Help Me Help You (Plus Extended Nara Mascot Contest Deadline!)

koichi has a sad face onHey Everyone. I need your help in a big way. I’m doing my senior thesis on Japanese Pedagogy (basically I’m researching how people learned Japanese, how they are learning it now, and how it should change in the future). I need to interview a lot of people who are learning Japanese to get a better feel of things. Below is a form with a bunch of questions regarding this topic. I would appreciate it so much if you filled it out (if you are learning Japanese). I don’t have much I can offer in return, but I will write you a thank you card (with my bare hands) and send it to you, if you provide me your address. I won’t use it for anything else but this, I promise. So if you could fill out the form after the break, I would appreciate it so much.

In somewhat not related news, I am extending the deadline for the Nara Mascot and Story contest by 2 weeks. Get your submissions in by April 9th. Right now there are around 6 or 7 in, so I hope to get a few more by the time the time is up. It will be voted on after the deadline and the winner will get a Japanese textbook of my choosing (depending on the winner’s level and what they already have). If you finish the story, you have a chance of winning some Japanese goods (also of my choosing). So now that you have two more weeks, don’t wait anymore! I really enjoy seeing your submissions, so please try it out if you’re interested!

The form of questions for Japanese learners is below, all you have to do is

*update! As of 10:30pm, March 27, I’ve gotten around 150 submissions. I’m really sorry, but as soon as it hits 200 I’m going to start becoming more picky about the thank you cards. If you’ve already turned one in, or you turn one in before number 200, don’t worry, I’ll get you one, but after that I’m going to write only to the especially thorough submissions. I’m really sorry for the inconvenience, but this is a lot more submissions than I expected! Thank you so much, and keep them coming!!

**update 2! As of March 28, I’ve gotten 250 submissions! Thank you so much to all who have submitted. At this point I can’t really promise thank you cards to everyone after the 200 mark, though I will try my best. If you can, please still fill out the form! I’ll do my best to thank everyone personally, but after 200…it’s getting crazy.

***update 3! As of April 1, I am verging on 4 billion submissions now, so I’m going to cut it off here. Thank you SO MUCH for all your help this far.

[yframe url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Rx5VfPUgOM']

Thank you so much for your help. I appreciate it in boatloads. On another note, did you see the new “top commenters” list on the far right column replacing an advertisement? Anything that replaces advertisements seem like a good idea, I think :)

  • Umbra

    Filled in my answers just now. After watching the video I just wanted to add that I’m not American and hope you can still use it. Good luck with your thesis… about time for me to choose a theme for my thesis.

  • krystlee

    heeey so i just filled mine out now too (:

    i hope i was of some help to you somehow. and yeah, just email me if you need more!

    if the one on the survey doesn’t work i have more emails haha.

    krystlee@hellokitty.com &kbyuleee@yahoo.com

  • Jamie

    did it ^ ^

    hope it was some help.

    I study in my own time at the moment btw
    I have applied to study Japanese at University starting in September!

    Jamie

  • kevinnwhat

    well didnt you hit the jackpot here koichi? alot of ppl submitted ^_^

  • Karen

    Good luck on your thesis!

    I think I wrote too much for the survey though. ><

  • Molly

    That was fun, I got a chance to vent. =)

  • http://www.livejournal.com/users/reopened_wound RomanticAi07

    I finished your survey, hopefully it helps!

    Good luck on your thesis!

  • fredydb327

    What’s this point system?How did I give Koichi two points? :

  • WOTDsctoo

    Filled it out. : )

    I didn’t have any intention of entering the Nara contests before, but the fact that they are being extended intrigues me. I just have to get a friend to draw for me. XD

  • http://www.tofugu.com Viet
  • http://youtube.com/profile?user=chokudori クリス

    Just submitted, I hope the form got through because my browser lagged as I clicked the submit button. Let me know if you didn’t get it and I’ll go ahead fill it out again.

  • http://www.tofugu.com koichi

    omg, someone has FINALLY given me one point!

  • cor

    another one for you homes. good luck on your thesis.

  • ゴジラ

    Tried to be as descriptive as i could. Please e-mail me if there is anything else I can help with. I always find time to help out my favorite subscription. lol. Anyway, リポートがんばってね

    ショシュ

  • http://youtube.com/profile?user=chokudori クリス

    Make that 2 points ;)

    Haha, I completely forgot about the point system since the last time you updated the look of the comments.

  • fredydb327

    Happy Birthday?! Haha. It was mine yesterday. So Happy Early Birthday! haha. I can’t believe you haven’t gotten a point this entire time. haha. Oh, and Viet deserves a point for explaning the point system. I think it’s only fair.

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  • BananaChocolatePocky

    Konban wa, Koichi san!

    i filled in the survey!! in some boxes i wrote a LOT of stuff meh.. im sorry
    but i hope this helps you!!!

    cant wait for your card!! <3

  • http://www.tofugu.com koichi

    The more you write the better! Thank you!

  • Katiekins

    I filled out the survey, I hope it helps.

