Overview

First off, let me just mention that I don’t even own an iPhone. I know, I know. I can hear that laughter of yours, even if it is through the internet, you know! Anyways, I was able to bribe a friend of mine into letting me borrow his iPod Touch for a week or so to see how well this app is able to perform.

Japanese 101: Numbers is brought to us by Japan Newbie. You can head on over to here, if you’d like to read Japan Newbie’s page about how the Japanese number system works in case you’re not actually familiar with it already. We’re going to be covering the two modes that JP101: Numbers has, which is the Study mode and the Quiz mode.

Study Mode

After having clicked Study, you’ll be brought to the screen on the right which will allow you to decide how you’d actually like to study. As you can see from the above image, the first items brought to your attention are Sequential and Shuffle. These options are exactly what they sound like. If you have Sequential selected, which is the default choice, then when you go to study numbers, you’re going to study the numbers exactly in order. Ie: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Yet, if you select the Shuffle option, you’ll study cards in a random order. Ie: 4, 2, 5, 1, 3. Below that, you’re able to select what range of numbers you’d like to learn. You can even learn millions!

Once you’ve selected what number range you would like to study, you’re automagically put into the Study mode and it brings up a number for you(what’s on the left side of the image above). Make sure to have your audio on and turned up as well, because you’ll actually hear the number spoken in Japanese! At any time, you can click on the little speaker item and the number will be repeated verbally again. To actually learn what the number is in Japanese, simply click on it and it will flip around to show you pretty much all you need to know about that number(what’s on the right side of the image above).

Quiz Mode

When you select the Quiz mode, you’ll be presented with a screen very similar to the Study mode. However, there are two main differences. The first is that you must select whether you wish to see 2 possible answers or 4 possible answers, instead of a Sequential/Shuffle option. The second is that unlike the Study mode where you simply selected the range you wanted to study, the Quiz mode allows you mark a few ranges and then study them all.

When you get an answer right, it’ll put a flower on the answer you chose and congratulate you verbally. When you get an answer wrong, it’ll put an X symbol on the answer you chose and a flower on the correct answer. Very simple and neat. No rocket science going on here.

Possible Improvement

The biggest improvement would be if the app provided the ability for Japanese written numbers to be used instead(maybe as a setting or option?). I understand the concept of wanting to make this app in such a way that user doesn’t need to know the Japanese written numbers in order to be able to use it, but honestly, this app would be able to kill two birds with one stone if it had Japanese written numbers as an option.

The Japanese may use Arabic numerals(like us) most of the time, but that doesn’t mean that you won’t need to know their number system for one reason or another. This app would definitely improve one’s ability to read Japanese numbers over time. I generally can read numbers up to 億(おく/oku), but that doesn’t mean I can read them *fast*. That’s the key.

In The End

If I had an iPhone, this app would be on it and it’d be getting used. The fact is that there are too many circumstances where I’m just waiting around, whether it be in a line,  a meeting,  a traffic jam, etc and there is time to kill. The Japanese 101: Numbers app becomes very handy in these times. My personal biggest wish is that they’d hurry up and make an Android version as I’m about to get an Android pretty soon.

Overview

The debate exists that schooling, whether it be college or language classes at a language school, sucks in general and tutoring seems to often be grouped along with these. I have a real problem with this. The truth of the matter is that you can only pick what college you attend and you can only pick what language school you go to. Yet you can’t pick your teacher nor the materials you will be going over. Therefore, you’re much more likely to encounter problems because there is a good chance that…

1. Your teacher will suck horribly.
2. Your materials will be pathetic.
3. You’ll be moving at the pace of the students you’re in a class with, not on your own level.

However, with tutoring none of that is possible. Here’s why:

1. YOU choose your teacher.
2. YOU choose your material.
3. YOU are the only student(or at least you choose who you are studying with).

So don’t give me excuses about tutoring. Sure, you may not be able to find a good tutor and I understand that, but don’t complain about tutoring itself. There is no reigning dictator(school boards ) choosing who, what, when, how, etc you’ll be studying. YOU will be making all of those decisions. Yes, it’s more work, but you’re becoming a big boy now anyways, right?

Enough with the rant though, I’m really here to tell you why you should get a tutor if possible and what to look for in a tutor.

1) Motivation

I don’t care what anyone says, motivation is extremely tough. Yes, at times you’ll have an abundant amount of it and you’ll be as high as a kite(so to speak ) but there will indeed be times you crash that kite into the ground and it burns.. oh it burns.. Just understand, to every up there is a down. The sooner you realize that down time is normal, the easier you’ll be able to get over it.

