Learn Japanese

Breaking into Japanese Literature As many of you know by now, being an intermediate student of Japanese can be really miserable. You know a chunk of basic grammar, you can understand everything in your textbooks, but the moment you step into the real world of reading Japanese, everything feels foreign again. If you are one of those people who wants to transition into reading Japanese literature in its original state, sometimes it feels like there is no way you will ever get there. How To Trick Yourself Into Good (Japanese) Studying Habits You know how it’s hard to quit bad habits? Biting your nails, drinking, eating too many cookies, yadda yadda (sure, you could take it to be the Seinfeld reference if you want)… But I bet you didn’t realize you have a ton of good habits as well. Brushing your teeth (well, not all of you have this), putting away the dishes, going running, etc. Now, I’m not saying that creating a habit to study Japanese on a daily basis is easy (it’s not!), and that’s why I’ve compiled a few sneaky things that will “trick” you into studying Japanese and getting yourself into a good habit. It all comes down to analyzing what makes habits into habits, and taking advantage of those things so that you can create a habit without actually having a… habit.

10 Web Apps to Simplify your Life When was the last time you installed something? You know, like getting a CD and installing the software? Not as often as you thought right? 10 Recommended Resources for Learning Japanese Whether you want to learn Japanese without enrolling in a language school, or you want to supplement your Japanese lessons, there’s no shortage of learning resources for you, and here are some of them. Keep in mind, though, that since some of these resources work best as supplementary review material, it’s best to use a combination of materials for those planning to study Japanese on their own. Of course, there’s no one surefire way to learn Japanese (different strokes for different folks, after all), but we’ve also got some tips on how to improve your Japanese. Good luck, and happy learning!

Using Kid’s Songs to Learn Japanese This post was written by Dave of JapanDave.com who Tweets and has a great newsletter full of amazing pictures of Japan. Kid’s songs are a wonderful resource to help you learn Japanese better. They are often overlooked because… well, they are a bit silly, but I think they are worth a second look. Web 2.0 Science Tools By Laura Turner The following web2.0 sites would be useful for science educators at the high school and middle school level. Some would also be appropriate for higher elementary grade levels. There are many new ‘tools’ or websites that take advantage of the higher speed and bandwidth of today’s Internet. Web 1.0 tools/websites were text based and web2.0 tools/websites are designed for full-motion video, 3D animations and are generally interactive in some manner.

The Expat's Guide to Japan Once you get used to the overcrowding, get to know which lines intersect at which stations, and which lines are operated by which companies, Tokyo’s rail network is not so difficult to navigate. Still, there are a few tips and tricks that even veterans can make use off to save time, money and stress on the world’s busiest public transport system. 1. Board the right car for your destination Exits are marked in yellow while Metro symbols show line transfers 5 Step JLPT Study Method Using Japanese Newspapers for Kids Passing the JLPT at any level requires being able to read some Japanese and of course the best way to learn to read is well….reading stuff. The problem with reading is that it’s really hard. For most of us below the JLPT Level 1, pulling out a newspaper, book, or magazine in Japanese and just reading and understanding it is next to impossible to do in a reasonable amount of time. To be fair, those newspapers, books, and magazines are written for adults and the JLPT only tests up to a middle school level of language comprehension.

10 Ways to Hack Google to Become an Awesome Japanese Learning Resource Everyone knows that the GOOG is an incredible resource no matter what you’re doing (Japanese language learning included!). Despite this, there are very few people who know about some really useful features. Some of them “hacks,” some of them just somewhat hidden. Although there are way more than ten ways to use Google for your Japanese learning (you’ll list more in the comments section, right?), these are my favorite Google “gems” that will help you speed up your Japanese studies in no time. Jim Breen on the iPhone I’ve always been a fan of Jim Breen’s Japanese dictionary, so when I found out that there’s an iPhone app out for it, I was really happy. Finally, I don’t have to load the entire Jim Breen page, and now, with the iPhone’s new ability to write in Japanese, all my dirty iPhone dreams would become a mobile reality. The dictionary is the little wwwJDic icon, and yes, huge M’s fan! Looking up Japanese Vocab The first thing I did was look up words, English -> Japanese. I found that it wasn’t always perfect, but neither is the original Jim Breen dictionary, for that matter.

Top 10 Online Resources for Learning Japanese for Free [box type="tick"]Check out Tofugu’s new Japanese Resources Guide! It has the best Japanese resources and reviews for each! It’s also more updated and has more resources than this article![/box] I’m really proud and excited to announce Tofugu’s first annual “Top 10 Online Resources for Learning Japanese for Free” list, which includes an e-book that’s available for download at the end of the article.