there, tried that, failed hard. You want to learn the kanji in context, and since the Kanji in Context book is boring for a lot of people, things like manga are much more appealing.

It’s entirely up to you what you read, and you shouldn’t worry about levels, or at least I don’t. I’ve never been fond of graded readers, as they remind me of elementary school where you had to read the level your teacher wanted you to, even if all of those books were boring. If you like the books that are easy, then read them! It’s not a reflection of your intelligence if you don’t like the books at you’re level, nor are you smarter than everyone else if you’re reading books at a higher level. Read what you want, period. Even if it takes forever to get through a book, so long as you enjoy it, keep on trucking.

Now that that’s out of the way, I do have some recommendations in case you’re struggling, have no idea how to find kanji words in a dictionary (you know, in case you don’t know the readings for a lot of them), or are just looking for good reading material where you won’t have to put in tons of hours to get through just a couple pages.

First of all, this one might a bit boring for some of you, but I recommend Breaking into Japanese Literature if you’re just getting your feet wet. I like classical fiction, or anything for that matter, myself, so I had no problem with this book. Some people will hate it, others will love it. Here’s a quick review.

Breaking into Japanese Literature: Seven Modern Classics in Parallel Texts (long enough title) is pretty much what it says. It’s seven stories, arranged by difficulty, that has the Japanese text on one page and the English translation on the next, kind of like that Read Real Japanese Fiction book, except that this one is much better in that it kind of has a dictionary at the bottom under the main text. Here’s a brief example of how this works.

Japanese English
猫が可愛いです。The cat is cute.

猫 [ねこ] Cat
可愛い[かわいい] Cute

So that gives you an idea of how it looks. This is very, very good for vocab building, although it does assume that you have a basic idea of grammar. If you’re familiar with basic Japanese grammar and particles, you should have no problem with the first few stories. Otherwise, it really isn’t hard to look up particles. J-Gram is a great, free website for this (review coming soon), although a bit of a pain to navigate; and if you want to have a handy book with you as you read, then I would recommend All About Particles (review ~~coming soon~~ here), which served me immensely as I read at night without a computer nearby. If you don’t know much about verbs, then I recommend you read the website Tae Kim’s Guide to Japanese. It pretty much stays in the beginner levels, only occasionally dabbling into more advanced territory, but it’ll be a big help in understanding this book.

Now, if this is way too easy for you, or too boring, but you still can’t figure out what to read and you’re still afraid of delving into kanji-filled material, then I recommend you read some manga published by Shounen Jump. Manga published by this group involves titles such as Rurouni Kenshin and is chock full of furigana, which is hiragana readings above the kanji. In fact, it’s used over every single kanji! If you can read hiragana, then you can plug the word into a dictionary and find out what that word is. This is the best way to get used to reading kanji, in my opinion.

Don’t know how to find it? Here’s a good way to do it. There are plenty of places to buy raw manga online, but I prefer to do it from Amazon Japan (Sasuga is down, so there goes my #1 site). Assuming you don’t know how to read kanji, download the FireFox browser and install the Rikaichan plug-in, which acts as a built-in dictionary, making it much easier to navigate the site. Then, search for the manga you want and buy it. It may seem like a lot of work, but once you get it set up, you won’t regret it!

You can also check eBay, but I don’t usually have much luck finding things there, except for the ICO novelization, but that was a pretty lucky search. I have a whole list of places to buy Japanese stuff here!

Categories: Insight, Products, Websites | Tags: book, breaking, Japanese, literature, manga, parallel text, reading, review

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