Tutors keep you soaring high in the sky!

Tutors can play a huge role in building motivation as long as you find a teacher that is truly enthusiastic about it themselves. My 先生(sensei/teacher) actually provides me weekly with information about Japan itself. She tells me about stories when she use to live over there as well as everything she can think of that might be beneficial for me. Recently we’ve started going over things to do and not to do. As well as big differences in daily life. For me, this helps wonders because I hear all these things and it certainly just makes me more interested in traveling over there myself!

Just remember, your tutor may not know you’re interested in learning about them. Often times they just think you’re doing it for business, to show off, or to watch anime/read manga, so make sure to explain to them that you’re interested in everything they’re able to provide!

2) Live Feedback

You really don’t think this is as big of a deal as it is till you have it available. It’s amazing at how fast I am able to catch on to slight intricacies that I wouldn’t have even caught if my 先生 hadn’t mentioned them to me. It may be pronunciation, word order in a sentence, etc. If you’re just speaking to someone that knows Japanese, like at a restaurant, they may not mention anything is wrong/different because they’re just so surprised you can speak anything at all. Plus, they may not want to point out flaws as to not make you lose face, but that is what a tutor is designed to do.

A tutor is there to tell you when you’re wrong and when you’re right. Utilize this “feature” by asking your tutor if your pronunciation is correct and whether or not there is any thing you can do to improve it. One piece of feedback that I’ve been given in the past is to eliminate short breaks in my speech by changing “今日　　は　　 ビール　　を　　飲みます。” into ”今日は　　ビールを　　飲みます。” Though the first sentence may not be wrong, it doesn’t sound nearly as fluid.

3) Zero Bullshit

At places like college or language schools, they tend to baby you when it comes to conversational practice. Part of the reason is that not everyone moves at the same speed, so while you might be dedicated and learning the language at a rapid rate, your fellow classmates may be slow and barely able to keep up even when the teacher is babying the class. Tutors break this barrier.

Score is most definitely being kept.

Tutors often know that if you’re coming to them, you’re generally more self-dedicated than the rest thus they will generally automatically put more pressure on you. My 先生 does this quite a bit. The moment she see’s what I am struggling with, we hit it hard. For instance, one of my biggest problems is that I can read a sentence in Japanese and produce a English translation a lot quicker than I can read the same sentence in English but produce a Japanese translation. Because of that, my 先生 now forces me to put focus on that when I would have just said to myself, “Meh, I can read it.. so I could make that sentence too from English text.. *moves on*”.

It’s really quite funny actually, since my 先生 makes me laugh. She will sometimes just stare at me waiting while I’m giving her an answer or trying to piece together a sentence, because she wants me to make a full attempt before giving me any help so that I don’t just worm my way through problems that arise.

In The End

I’m not saying that all tutors are awesome, or even that most of them are, but what I am saying is that everything relies on YOU choosing who is suitable to be your teacher. This strips away the ability to put any blame on your teacher or on fellow students, because you chose your teacher and you are the only student.

Just understand that a tutors duty is not to do everything for you, but to simply be there when you need them. Don’t expect to only study with your tutor or you won’t ever get far. The dedication and responsibility has to come from within yourself. Your tutor is just there to make it all flow much better and to keep motivation high. If you’re not getting these benefits from your current tutor, you might need to think about finding someone else.

What can I say? I’m a guy who tends to think outside the box. Maybe I’m wrong, maybe I’m right. Who knows? I’m just going to present some information to you about my thoughts on why you should not prepare for the JLPT tests. You be the judge on whether you think my points are valid or not.

1) Think Back to HighSchool When…

Every one has been there, whether in HighSchool or College, where it’s test day and you’re scrambling to jam that last bit of info into your skull before your teacher says to put the books away. I chose HighSchool as an example, because some of my readers may not even be out of HighSchool yet. Anyways, on to the point!

What generally happens is that you study and study, take a test, and then… can you guess? If you said, “forget all that info”, you’d be correct! That’s right, we study our brains to death for a test(or class) and within a very short amount of time aka days, weeks, maximum months, all that information is gone. Sure, you might remember a few bits and pieces here and there, but chances are you’d fail that same test if you took it again. Why do you think that is? A lot of people tend to say, “because I didn’t get a chance to re-study..“. This reaction totally shocks me. Why would you need to restudy if it’s something you already know? The answer is you never really knew that information in the first place, at least not in the long term memory section of that brain of yours.

