Using a Japanese newspaper for kids, like Mainichi Shogakusei Shinbun above, I developed a 5 step study method designed to increase vocabulary and kanji identification, reading comprehension, and confidence for taking the JLPT!  Reading at the appropriate level makes it possible to practice reading similar paragraphs that will appear in the test and gives you the chance to identify vocabulary and kanji that are likely to appear in the JLPT.

1. Read the article without any helpful hiragana

2. Identify and list unknown words

3. Identify and list unknown kanji

4. Study the new lists

5. Re-read the article

Paired with Evernote and Jisho.org, this 5 step method should give you a good head start in your studying!

Step 1:  Read the article without any helpful hiragana

I know it’s frustrating, sad, and hard, but reading the article first without any help will help you out in a lot of ways in the long run so stick with it and don’t cry!  The first thing that will result from reading the article without any hiragana is helping you to honestly assess your reading ability.  It will show you the words you know and the ones you don’t in black and white.  The other important thing this step accomplishes is simulating the actual test.  There will be no helpful hiragana in the real test, so why practice with it?  If you are really serious about taking the test, you might also want to time yourself to see how long it takes to read a short article.

Using Evernote, I selected and added this text from an article on Mainichi Shogakusei Shinbun resulting in the above picture.  The rockin thing about Evernote in this example is that it automatically makes a title and takes note of the original page you visited so you wont forget later!  I then removed the pesky hiragana and gave reading the article my best shot.

Step 2:  Identify and list unknown words

Crap…as you can see I’ve got a LONG way to go!  In this step, highlight the words you don’t know in red and hope you don’t get an atomic red ink bomb like I did!  It is important to be HONEST with yourself here.  If you can’t read it without any help from hiragana, or if you look it up in the dictionary and say “Oh, right, duh!  I know this one!” mark it red Donny, because you are OUT OF YOUR ELEMENT! lol.  More seriously, just be conservative, if you don’t guess right the first time, it won’t hurt you to practice those borderline words a few times.  In the end, it is really good practice to identify difficult words as they are used in a paragraph.  When you are finished, your list should look something like this:

Step 3:  Identify and list unknown kanji

In the vocabulary list, find and highlight kanji in red that you can’t recognize right away as demonstrated in the example above.  Once identified, use a Japanese dictionary to make a list of kanji for future reference.  I found the website jisho.org VERY useful in completing this step.  Copy and paste the unknown kanji from the vocab list to the kanji list and as long as you don’t cut and paste anything else, you can simply paste it again into the kanji search page of jisho.org.  Once you look up the kanji, the website spits out more information than anyone can dream about that specific kanji.  I recommend at least taking note of all the different readings for the kanji and the definition in English.  One extra step I took was to include other words that that kanji appears in to practice recognition in general.  Jisho.org has a great feature to do this by pressing on the link in the “Kanji” page called “Words Containing” and usually zillions of words will come up that use this kanji, which can then be paired down to common words if desired.  Here is an example of a finished kanji list made from an article:

Step 4: Study the new lists

Now we get to the hard part: you have to remember all the stuff you just wrote down!  Making lots of lists is a waste of time if you don’t actually go back through them to learn the material.  Try to use the words in a sentence, look up more kanji combination, use them in a diary or homework assignment, or use Textfugu to learn about remembering radicals to help you retain the lists you just wrote.  Whatever you decide to do, be proactive and do something…anything!  It will pay off for the text and for the next step in this method.

Step 5: Re-read the article

Now that you are the master of all the vocabulary and kanji that stumped you in the article you read, go back and rock it!  Of course leave out the hiragana, and see how much you retained.  If there are still words and kanji that you miss, go back to the lists you made and study them for a while and re-read the article again.  Hopefully by the end of this process you will understand the meaning of the article, which will be a critical part in the new test.  Practicing reading full paragraphs will make life a lot easier for you when you actually sit down for the JLPT.  Good luck passing the JLPT!

LINKS

Newspapers for Kids:

• http://mainichi.jp/life/edu/maishou/index.html
• http://yomoyomo.jp/index.php
• http://kids.goo.ne.jp/index.html?SY=0&MD=2

Dictionaries:

• http://www.jisho.org
• http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/cgi-bin/wwwjdic.cgi?1C

Other Resources:

• http://www.textfugu.com
• http://www.tofugu.com/2010/04/06/tofugu-100-best-japanese-learning-resources/
• http://www.tofugu.com/2010/03/09/how-to-use-evernote-to-study-japanese-or-any-other-language/

This post was written by Nick W., who has traveled throughout many regions of Japan in search of unique cultural gems.  He is currently earning his MBA and has researched topics like folk music in WWII Japan and Ainu cultural revival through music.  His favorite Japanese musician is the late Nujabes.  Currently, he is studying for the JLPT (Japanese Language Proficiency Test) Level 2.

Related posts:

1. How To Use Evernote To Study Japanese (Or Any Other Language)
2. Learn Japanese Vocabulary Faster By Becoming A Nintendo DS Kanji Sono Mama Jedi Master
3. The Types Of Kanji In Japanese: On’Yomi vs. Kun’Yomi

In a couple hours at 1:40pm Pacific Time, I’ll be live on BBC Radio (sorry, no idea which one… people tell me it’s probably #4, though) talking about “Character Amnesia” (or for us Tofugu-folk, “Kanji Amnesia”), so I thought a good way to get my ducks in a line would be to write a post about it… That way, hopefully, I won’t forget what I want to talk about it.

