How to Japan

Benefits of Anki

2013-01-06T01:45:00.000-08:00

December and November last year where not good for my Japanese study! My Anki reviews slowly dropped off but I got back in to the swing of it for the last 5 days. I have 14k of cards. This one came up this morning: でももう1どだけこうしょうさせてくれ This is from a drama about a yukuza guy who pretends to be a highschool student (for reasons I can't remember). I remember when I put it in (a few years back), I

Is K-On! a good manga for beginners?

2012-12-19T03:16:00.000-08:00

This is in reply to one of the comments on "The Definitive Guide on Moving from textbook Japanese to reading real native Japanese using Manga" If you've read Yotsuba and you're looking for your next Japanese language manga to devour is K-On the way to go? Well if you're asking the question at all, that means you have an interest in the material and that interest counts for a lot! 1. It's four

Using Anki 2 with Dropbox

2012-11-16T06:52:00.001-08:00

When I used Anki 1 I kept my deck in my dropbox folder, then I could review from either my laptop or desktop computer (and could unfortunately never review from mobile :( ). I know Anki has some inbuilt syncing but I prefer to do it myself (my deck is really big, I'm often offline, I don't want to have to register for an anki account etc etc). Yesterday I upgraded to Anki 2 and suddenly my decks

Salaryman man

2012-11-01T08:02:00.000-07:00

Salaryman man with English subtitles.

The Definitive Guide on Moving from textbook Japanese to reading real native Japanese using Manga

2012-10-05T00:11:00.000-07:00

Making the transition from textbook-Japanese to actual native sources is difficult. I've been studying Japanese for over 3 years now and like many people I found it hard. I failed a lot, I still fail quite often when reading some texts but, it's a good thing, you're going to fail and each failure gets you a little closer. That said, it can be helpful to have a map to help you make the

Combinatorics in Japanese

2012-09-13T03:58:00.000-07:00

There's actually quite a lot of repeated phrases, which makes it easier to understand. Also do you know you the Japanese numbers up to a trillion and beyond? :D

@jBalaam August Tweets

2012-09-03T03:28:00.003-07:00

Each day in August I tweeted a useful Japanese learning resource. You can check out the last time I did this over here. Follow me @jBalaam to get cool Japanese links The Dungeons and Dragons game in Japanese http://imgur.com/a/nSyZS#0 Short poems by 小野小町　「おののこまち」 in Japanese and translated into English. Japanese teacher posting Japanese posts for language learners. There's audio too! And

A quick taste of some easy to read native Japanese

2012-08-24T13:42:00.001-07:00

I found this over on http://hamusoku.com a 2ch aggregator (Warning: It's quite addictive!). It stood out because the Japanese is very simple but real native Japanese. I post a lot of Japanese sites and resources on twitter so if you're interested in that sort of thing this my handle @jBalaam. わたしたちの声をきいてください。 Also the context is pretty helpful too. Here's the translation highlight it to

The word 'Olympics' in Japanese is simple and intuitive - find out why

2012-08-13T01:12:00.000-07:00

In Japanese the word for Olympics is 五輪. Two kanji and even if you're a beginner you can probably read the first kanji right? It's 5 (don't worry if you didn't get it, though after hiragana and katakana, the numbers are probably worth doing! They give a good return on the time invested to learn them) The second kanji is "rings". So the literal translation of Olympics in Japanese is 5 rings

How to write Japanese

2012-08-05T10:13:00.000-07:00

Writing Japanese isn't that hard, it's not a difficult script but there are a lot of symbols and learning them all can take a long time! Japanese has 3 "alphabets": hiragana, katakana and the kanji. The importance of writing Japanese in the correct way: Stroke Order Stroke order is very important in writing Japanese. Each symbol has a number of strokes. A stoke being one interrupted

Get more Japanese in your life: Key Japanese phrase newsletter

2012-07-27T05:02:00.001-07:00

I investigated the newsletter widget today and found it wasn't working correctly! This newsletter widget on the left is now fixed and will actually let you sign-up. If you've tried to sign up before then please give it another go :) And if you haven't signed-up then do - it's a good way to get some Japanese in you, if you want it or not! #mc_embed_signup{background:#fff; clear:left; font:

I don't want to study English anymore!

2012-06-30T05:33:00.002-07:00

I wrote a lang-8 entry this morning and I was googling around to check my sentences when I found this webpage. I thought the title was quite funny 「I don't want to study English anymore!」. Here's the post in full and my go at translating it. 英語、もう勉強したくない。 I don't want to study English anymore. 大学での専攻は英語ですが、最近嫌になってきました。 I'm studying English at University but recently I've come to

Best iPhone apps for studying Japanese

2012-06-08T02:53:00.003-07:00

The iphone is a popular device so there are loads of great apps for studying Japanese on the go. A while back I wrote up a post about studying Japanese with an Android phone. It seems only fair to also mention the iPhone as well! Here's my list of the six best apps for studying the Japanese language. Check it out! Change your language to Japanese Using Japanese as the default language

【助けて】好きな子にメールしたけど返信が返ってこない(´･ω･`)