The truth is that if you can only remember it for a short amount of time, you probably don’t actually know that bit of information at all. Hence why so many people use SRS utilities. SRS utilities are built to help us actually learn things, not recite them. By repeating the same item over and over every so often, it becomes engraved into our brains and we actually know the information now.

This is one of the main reasons I hate the idea of “preparing” for the JLPT. What you’re setting yourself up for is a cram fest, resulting in short term memory rather than long term understanding. I’m not saying you can’t study properly so that you end up prepared for the JLPT, but if you simply aim to pass the JLPT, you’re aiming for the same goal you aimed for when you were in HighSchool, to pass another test and then run like hell.

2) The JLPT is Overrated

Yeah, I already know I’m going to get flack back from this, but that’s what the internet is for so let’s use it like it was intended. For those of you with an open mind, just hear me out. We all know the JLPT is important, no body is arguing that. The issue of argument stems from why the JLPT is important.

What I mean is that most people would say the JLPT is important because it assess your Japanese language ability. However, I’d say it is important because jobs often look for it as a pre-requisite. You see, this goes back to point #1. If you’re studying to simply pass a test, you may end up passing it with flying colors, but 6 months down the road, what then? Will you still be able to pass the test? Often times the answer to that question is no.

Right there the JLPT has become utterly useless for you, because it will only assess your current knowledge, whether or not it is knowledge stored in short term memory or long term memory. The JLPT should be used to assess your long term memory, which can be done very easily, by simply not studying for the test. If you don’t study, it’ll test what knowledge is already ingrained into you. I’m not saying take the JLPT with no shot in hell of passing whatever level you’re planning on taking. I’m just saying that you should make sure you are actually testing yourself correctly.

3) What Do You Really Want?

The first thing you need to decide for yourself is what you really want out of all of this. Do you want to be able to just barely get by, become fluent, get a Japanese job, etc? If your goal is to simply get a Japanese job, but you don’t really care about your long term fluency in Japanese, then by all means go straight for the JLPT!

No test can prepare you for this maze(Japanese).

Yet, if you want to be fluent, why are you even looking at the JLPT in the first place? No test is going to determine where you’re at adequately. For instance, I could study all of Heisig in 6 months let’s say and by the end of it I know them all extremely well but I can’t pass the JLPT N5 because Heisig is all that I learned during those months. However, there is another person who studied 100% for the JLPT N5 those entire 6 months and was able to pass the test. Do you believe the person who passed the JLPT N5 to be further ahead?

You can’t actually measure success in the form of some test. One student chose focused Kanji study and the other chose focused JLPT N5 study. Even if both students have the information stored in their long term memory, they just chose a different path.

In the End

I’m not trying to say the JLPT is bad or useless. I’m simply suggesting that you should understand it’s real purpose and that if you truly want to utilize the JLPT, then don’t study for it. I’m not going to be taking the JLPT for awhile myself. I plan to wait and aim for at least the N3 before I take any tests. Even then, I will only take it once I believe I know the material. How will I know? I’ll just use old tests(I know old tests don’t exist yet for N3), but afterward you won’t see me cramming that information into myself just to past the test.

Overall, if you’re learning the JLPT material over a long period of time and are truly retaining it in your long term memory and not just cramming it into yourself, then this message wasn’t for you.

Overview

Great Teacher Onizuka, often referred to as GTO, is actually a Anime series, Manga series, Live Action TV series, and a Live Action movie. As you can see, there is a rather decent sized crowd following GTO otherwise it wouldn’t have this much media produced around it. However, I’m sorry to report that I’ve personally only seen the Anime series and the Live Action TV movie. I’m definitely going to find the others and watch/read them when I get chance! There is just so much Anime, Manga, Movie, etc to read/watch yet so little time. Anyways, on to the review…

Onizuka taking care of business!

The Anime was a unique experience for sure. I’ve tried finding other Anime series out there like it, so far the only other Anime series I’ve been able to find anywhere even close to it’s style is Gokusen(which I also enjoyed). Though I guess that is what makes Anime series like GTO so special, the fact that their aren’t a dozen other series out there like it.

