Archive for 'Language'
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? (more…)
Continue Reading
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. (more…)
Continue Reading
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. (more…)
Continue Reading
How to Shorten Your Japanese
Posted on 08. Apr, 2009 by Deas.
Deas lives on and blogs from Hakatajima, halfway between Honshu and Shikoku. He’s a fellow wonky culture lover who tends to write about his personal struggle to conquer the Japanese language, as well as about trips abroad, adventures in eating, life as an ALT, and comedy. From tongue twisters, to old radio dramas and just being silly, he approaches Japan from a casual perspective, tempered by time and humor.
In this guest post, I thought I’d walk you through some convenient methods for picking the pace up on your speech, dropping unnecessary syllables, and blending in with the kids your age. (Unless you’re older and you want to be like the uncomfortable teen’s awkward mom poorly using “Wassup?” If that’s you, this article might not be for you. Then again, some people can pull it off. Your call.) The following examples are all found in the above video as well. Choose your favorite format, and follow along. And of course, feel free to leave comments and ask questions! (more…)
Continue Reading
Japanese Particles [Cheatsheet]
Posted on 25. Mar, 2009 by koichi.
Japanese particles can be fun, if by fun you mean eye gouges and hair pulls. I haven’t come across too many people that enjoy Japanese particles. Tolerate? Sure, there are a few, but most people aren’t fans, and most teachers don’t make things too easy. Yesterday I taught a couple of courses on Japanese particles over at eduFire, and did everything I could to make particles easy and understandable. I figure if someone like me, who lacks a technical understanding of all grammar (in English, especially), can understand particles, then so should everyone else. I made things easy, cut out the fat, and simplified everything as much as possible, and I think for the most part it worked for people! (more…)
Continue Reading
What does “Moshi Moshi” Mean?
Posted on 26. Feb, 2009 by koichi.
“Moshi Moshi” is probably something you’ve seen or heard before. In Japanese, it’s used when answering the telephone, and roughly means “hello” or “hi.” You’re not really going to see this word used off the phone too much (though there are a couple of weird exceptions, see video below), so we’re going to focus on that. Learning to use “moshi moshi” when answering the phone is the easy part (you didn’t think I’d let you go that easily, did you?). Let’s find out why Japanese say “moshi moshi” when answering their phone, that’s the bedazzler. (more…)
Continue Reading
Learn Japanese from Yoda
Posted on 20. Jan, 2009 by koichi.
No doubt, if you’ve taken Japanese lessons from me before, you probably have heard this “rant” before. The one about Star Wars and how it was “inspired” by a Japanese film, and Yoda (which is a Japanese name, by the way) is actually an old Samurai master who speaks with Japanese grammar. I use this as a jumping off point when teaching people about Japanese grammar, so I thought it would be fun to share it with all of you as well! (more…)
Continue Reading
Our Favorite Posts From 2008
Posted on 31. Dec, 2008 by koichi.
Due to our total lack of creativity at the moment (ending the year with a bang, I’m tellin’ ya), we thought we’d do exactly what you’d expect, and tell you what our favorite posts were. One thing we are going to do is let the three Tofugu authors (which includes myself) come up with their own favorites. I was surprised, we picked completely different stories.
Well, everyone have a great new year, and take a look if you want to look back on our dirty past (my commentary included).
Viet’s Top 5:
Continue Reading
Japanese Version of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer: Rudolph gets the Shafto
Posted on 23. Dec, 2008 by koichi.
I got this tip from Joyce, a college professor, and expert in Godzilla studies (not even kidding). She uses this as part of a lesson on cultural insight. Sounds like a fun class. Read on!
It’s funny enough to put something into an online translator to change it to Japanese, then putting it back through the opposite way to see what it comes up with, but this is on a whole new level. This is actually a version of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer made just for Japan, culture insight included. Let’s take a look: (more…)
Continue Reading
Adding Furigana to Your Kanji
Posted on 09. Dec, 2008 by koichi.
This is just a quick post mostly referencing an article over at NihonHacks (so you can just go over there and read about it too), about a couple cool tools to add furigana over your kanji (furigana = hiragana that’s on top of kanji to show you how to pronounce it).
There are two tools – one for adding furigana to OpenOffice documents (which is really useful since you can just copy and paste a bunch of Japanese into it, and then get the furigana), and another for Firefox. (more…)
Continue Reading