2012-05-27T03:16:00.001-07:00

Help! A girl I like won't reply to my emails. This is a thread from 2ch, I was reading the English version here: http://vgperson.tumblr.com/post/21533650696/help-the-girl-i-like-wont-respond-to-my-emails . I don't know if it's real but it's very funny. The original Japanese thread is here: http://majikichisokuhou.blog34.fc2.com/blog-entry-3255.html 高校時代からずっと片思いで、大学もデン子（仮）と同じで２年になって飲み会の時に勇気

Some Japanese programming terms

2012-05-22T04:47:00.000-07:00

Being a game developer, I follow some Japanese game devs in an effort to up my Japanese. One just posted this sentence. 配列の指標が全部数値とか -とか == "or something like that" 配列の指標「はいれつのしひょう」　== "array index / index of an array" 全部数値「ぜんぶすうち」== all numeric So the meaning is something like: Array indices all seem to be numeric. Lots of programming vocab - which is generally something you won't

Here's a quick way to make your environment more Japanese

2012-05-10T01:31:00.000-07:00

I have a plug-in for Firefox that launches a Japanese website randomly while browsing. One of the websites I use is Wikipedia's おまかせ表示. Which displays a random Wikipedia page - おまかせ is to leave a decision to someone else. I remember seeing the phrase in guidebooks for saying at restaurants but never tried it out myself. The page this morning was surprisingly comprehensible for me (usually I

The secret to making the journey to Japanese fluency a snap - missions and markers.

2012-05-09T02:20:00.001-07:00

When you advance to intermediate Japanese ability one thing you might miss is short term achievable goals. The path to fluency stretches out endlessly before you - it would be nice to have a few more markers on the way, so you know you're heading in the correct direction. The great thing is - you're free to make these markers yourself! There are three secrets to making ideal markers: Short

Ten Days Monolingual Mission

2012-05-09T01:50:00.006-07:00

I thought it would be a good exercise to set myself a small achievable Japanese goal to keep me trucking along. I'm going to look up a new word in a monolingual dictionary for the next ten days. I want to improve my reading for comprehension and get more use to dictionary definition vocab. 1. Monday - 内外　「ないがい」 Looking at the Kanji this one can definitely be guessed! a．「名詞」　内と外。　例　部屋の

Best Japanese Movies of the 2000s. Which do you know? Part III

2012-05-03T00:52:00.001-07:00

When I watch films I prefer to know as little as possible about it, so my descriptions here are brief and not very informative. I've linked to the trailer for those who want to find out more. Check out Part I and Part II for more movies. 31. ELECTRIC DRAGON 80000V Electricity wielding comic style super heroes. Trailer here. 32. 極道恐怖大劇場　牛頭 (Gozu) Yakuza Horror Cow's Head

Best Japanese Movies of the 2000s. Which do you know? Part II

2012-04-29T01:34:00.002-07:00

Missed Part I? Check it out here for 14 more popular Japanese films of the 2000s. I don't like to know too much about a film before watching it, so all descriptions here are brief and spoiler free. I've linked to the Japanese language trailer for each film on youtube and the titles are all presented in Japanese with the English release name in brackets. 15. 『座頭市』（ざとういち、ZATOICHI） Blind

Best Japanese Movies of the 2000s. Which do you know? Part I

2012-04-27T07:34:00.002-07:00

When I watched film I prefer to know as little as possible about it, so my descriptions here are brief and not very informative. I've linked to the trailer for those who want to find out more. Also this 2000ish there's a bit of lee-way into 1999. 1. 愛のむきだし (LOVE EXPOSURE) Four hours long! Dealing with up-skirt photos. Comedy and won quite a few awards. 2. オーディション (Audition)

Japanese Learning Resources jBalaam Roundup

2012-04-09T12:42:00.001-07:00

Last month I had a post a day on twitter with various Japanese language learning resources I'd found on the net. Before they disappear into the ether forever here they noted down: If you're not using it already - this simple computer program will revolutionize the way you learn forever! If you're not using it already - this simple app will revolutionize how you learn forever! Part 2? Feed of

How big is Japan?

2012-03-30T11:06:00.002-07:00

Japan is about 1.5 times the size of the UK but not as big as Texas (Japan is just over half the size of Texas)! It's 145,898 square miles or 377,873 km² so it's a pretty big place. Japan is made up of five islands Hokkaido, Shikoku, Kyushu, Okinawa and Honshu. Honshu is the biggest of the islands and it's where Tokyo is and most Japanese people live. Honshu is about 88,997 sq miles (230,500 km²

If you're not using it already - this simple app will revolutionize how you learn forever! Part 2/2

2012-03-29T14:43:00.000-07:00

Part 1 covered what Anki was, how to make cards and how to use it. In part 2 the details of making an awesome Japanese learning deck are revealed. The Golden Rules of Flashcards Always go Japanese → English, never English to Japanese. Read the Japanese out loud when you do your review Each card should only test one thing Try to add Japanese → Japanese cards as soon as possible

If you're not using it already - this simple app will revolutionize how you learn forever! Part 1/2 Getting Setup

2012-03-03T11:45:00.000-08:00

If you haven't heard of the program Anki, then hold on to your seat this is going to be a game changer for you and really level-up your Japanese learning. Everyone is familiar with flash cards, on one side you have, say, a kanji or Japanese phrase then on the reverse you have the reading of the characters and a note in English or Japanese explaining the meaning. You pick a card off your deck,