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Erin’s Challenge – The Website

Posted on April 11, 2012 by ハヴネス

A while back I discovered a video series for beginners learning Japanese called “Erin’s Challenge!” The videos followed the adventures of a British foreign exchange student (she’s played by a half Japanese model who speaks fluent Japanese, or so I’m told) as lives and goes to school in Japan. At first I wasn’t impressed. The dialogue is great – nice and casual, which is always a plus, but you have know some Japanese that’s a bit advanced for the beginner level to follow it without subtitles, and the lessons at the end pick only one or two points of grammar to teach you. This leaves some learners in the dust, confused, and ready to give up.

However, it saved itself from getting a negative review from me through its website, Erin’s Challenge. At this point I’m still unsure of what I think about it as far as being for beginners, but I have found some interesting uses it has. It’s got great skits and provides the script to it, a manga form, and you can even download the audio. This is SRS heaven, if you have the patience to work with it. It does have some negative aspects, such as the “Nihongo Quest” which is hardly beginner friendly, and some of the little activities that don’t do much, but I think the website is great. Oh, and did I mention it’s FREE!

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First of all, each skit is very short and the dialogue can be read underneath the video. You can watch the script in kanji, katakana, romaji, English, or in a combination of any one of these. Heck, why not just watch it with the script written in all of them! This is a huge help for students not at the beginner level who want to try and follow along without the annoying English subtitles turned on, and if your kanji isn’t too good yet, you can just display the kana underneath with a click of a button. Better yet, you can even toggle between them during the video without lag!

For every skit there’s also an advanced skit, which covers some concepts considered too advanced for the regular, basic skit. For what I use the website for, though, I tend to disregard the lessons entirely, so I cannot comment on their effectiveness.

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Each skit also has a manga form. You can change the dialogue from being written in kanji, kana, hiragana, or English, and clicking on the speech bubbles will play the audio. I really do like this feature, even if it seems a bit pointless. I always find reading the manga skit to be fun, especially if I don’t want to sit through the videos.

So, how do I use these features? Before I comment on what I didn’t like about the site, I’d like to show you how to take advantage of the script.

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First of all, as you can see from the picture that I turned on all the display options, and there’s a highlighted word with a definition. Well, not so much a definition as an explanation about that particular verb conjugation. You can also download the audio from this page.

What I do is I download the audio for the video, use an editor to separate each line of dialogue, and then put it into Anki. The built-in dictionary is pretty good, although for some conjugations I’ve had to look elsewhere because it can be confusing on the site. The -teyattekure in the very first lesson gave me a rather dull translation, but the site is usually pretty good about explaining things well enough that you don’t have to Google everything you see.

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There were a few features I found redundant, such as the “Let’s Try” lessons, but one that I found completely useless is the “Nihongo Quest” game. If you’re only a beginner, I guarantee you won’t be able to read all of the instructions, even if the grammar doesn’t get too advanced. Just click the thumbnail to see the last portion of them. For a site that is supposed to help people learn the language, I think that they could have done this section a bit better. It’s hardly “role playing” and is a waste of time. Talking to the citizens gives you some crappy piece of dialogue, and clicking on the entrance to buildings doesn’t do anything but give you another piece of awful dialogue. It’s really just there to let you actually do something with the avatar you create.

So, what’s my final verdict? It’s a good website, and I highly recommend you check it out. If it wasn’t free, I probably wouldn’t use it so much and would instead get my audio exclusively from JapanesePod101.com, which is a paid site that provides tons of stuff. However, Erin’s Challenge does a lot of things right and I use it quite frequently for all of its options.

Categories: Websites | Tags: beginner, challenge, Erin, Erin's challenge, intermediate, Japanese, learn, website

Random Musing on Funding Your Language Journey

Posted on February 14, 2012 by ハヴネス

2 Comments

So I find myself in the middle of a financial crisis, just like every other American, and most of the world while I’m at it. Now, I could spend this post going on an don about how Keynesian economics is a total failure, Austrian economics is full of wisdom, and why we should elect Ron Paul, but this is a blog about Japan, and quite frankly, my lack of funds has caused me to slow down in my consumption of Japanese media. Gotta keep sentence mining, you know.

Basically, this post is to introduce everyone to a free, albeit painfully slow, method for making a few extra dollars to fund your journey towards fluency in Japanese, or whatever your goal is. That little trick is a free site called Swagbucks.

Basically, you just use their search engine, watch videos on their site, participate in polls, and random stuff like that in order to earn swag bucks. These are just little points that slowly but surely accumulate over time and you can trade them in for prizes. For example, when you get 5,900 of them, you can trade them in for a $50 gift certificate from Amazon. This means that I can get more stuff for Japanese.

It’s normally pretty slow to accumulate points, but it’s much easier with their referral program. You may have noticed that the link I posted is a referral link. Basically, if you get someone to sign up through your referral, you get some points, and you get a few points every time one of them wins points. You get your link, or you can share it via twitter, facebook, etc. and get people to sign up through your link so you can get points. Just explain that by signing up, not only do they get to win points towards free crap, but it helps you learn Japanese.

I hesitated making this post because I have a feeling it’s going to invite massive amounts of spammers to the comments. Not that Swagbucks is a scam or anything (I’ve used them for a couple of years now), but every morning I wake up and clear out the comments of spammers trying to use this blog to get their precious backlinks. Away, Internet marketers! I don’t care to have your crap littered on this blog!

Anyway, please sign up. It does help people like me and you to get a few extra stuff in Japanese. It promotes more reviews for this blog, too. I hate that this post is basically just a big advertisement, but I’m in a bit of a crunch and appreciate the understanding.