The rest of the factor is that it is simply a great Anime. It has character development, tons of humor(often a bit naughty ), and plenty of emotion. I’m not sure about others, but with this Anime I actually felt for the characters. I’ve seen many Anime in the past where I watched it just for the fighting/special effects/boredom/etc, but this movie definitely wasn’t one of those.

Though each might be rated respectfully on their own scale, I think GTO overall has much of the same properties that it conveys over all the types of media produced. Consistently is the key and they pulled it off well.

Obviously, Onizuka(who is the Great Teacher ), is the main focus in character development and plot line, though a few familiar characters will be portrayed, yet there isn’t a ton of depth behind them. Mostly this is simply because we’re talking about a movie versus an Anime series, so you have a time limit. However, I think they did an excellent job in using those side characters at the best possible spots and only when needed.

Reason to Watch: Onizuka. ‘Nuff said.

Preview

You may or may not like the song, but it definitely portrays a lot about Onizuka and this Anime!

I enjoyed this one as well so I thought I’d include it.

There weren’t very many GTO Live Action movie “trailers” to choose from, but I thought this one was nice. I actually enjoyed the song quite a bit as well. I’m going to have to see what else that band offers. :halo:

What’s the Catch?

First things first, let’s go over the worst part about TextFugu first. Why first? Because once we’ve got that out of the way, you won’t keep thinking “..but what’s the catch?” the whole time I’m telling you about what TextFugu does/doesn’t offer.

The payment plans are really simple, which I love. I hate when places offer so many choices that it becomes a task just to decide how you’re going to buy the product. Essentially, you have one of three options:

1. Pay $20 monthly (Great way to test the water, so to speak)
2. Pay $50 every 3 months (Saves you $10 compared to option #1)
3. Pay $120 one time (The best deal TextFugu will ever offer)

I went with deal #3 right away, but my suggestion is that if you’re feeling really unsure about TextFugu, then simply buy one month first and if you like it, then pay the one time payment. But obviously, if you like TextFugu and you’re going to keep using the site, the best option is the one time payment. I know it’s a decent size chunk of money to some of you out there, especially for those that are use to free resources. However, I can assure you that TextFugu will most likely never offer a better deal than the one time payment. In fact, if it gets popular enough, it may get rid of the one time payment option!

The other thing to notice is that TextFugu actually lets you see around 8 of it’s articles to give you a preview of what you should expect.

… however, there is a secret you should know, that makes it currently inexcusable to not give TextFugu a shot, but… we’ll save that for later.. :halo:

PS:  Click here to skip there now if you’re impatient.

The Reason for the Season

Now we’re going to reveal what is truly beneath the skin to take a look at the real heart and soul of TextFugu.

Once you’re at TextFugu, you’ll see drop down menu’s along the top. These menu items are the way you’ll be navigating your way through the site. As you can see from the image above, when you hover over a “Season”, you’ll be able to see the lessons beneath that season. Season 1 is where you should begin, no matter what level you are in Japanese, because TextFugu’s lessons offer more than just language lessons, they offer life lessons.

Season 1 is where you get started. It may seem to run a little slow at first, but that’s because Season 1 is obsessed with creating an incredible Japanese learning foundation. We do a lot of little things to help you understand how the Japanese language works, come up with good habits, and most importantly, become comfortable with hiragana. Things are kept extra simple so you don’t get stuck, and by the end of it you’re ready to learn a lot more a lot quickly.

From what I understand, a Season will generally equate to about a month or so of work for those who are generally starting from scratch(or at least close to it). A Lesson is simply a stepping stone inside of a Season.

What’s in a Lesson?

Every TextFugu lesson starts off with an inspirational quote at the top, which is something I personally love. Sometimes I just re-click through all the pages, reading the quotes because they motivate me so much. This was a great idea in my opinion.

Throughout some of the larger lessons, you’ll find these “Chapter Sub-Menu” boxes, that allow you to easily pan through the material by dropping you down to a specific section of text. You’d be surprised at how useful this really is. Why? Well, because a large majority of TextFugu’s posts are quite large! And I mean that in a good way. Too often topics are merely brushed over vaguely, but not with TextFugu!

The big advantage TextFugu has over traditional text books is that it can provide sample audio clips for you to easily hear. Does anyone actually listen to the CD provided with text books? I know I don’t, it’s too much hassle. But with TextFugu, it’s simply a click.

Click here to read the Season 1: Teaching Yourself Japanese article for free!

