Strange Katakana Words
Posted on 25. Jun, 2009 by Michael.
Why, it was just yesterday that I teamed up with Koichi to kick some Katakana butt on edufire. A rather special class, it was – none of your usual vocabulary fluff. We’re talking real, useful katakana and it’s guaranteed to knock the Christmas socks off any native Japanese speaker when they hear you, or Tofugu isn’t a wonky bean-curd fishman! So, let’s get stuck right in to this 2-part blog post – Gakuranman x Tofugu – Fluency through Katakana Special!
I went for a vintage look with the slides – what do you reckon? Is the ‘Fugu a classic fish yet or still wet around the gills? [...]
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Win an iPhone 3GS by Learning Japanese
Posted on 14. Jun, 2009 by koichi.
If you’re as blinded by Apple fandom as me, and you’re learning Japanese (good chance if you’re reading this), then now’s the time to act. Oh, and full disclosure, I’m an employee at the nice company giving away this iPhone, but doesn’t mean it’s not an awesome opportunity.
Unlimited Live Japanese Classes for $29 a Month
Over at my work at eduFire (which is a marketplace for live education over the Internet) we released a subscription program called SuperPass. For only $29 a month (you’re not going to find a better deal) you can take all kinds of unlimited classes which includes a lot of Japanese classes as well. [...]
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Why you should use a Mac to study Japanese
Posted on 09. Jun, 2009 by koichi.
Mmm. Macs. I’m about the biggest fanboy you’ll see, which probably means a totally biased review. This morning, on the way to work, I made the trek to my version of Mecca and walked past ground zero for Apple’s Worldwide Developer’s Conference. I’ve been thinking about how macs make it easier for me to study Japanese, but the announcement of one particular feature on Snow Leopard (the new OS, which will cost a mere $29) has motivated me to finish this article. Here’s Mac versus PC, blow by blow, when it comes to Japanese study. Let the flame wars begin. [...]
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Practice Kana, Kanji, and Particles with Nihongoup
Posted on 05. Jun, 2009 by koichi.
Philip Seyfi sent me an e-mail asking me to check out his Adobe Air application Nihongoup (for a long time I thought its name was some sort of weird misspelling, or a fish reference, which of course we approve of Ha! Logo is now NihongoUp! Don’t say we never did anything for you). He hooked me up with a free copy (it’s normally $4.99) as well as five more to give away to all of you. You’ll have to keep reading to figure out how you can win. [...]
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Post-Nova Bust: How is G-Education for teaching English in Japan?
Posted on 22. May, 2009 by koichi.
I know a lot of you out there are interested in going to Japan to teach English. Luckily, they’ll take anyone with a beating heart, dumb apes included. But is it really worth it? I’ve always been against a lot of these programs that send people off to teach English. Don’t get me wrong, some of them are good (though I think a lot of people who apply and take these jobs take them for the wrong reasons), but there are definitely companies you should avoid like the plague.
Nova was one of them… but, Nova went out of business, fired a bunch of English teachers (who had nowhere to go), and really sucked when it came to treating their employees good. Nova was bought out by G-education, and recently I got an e-mail from an employee there, who saw both sides of the fence during the transition. I sent him a few questions, and he answered… so anyone who wants to teach English in Japan can now be a little more informed. Of course, my source has to remain confidential, otherwise he’d be fired so hard, and we don’t want that (well, maybe he secretly wishes for it). [...]
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Live Action (Chinese) DragonBall Movie
Posted on 04. May, 2009 by koichi.
We’ve had a lot of “fun” with DragonBall as of late, and after this tip I couldn’t help but post this as well. I’ve seen little bits of this live action Chinese Dragonball knockoff, but not more than a couple of minutes. You know, actually, the fact that this is a Chinese movie kind of makes sense, since Dragonball really came from the Chinese Monkey King anyways, and at least it’s better than the American version. So, if you want to watch the entire movie (full of English dubbed goodness), go below the fold. This is good stuff, I, uh, promise? [...]
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Vote for your favorite Tenso Haiku Now!
Posted on 01. May, 2009 by koichi.
Two weeks ago I put up a post about Tenso, the Japanese shipping company, and asked you all to write a haiku in order to win a slick t-shirt. I’ve been through them a bunch of times now, but can’t choose just one. That’s where YOU come in. I need you to vote for your favorites. You have one week to vote, and then we’ll see who won. I’ve narrowed it down to five… which one will you choose?
VOTE NOW!
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How Godzilla Affects My Daily Commute
Posted on 30. Apr, 2009 by koichi.
Got this tip from @Beta_guy on Twitter. Every word of this video, so true. Brings a little tear to my eye. And is this the shortest Tofugu post you’ve ever seen? Yes it is! Want more Godzilla?
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Tenso: Get Your Own Japanese Shipping Address (and ship things on the cheap)
Posted on 21. Apr, 2009 by koichi.
What Tenso is doing is one of those ideas where you think “dang, I shoulda thought of that.” It’s simple, it’s helpful, and provides a really good service. I tried it out recently, and they let me pick out a Japanese t-shirt and ship it via their service, so that I can give it away to one of you. More information on that at the end of the post.
So here’s the rundown on Tenso: 1) You go to a Japanese website that sells something. 2) You order the item, and have it shipped to your tenso.com address (the address is free). The package is then sent to them, located in Tokyo. 3) They get the package, and then send it to you at a discounted rate. [...]
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Godzilla has a Blog (and more!)
Posted on 14. Apr, 2009 by koichi.
I’ve been working on a couple of new blog projects the last month or two. As some of you might know, I have a pretty poor success-to-failure ratio when it comes to starting new projects (who doesn’t!? what?), so I went ahead and made sure to write some first, announce later. We’ll see, I’m feeling good about these ones. What about you? [...]
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