#1 Is music from “Record of Lodoss War”

and a bonus! “Outlaw Star”

Synopsis:
When his orchestra disbands, Daigo Kobayashi (Masahiro Motoki) decides to start over and moves back to his small hometown. Desperate for work, he secretly takes a job as a Nokanshi, a funeral professional who prepares the deceased for burial and entrance into the next life. But while working with the families of the departed, Daigo embarks on a spiritual journey of his own as he finally experiences the joy and wonder of living.

As stated in my latest Japanese progress post. I’ve been avidly studying since my return from no Japanese land which has involved making use of as many Japanese learning tools as possible along side the two must have tools in the language learners arsenal (Immersion, SRS) I have included the variety of studying material available at Nihongoup.

When you first sign up for an account at Nihongoup you will see something similar to the below, all signups include a free account which gives you access to the first set of level 1 lessons 8 in total mostly aimed at those new to Japanese.

Dashboard: Is what you see above basically gives you a run down of your progress with the lessons, Kanji study, Vocab study and so on.

Learn: Gives you another view of your progress with both the lessons and Kanji lessons. Also if you have a premium account you can also ask questions to a Nihongoup teacher.

Review: Allows you to study Kanji and Vocab in the same way you would with an SRS. The system monitor what you are good/bad at and brings up material according. Green for mastered, Orange for Learned and Red for started.

Lookup: Is basically a dictionary you can search for Words, Kanji, Grammar, Sentences examples. Very useful!

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As you progress the lessons introduce more difficult material including detailed explanations and examples on Adjectives and verbs etc with a new lesson added each month unlike a textbook that once bought stays the same this continues to grow.

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Native audio is included for the example words and sentences that are used throughout the lessons.

If you click on the Kanji link via the dashboard this will take you to the below screen which allows you to take lessons on groups of Kanji which you can then later review using the built in SRS. Each Kanji gives you a quick run down on how to remember it and gives many example compounds and an example sentence.

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Clicking on the Vocabulary link will take you to the Vocab review area works in a similar way to the Kanji reviewing. First a new word is displayed which then gets added to the SRS and is shown for review at later point just as with your day to day SRS.

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There’s much more on offer including desktop games like the “Toaster” app which pops up at set intervals to test your knowledge on Kanji/Vocab/Particles and so on.

With the ever growing community that’s available to give advice and answer your queries and the variety of educational/interesting posts over on the blog you couldn’t ask for much more. If you are like me and find that lesson based study along with Immersion helps the most then I’d definitely give it a try.

Mostly been studying using native material daily either via reading Japanese native speakers posts/blogs or by my daily use of my Linux/iPhone Japanese interface. Still using my SRS but on a much smaller capacity to just remember words that won’t stick no matter how often I re-read them. Some words for example that you find on there own on website interfaces such as 投稿(とうこう-Contribution, Submission) or 共有(きょうゆう-Share）　I’ve entered on there own without example sentences.

I’ve been going through the lessons over on Nihongoup especially to refresh my understanding of grammar. Also the Kanji and Vocab study tools are a great help. Going to have a review up shortly as its turning into one of my favorite ways to study along side immersion and an SRS.

Also I’ve been watching some new J films recently. Particularly Departures (おくりびと) was an great film highly recommend!

Overall I feel my Japanese is already pretty much back to how it was before I had the long break and in some areas is probably better especially my understanding of on’yomi (音読み) and kun’yomi (訓読み) readings for Kanji.

Now after much research I have found many cases of foreigners obtaining working Visa’s to teach English and do other Jobs in Japan without a degree, all legally. All that is actually needed is that you fit into the specific rolls to be accepted for the Visa these can be found here. There are a few other criteria but that is the major one.

As long as your employer is willing to sponsor your Visa then nothing else is required and yes I understand that having a degree may make you stand out from the crowd and will probably make it easier to gain employment just like any other country probably more so if your a foreigner.

I get sick of pretty much the entire Internet stating that a degree is required when nothing on the Japanese Embassy website on Visa Acquisitions states this and with a little bit of research you will find many who legally work in Japan without a company transfer and without a degree.

Now if only companies like JET would relax there entry requirements although I suppose Japanese schools would need to agree to take on foreigners without degree’s.

oh! and MOFA has recently been upgraded and is much easier to understand the visa procedure. Note that there is also no longer any mention of how long you must work in a specific field to earn the right for a working Visa. (It used to be 10 years experience for many fields)

My list of the weird and wonderful drinks from Japan, some I’ve tried others… I may try.

Water Salad
How about “Water Salad”? or you could just have water with a salad!… Released by Coca Cola none the less, must be good.

Boss Coffee
Boss Coffee! Available from pretty much every vending machine you see in Japan, now you know where to get your coffee fix.

Calpis Water
Yes just as it sounds Calpis apparently has a milky acidic flavour… hmm nice!

Ramune
Love these very much always at the top of my import list. Come in a variety of flavours the fun part is you use the cap to knock the marble out the top and into the neck of the bottle. You then drink trying not to let the marble hit the top as it stops the flow.

Final Fantasy Potions!
After that long day of questing how about toping up with a Final Fantasy potion. Provided in a variety of herbal ingredients.