An Interesting Approach to Kanji

As most of you probably know, I’m currently on the Hesig – Remembering the Kanji path as the first part of my two year plan. I’ve taken a look at TextFugu’s method of learning Kanji and while I will still stay true to my Hesig method, I can definitely see how TextFugu’s Kanji learning methods would work quite well. The idea is that you learn the radicals first and then actual Kanji so that you’re remembering building blocks, not just strokes. To be honest, that part is actually a lot like how Heisig introduces radicals right before you learn a series of Kanji that use them.

After you’ve learned the radicals, you move on to learning actual Kanji. I think the Kanji that TextFugu teaches you in the beginning has the nice order of learning what’s used/seen the most in daily life. The one key difference is that TextFugu teaches you the readings and meanings together, whereas Heisig teaches just the meanings in the beginning.

I prefer Heisig myself, but I don’t think that means Heisig is any better. To me it’s simply two different paths to get you to the same point. It doesn’t matter which you take, as long as it works for you and gets you where you need to be. I have friends that don’t like the Heisig method, they’d rather accumulate a much smaller amount of Kanji per week but learn both the readings and the meanings at the same time. For those people, I’d say TextFugu does a hell of a job guiding you.

Click here to read more about how TextFugu teaches Kanji.

Bells and Whistles

TextFugu honestly has so many bells and whistles that you’ll be able to utilize those features to spend a good deal more amount of time studying Japanese. What kind of features am I talking about? Well, currently here are some of the things you can expect:

1. Cheat Sheets (These are very useful, as good one’s are hard to come by)
2. Newsletters (Useful info sent directly to you as it comes out)
3. Inspiration (Inspiring thoughts are strewn all over every page you go to!)
4. Smart.FM (Integration with Smart.FM for many of the study items)
5. Audio (Audio of Koichi pronouncing word, phrases, and sentences)

It’s features like these that tend to make TextFugu a lot more interactive.

What DOESN’T TextFugu Have?

I guess you could say this is the Con portion of the article. TextFugu doesn’t necessarily have features that are bad, but rather there are things it doesn’t have that you’ll need to get elsewhere. The number one thing it doesn’t have is a community.

Yes, TextFugu has people subscribed and yes it does let you comment on blog posts, but it doesn’t have a real way for users to interact together. There is no forum or chat room, which basically says their is no communication going on between students. While TextFugu does a great job at presenting the right information in the right order to students, this is Sensei <-> Student communication. The Student <-> Student communication is left out, which I believe is just as important as the rest. Exposure to the language as well as an environment that you can play around in, is what is really needed.

However, you shouldn’t really weigh any of this against TextFugu. The fact is, TextFugu is merely a book in digital form that gets revised and expanded. You wouldn’t not buy a book because it didn’t include a community of students would you? All I’m saying is be aware that it isn’t a one solution fix, but then again for Japanese no solution is.

Update: Soon after posting this article, Koichi(creator of TextFugu) read this article and decided to do something about this issue. TextFugu now has a forum that is already quite active! The forum is for those who register for TextFugu, so what are you waiting for!? :love:

The Super Secret Surprise

Okay, so it may not really be a super secret surprise, considering it’s actually on TextFugu’s home page but… it’s awesome nonetheless.

TextFugu actually comes with a complete guarantee! Not only that, but a 110% guarantee! Really, the key here isn’t even the 110%, it’s the fact that you’re fully able to get your money back if for some reason you don’t like TextFugu and think you’ve wasted your money. At this point, you have nothing to lose with TextFugu.

PS: Just remember, all of this info applies currently, but who knows when TextFugu may change. So if you want a 110% guarantee and the ability to make a one time purchase forever, you better do it now.

Currently I’m on Phase 1 of 7(see: Progress Page), which is to learn all of the Kanji in Remembering the Kanji 1(Heisig) by Aug 1st 2010. At times, you’ll feel like some of the Kanji are piling up on you and that you’re getting swamped. Generally this usually occurs when you have a busy day, or for one reason or another, the Kanji reviews don’t get completed. Trust me, I’ve been there and as I learn more Kanji, I’m still experiencing that occasionally. However, there are some very crucial key steps you can take to prevent a burn out, feeling overwhelmed, or quitting altogether. Here are the 5 most helpful “tips” everyone should know:

1) Fun > Hard Work/Diligence/Etc

You may think at times, “I need to buckle down and just trudge through this!”. STOP! You’ve just committed a sin fatal flaw. The moment you go into the buckle down mode, you’re generally already giving in to the “…kanji suck “ trap. With the mindset that kanji suck, of course you are going to suck at learning them, even if you do buckle down. What you have to do is turn that frown( ) upside down( ), as they say.