Categories: Insight, Websites

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

Now Bronies Can Learn Japanese, Too!

Posted on October 25, 2011 by ハヴネス

3 Comments

Yesterday and this morning, I found myself helplessly struggling to watch a really odd Japanese movie called パコダテ人, when I got distracted by the Japanese video sharing website, Nico Nico Douga (ニコニコ動画) and typed in “My Little Pony” in English. Why did I do such an odd thing? Someone on the Reviewing the Kanji forums (review coming soon) said that the Japanese were fansubbing the show, which has now become an internet phenomenon. I got myself acquainted with the show and the memes associated with it (be careful, as it’s suprisingly addicting) and decided to check it out next time I was bored.

All I can say is that if you’re at least an intermediate learner, you should be using Nico Nico Douga, and if you’re a brony, this is a great way to indulge your love of the ponies while learning Japanese at the same time. Learning is supposed to be fun, and if it’s fun for you, then excellent!

So, how do you learn Japanese from fansubs of My Little Pony? First of all, any sentence you particularly like, you can plug into your Anki deck. You can’t copy and paste these, so it’ll be a time-consuming task. If I may make a recommendation, Rarity’s sentences (I can’t believe I’m typing these names) are particularly interesting, seeing as how the fansubbers decided to sprinkle some keigo (very formal Japanese) into her dialogue. In case you’re wondering, Applejack didn’t fare too well in the translation.

Another fun way that’s not as time-consuming is to copy and paste the comments. In Nico Nico, the comments fly across the video as it plays just at the time the comment was made. You can also see the comments in a sidebar next to the video and they can be copied and pasted. Just right click and choose コーピする to copy it.

I should note that the comments consist of a lot of slang and grammar is pretty much thrown out the window (it’s the Internet), so it might stump you for a while. At the same time, it’ll probably make you laugh a little inside as you see that the Japanese tend to follow the same memes you do, and have even invented a few of their own.

So good luck little bronies who want to learn Japanese and still watch My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. You’ll find there’s quite a few episodes already up, so watch to your heart’s content.

Categories: Anime, Insight, Websites | Tags: applejack, bronies, brony, dash, douga, fluttershy, Japanese, my little pony, nico, pinkie pie, rainbow, rarity, spike, twilight

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

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

All Japanese All the Time

Posted on October 4, 2011 by ハヴネス

3 Comments

This site is Tofugu/TextFugu’s biggest rival, yet it promotes an entirely different school of thought. AJATT is like the bible of input language learning, which is also promoted heavily by the creator of LingQ, Steve Kauffman. It’s creator, Khatzumoto, discovered that language learning doesn’t have to be a time-consuming task required hundreds of hours of homework (he hates classes), and that it’s a process, not a science. I really admire this website and recommend it to everyone.

AJATT started out as a blog in which Khatzumoto chronicled the methods he used for learning Japanese while he was still a busy college student and not taking classes in the language. He realized that all one really has to do is to try and do as much as you can in the language. Instead of memorizing grammar rules, reading books, and “studying”, you just grow familiar with the language naturally.

Here’s what I mean by that. When you’re busy working, cleaning, doing homework, or anything that allows you to listen to something, listen to Japanese in the background. If you’re jogging or bicycling, have some Japanese music or podcasts playing on your iPod; install Rikaichan into your Firefox browser and try to conduct as many searches in Japanese as you can. Go through a textbook only to get a feel for the language and to use as a reference when things stump you. As AJATT tells its readers, you get used to the language, not learn it.

The number one motto is to be doing something fun in the language as often as you can. Watch movies, play games, read books – it doesn’t matter what you’re doing, so long as you’re doing it in Japanese. This makes things a lot more interesting than going through a textbook and committing it to memory, and it’s much faster and cheaper than taking a class.

He also recommends a flash card program, such as Anki, so that you can collect interesting sentences and put them into your flash cards for study. For example, say I’m watching Galaxy Angel and Vanilla says, 『豚より牛大好き。』, or, “I like cows more than pigs.” That sentence isn’t 100% grammatically correct, but you learn that when you go to figure out how “yori” works in this sentence. Anyway, that’s kind of an interesting sentence, so you put it Anki and reviewing at set intervals. You learn the words for “pig” and “cow”, and you also get used to saying that you like one thing more than another. Make sure to insert grammar notes as well.

Khatzumoto also offers a number of products on his site, such as premade sentence packs for Anki and a new community of AJATT+, which I’ve never tried. There’s also a reference guide available, as his site is really hard to navigate sometimes. The information is worthy of gold, yet it can be hard to find, so I definitely recommend the reference guide.

He’s also started something called the Silver Spoon Project, in which he will personally work with you through email to learn Japanese, keeping you using the language, etc. Again, I’ve never tried this and just stick to his sentence packs and reference guide. He’s got a lot of interesting stuff, and I’m sure his other products are really good, but when he tells you, “You don’t need this,” you really don’t. However, does that mean that these products aren’t good? No way! I buy a lot of his stuff, and enjoy it every second. What he means is that you could do all that stuff (sentence packs, etc.) on your own and won’t necessarily fail if you don’t buy everything he offers.

All in all, I guarantee that you’ll become addicted to his website. Just take a look at it and apply the wisdom to your study habits. Even if you’re not a primarily input person, you’ll benefit greatly from it. And since it’s Japanese you’re learning (his method works for any language), it’s really not hard to find media to use as input.

His website speaks for itself, and no review can come close to covering it all, so please visit it.

Categories: Products, Websites | Tags: AJATT, input, review

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