  • WingsOfDaidalos

    I notified my fellow students about this after filling it in myself recently. Should add a few more, hope it helps! :) Didn’t tell them about the Thank You card though, since it’s over 250 at time of writing :)

  • SimonVaillancourt

    Koichi Thanks for your great work ! :)

  • SimonVaillancourt

    Sorry I didn’t write that much, I just started my learning.

  • http://www.myspace.com/heatlessangel heartlessangel

    Me too and its got horrible grammar and punctuation so sorry an advance lol but thanks I had fun doing it though origoto!

  • http://www.myspace.com/heatlessangel heartlessangel

    wat is the point system i saw that and i was like huh?

  • http://youtube.com/profile?user=chokudori クリス

    Something similar to the good/bad comment system on Youtube. Basically you can give points to the responses of other people on this site. Viet posted a link up there ^^ giving a better explanation of what it is and how it works.

    Link: http://www.tofugu.com/2008/01/22/the-best-site-

  • Alyssa

    Konbanwa, Koichi-san!!!
    Filled out your survey, I ended up writing quite a bit >_<” Sorry, hope it helps!!
    By the way, good luck on your thesis, you chose a really cool topic.
    Ganbatte~!

  • JackB

    I tried to write everything I could (I took me about an hour to think of everything to write >.> ). Feel free to email you if you have any more questions. You must have a lot of responses by now, and mine might not end up making any difference. ; ( But you’ve helped so many people so far with your youtube videos and blogs posts, so I had no choice but return the favor.

  • theshredda

    hey I’ve just filled out the form I hope it helps

    a greeting card would be nice too if you get the time

  • fredydb327

    Ahh… I’ve failed to mention something…
    Who’s going to Japan?
    I am. :-D
    I should start studying now.
    I would… if I didn’t have a test tomorrow for math and my lovely Music Investigation paper! I’m making a website, but it will most likely suck. :D

  • http://www.tofugu.com koichi

    Makin’ a website? Sweet. Not that I know very much, but let me know if you have any questions

  • http://www.tofugu.com koichi

    Thank you so much for filling it out!

  • http://www.tofugu.com koichi

    Thank you!

  • http://www.tofugu.com koichi

    Soooo freakin many

  • http://www.tofugu.com koichi

    More the better! Thank yoU!

  • http://www.tofugu.com koichi

    Hahaha, uh oh. Look forward to reading it, then.

  • http://www.tofugu.com koichi

    Sounds good to me ;)

  • http://www.tofugu.com koichi

    Thank you!

  • http://www.tofugu.com koichi

    Thank you!

  • http://nano-doll.blogspot.com Tiffany

    Ohayo! It’s 3:12 AM… (x_O”)

    I just completed the form. I’m not really expecting your’e really going to read it though,
    because this would mean that you didn’t fin what you needed in the other Aprox. 350 (by now) other submissions and are desperate :P But I still did my best.

    Are you seriously going to send a postcard to over 200 people?
    Oh sweet Brownies that’s Alot.
    I pitty your hand.
    I pity your pen/pencil even more! :P

    Good luck!

    -Tiffy

  • http://simaldeff.wordpress.com Simaldeff

    I wanted to participate in the Mascot contest … but I’ve to present my thesis (which I wrote about the game of Go) on the 14th of April … so my hands are full right now ( T- T )

  • http://myspace.com/heatlessangel heartlessangel

    thanks I read about it I guess it helps in a way.

  • http://youtube.com/profile?user=chokudori クリス

    Hmm, I’m in the same boat. What program do you use Koichi? Right now I’m running Dreamweaver. I was messing around with iWeb [thinking I could be lazy], but I’d rather enter many lines of code, than to be frustrated with a program that lacks the tools I need, haha.

  • http://www.tofugu.com koichi

    I just use BBedit, which is a Mac glorified version of notepad for Windows. Basically, I just write everything out by hand. I hear dreamweaver has gotten better, but those things always mess up the code and move things around to places you don’t want them in.

  • http://www.tofugu.com Viet

    Newb. It’s all about VIM!

    I keed I keed.

  • http://www.tofugu.com Viet

    In all seriousness, if you want to code by hand and don’t want to deal with all the Terminal and Command Line stuff, then I recommend the following software:

    Windows
    Notepad++ (free)

    OS X
    BBEdit (as recommended by Koichi, but costs $$)
    Smultron (free)

    I suggest learning the syntax before jumping into a WYSIWYG editor like Dreamweaver. That’s what I told my young padawan Koichi and he seem to turn out alright :P

  • http://youtube.com/profile?user=chokudori クリス

    I’ll take a look at BBedit and also the ones Viet suggested. Yea, DW is pretty good, but sometimes when have a lot of code, I lose track of things. I always find myself returning back to TextEdit to fix a bug/typo, etc. I still have an older version of DW, so I wouldn’t know anything about the new stuff they fixed/added.

  • http://www.tofugu.com koichi

    Smultron, hm? I’ll have to check it out. Looks pretty.

  • http://www.tofugu.com koichi

    I just tried Smultron – It’s nice since it’s free, but I don’t like the colors of everything very much. Nice though.

  • http://www.tofugu.com Viet

    Completely forgot about TextEdit. That’s a good one also.