Diet Water!
Drinking water and feel like your putting on the pounds? Then try diet water for that calorie conscious individual. Either than or more money than…

Japan Breast milk
Fancy drinking human breast milk from a carton? Nope me either… but you could >.>

1) Start by learning the Kana both Hiragana and Katakana they are both very easy to learn in a few days you can have them remembered and in a few weeks you can easily be reading them with some competence. This basic foundation will allow you to begin to understand Japanese or at least read basic text even if you don’t understand the meaning its a great feeling to just be able to read and inevitably increase your exposure.

Favorite: Remembering the Kana

2) Now you have two choices, this being more down to the individual. At some point you are going to need to understand Kanji I know this looks a daunting task all those funny looking characters but at some point if you wish to be fluent you are going to need to understand them.

Now I originally followed the AJATT method of using the book “remembering the Kanji” to learn there meanings and how to write, but you will be at this a long time 2136 Kanji to learn is a lot! So feel free to go down this route if you prefer. Personally I feel its given me a good understanding of Kanji but I feel I could have gotten to my same ability without going through the “Remembering the Kanji” first.

My advice is to learn a good hundred or so of the most common Kanji this will give you a nice foundation. Once you get bored of learning Kanji don’t worry about it just continue to sentence mine (more on that in a minute) adding new Kanji a long the way with your new sentences and learning them in context.

Favorite: Remembering the Kanji

3) Get an SRS such as Anki and begin to collect sentences that interest you! with no more than one or two new words and basic grammar per sentence.

4) Learn some basic grammar and collect sentences with the grammar you wish to learn. Learn common particles, conjugations etc once you get bored and have general grammar down go to the next step.

Favorite: Tae Kim’s guide to Japanese
Understanding Basic Japanese Grammar

5) By now you should be getting regular exposure to Japanese from all the sentence mining. You now need to bump it up a notch your exposure that is. Begin to immerse yourself in Japanese e.g. Watch lots of Japanese TV, Music, reading books/Manga, Convert everything you own thats digital to the Japanese interface, stick labels on objects around your house. Anything you can think of to increase your exposure to Japanese.

Favorite: Manga, Anime, Jdorama, J Websites

6) Stop! When you get bored of something don’t continue to do it as you will only hurt, maybe even cease learning Japanese altogether as I did. You must continue learning Japanese in a way that interests you even if that means stop using your SRS or using it sparingly as I currently do only to remember those difficult words.

7) Enjoy! The longer you study, the more you need to study using something you enjoy. Currently I am concentrating on reading as much as I can without sentence mining I will occasionally check the word in a JDictionary and then continue on if I forget then I forget, the next time I come across it I may check again. If after a few times of seeing the same word and I am still unable to read then I will add this to my SRS. I like to read Manga with Furigana (Hiragana over the kanji) so I can actually read the Kanji and sometimes just know the meaning from the context.

As with your native language there are always new words to learn and the more you learn the easier it will be to remember future words.

8 ) Once you get to the point of understanding most material when reading and listening you will probably still find your output isn’t half as good. This should be the easy part now you have the knowledge its just a case of applying it. Speak and write everything that comes into your head in Japanese it will eventually just click. The output process will be much quicker than if you had started with output from the beginning because you already know what to say its just practice!

Now the above is just my own personally way that works for me you have to find the way that works for you. If you have taken the time to read this you will find a whole wealth of further information on the site where the immersion method began or at least the most well know. All Japanese All The Time!

Other Useful resources:
Nihongoup – Full guided Japanese learning tool.
Read the Kanji – Quizzes to test yourself on your Kanji ability.
Real Kanji – Study Kanji via typing the Hiragana.
Renshuu – Study vocab, Kanji and more.
Read more or die (多読 Tadoku) – Worthy mention. Runs regularly competitions on the language learning community to inspire people to read more native material.

Will add more as and when. You can also find all these links in the resources section in the forums!

So on this note I decided to create a small community forum for us all to discuss the above and more. If anybody has any recommendation for specific categories and/or features to include please let me know. Click the やる気 Community Forums! link above or click here!

Before I took my long hiatus from learning Japanese I was a huge advocate of sentence mining and Spaced Retention Software now both these tools are great when combined and I had literally thousands of mined sentences which I did see a vast improvement in my Japanese.
But! It started to get very time consuming and I’m sorry to say boring even with using tips and tricks such as “time boxing” it was still absorbing most of my time after work. More time was spent trying to keep up to date with my SRS than was spent actually learning and enjoying the language.

Now by no means am I saying that SRS and sentence mining is bad in fact for the beginner they are essential and fastest way to learn and I may still use them occasionally but only for something I find difficult to remember and feel that its paramount that I remember it.

Instead I am switching my attention to reading Japanese whether its native Japanese friends on twitter/G+ posting in Japanese or actually reading Japanese material such as books and Manga. I have already converted most of my electronic devices to show Japanese as the main interface this will force me to see Japanese on a daily basis and thus learn without forcing myself to mine a hundred sentences and so on.

Personally this already seems a much more fun way to learn and with my currently busy schedule with work and other hobbies I will be able to maintain and improve on what I love rather than giving up because I don’t fancy reviewing 100+ sentences each day.

Any recommendations and/or thoughts would be more than welcome how do you keep yourself interested when learning, any tips on learning by reading/absorbing feel free to share.