Sometimes motivation is found at the bottom of a cup...

If you currently don’t have fun while learning kanji, you only have three options:

1. Try this hard work nonsense, and then fail.
2. Quit while you’re ahead(of the pain of taking option #1).
3. Learn to make learning kanji fun.

No more of that, “… but I have to study kanji and they are so hard! T_T” BS anymore if you want to actually succeed. Yes, dedication does play a part, but it’s the dedication to make kanji fun, which is MUCH easier than dedicating yourself to buckling down. I mean, how much dedication did it really take to get you to learn how to play video games? Exactly…

... and sometimes it's found elsewhere.

So how do you actually make learning kanji fun? Good question. It’s a shame I can’t answer it for you. I can only guide you towards the path with some advise, not hold your hand the whole way. The rest of the tips are here to help make it easier for you to make learning kanji fun!

2) Like in Programming, Documentation is a MUST!

Learn to document each and every kanji that you learn. No, I don’t mean physically write down on a piece of paper each Kanji you learn(although, that might not be such a bad idea…). What I’m talking about is generating a physical representation of what you’ve learned so far, in comparison to what you’re attempting to accomplish.

Take me as an example. I’m attempting to learn all of RTK 1, which is quite a large amount of characters, so what I’ve done is I’ve copied all of the joyo and toyo kanji into an excel sheet and then mark off kanji as I learn them. How do I mark them off? Simple, I just fill the background with a color. This allows me to be able to see how I’m affecting the big picture. Without this, you’re really just looking at numbers and our brain just so happens to do a hell of a lot better with pictures, graphs, etc than numbers. Seriously.

3) Forget the Past, Embrace the Future

It is very common for people to see where they are currently at(what they’ve learned so far, etc) and then feel ashamed/embarrassed that they are not further along. I understand this dilemma, as it’s happened to me as well, but when you really start to think about it, it becomes quite ridiculous.

Being a foreigner who can't speak that well can't be any worse than this.

The only opinion you should care about is your own for one. Secondly, you may not be the best, but you should take pride in whatever you have learned, no matter how big or small, because you can rest assured there are millions of people out there that know even less than you. Hell, for me, it’s even hard to find someone that I can speak Japanese with in the first place!

Instead of sulking in the past, embrace the future and start daydreaming about how great it’ll be to show off your Japanese to others, especially those who don’t speak it. This is a huge way to keep learning kanji fun, by keeping in mind that if you wanted you could simply take the kanji you just learned, go up to one of your friends, ask them what it means, and then laugh as only you know the answer. Is it somewhat cruel? Yes. Is it worth it? Hell yes.

4) Believe in Yourself

If you already start out with the notion that you can’t possibly succeed, then of course you are going to fail! Your mind is a powerful tool and if you convince it that you have limitations, you’re going to have limitations. I’m not suggesting that you should set unrealistic goals because you don’t want to limit yourself, but at the same time, reach for the sky!

Trust me, I’ve had a lot of people tell me I can’t do a lot of things, yet that’s never deterred me from at least trying, and a lot of the times I succeeded even my own insane expectations! How does this happen? Magic? There are those who have called me smart, even intelligent. I beg to differ. What I have is a lack of caring about what others think I am or am not capable of, and a strong will to prove people wrong to make them look foolish. Those are the only real gifts I was born with. The rest is sheer attitude, motivation, and dedication(to having fun).

Don’t get sad or whiny just because someone tells you that you can’t do something. Take that as a challenge, so that you can use that to strive to reach your goal! If I said I wanted to be fluent in 1 year, but only reached Advanced level knowledge of the language, I’d say that was a success, not a failure! I may not have reached my exact goal, but I accomplished something extraordinary.

5) Quitting is the Only Way to Fail

As long as you are continuing to progress towards whatever goal you’re aiming for, you’re succeeding not failing, no matter how slow you may be going. The only way to actually fail is to quit.

Quitting happens when you either give up or you just stop attempting to progress at all. Notice I said attempting to progress. Sometimes we hit rough patches and it seems like we’re standing still, but the truth is that as long as were actually still making an effort, we’re really progressing. Always count rough patches as progression.

PS: Be sure to check out NihongoUp’s Matsuri for more “how-to” articles – Japanese how-tos.