What Is “Character Amnesia” (Kanji Amnesia)?

Basically, people in Japan (and China) are using computers, phones, and other electronic devices so much that they’re forgetting how to write their kanji. Thanks to these things, there’s almost no reason to write something using your hands. Think about it, when’s the last time you hand wrote anything? For a lot of you, I’m guessing it was either to sign a receipt (or you just can’t remember). The world is revolving around our phones and computers, which means we’re typing… a lot.

It’s the exact same thing with Japanese, but with Japanese, you’re taking something really a lot more complicated to write (kanji) and making it a lot simpler. All you have to do nowadays is write the sounds that make up a word in Japanese, and *poof!* automagically your electronic device shows you the most likely kanji match to the thing you wrote out. If it’s not the first match, there’s usually quite a few others which you can choose from. This means the emphasis of being able to write kanji is nearly nonexistent in real life. All you have to do is be able to recognize a kanji and be able to read it. Literally half the work of written communication has vanished, and I think it’s awesome.

For those of you who don’t have much experience with kanji (if you want to learn, check out the kanji section of TextFugu for a way to learn kanji that actually makes sense), here’s a good parallel. With English (I know this from experience), spell check has made it so I don’t have to know how to spell things. Misspelled something? Red underline tells me to change it (thanks!). Once I start writing by hand, I definitely notice all the things I don’t know how to spell (anymore) that I probably learned in middle school. Take this example and multiply it by a billion, and you have the Kanji/Japanese issue. They can recognize the kanji. They can read the kanji. They can type the kanji… but, when it comes to writing a lot of kanji by hand, expect there to be a lot of mistakes and omissions.

To Be Honest, This Is Awesome

A lot of old school Japanese teachers will probably tell you otherwise. I was one of them not too long ago, until I started writing TextFugu, and started seeing what I could remove to make the lessons simpler. When I asked “what is pretty unnecessary 90% of the time?” I realized that the ability to write kanji by hand was one of them. So, I cut that requirement so that people can focus on much more important things (like being able to read… and type the kanji).

Even Japan is admitting to this. They’re going to add nearly 200 kanji to the required kanji learning list for kids because so many kanji have become a lot more common through use of typing the characters (i.e. a lot of characters that were tough to write by hand, but became common because they’re really easy to type out). On top of that, Japan is totally a cell-phone culture. Everyone seems to have a cell phone, and everyone seems to be typing away at it. It’s just so much easier to communicate in this way, and handwriting is becoming a thing of the past.

So, in summary, I don’t think this is a bad thing, especially for language learners out there. It just (once again) supports that the ability to hand write kanji is becoming increasingly unimportant. That means you can start focusing your limited efforts (everyone has limits, so you need to make the most of them!) on doing much more important things, whatever that may be. I think that’s amazing news. You have permission to spend your time learning things that you’ll be able to use a lot more commonly :)

So what do you think? Any of you experienced this? I’ve definitely become terrible at hand writing kanji (embarrassingly terrible, actually), but on the other hand, it’s so easy to type kanji out that I have almost no reason to hand write anything. The cool thing? When I do have to hand write something, I just type it up first so I can use that as a reference… I hope any impending apocalypses don’t take away my cell phone, or I’ll be screwed.

Related posts:

1. The Kanjipocolypse Is Here: 196 Additional Kanji To Be Added To The Joyo Kanji List
2. Skritter’s A Great Way To Practice Kanji, Stroke Order
3. 12 Completely (Un)inspiring Images To Help You Learn Kanji

Greetings fellow fugu-ers! Gakuranman here. (That’s right, ‘schoolboy coat man’.) You may remember me from such indie B-posts as ‘Katakana Words Ate My Soul‘ and Invasion of the Kanji.

But not to fear! I’ve returned today to shower you with gifts. Gifts of knowledge and prosperity. Your Japanese skills will soar and…ahh, what the heck. Let’s just get on with it. Here’s some words related to the Japanese summer with a few colourful anecdotes. Because, you know, language and culture are inseparable. Kinda like this twisted daikon above. Also a mini giveaway for you hungry learners at the end of this post!

夏バテ (natsubate) – Summer Lethargy

Here in Japan, summer comes in a self-contained bubble of humidity. For about 3-5 months of the year, temperatures soar and people drop like flies having had all the life force sucked out of them. You might imagine that everyone slips into a zombified state doing nothing but waving 扇子 (sensu – folding fans) or うちわ (uchiwa – paper fans) and you wouldn’t be far off. So yes, right now yours truly is attempting to fight off zombifiction from the suffering summer heat. That’s natsubate for you!

セミ (semi) – cicada (noisy insect!)

Ahh, the sound of summer. Do you have these little critters where you live? For me in the U.K, we always had a resident wood pigeon who would coo sweet pigeon melodies down our chimney pipe. Now when I leave the house it sounds like a battleground, littered with the corpses of these short-lived insects. Personally, my ears have always interpreted the noise as the sound of Spaniards. (No offence to our Spanish friends our there, or the Inquisition!) Si si si si si si si si si. Sisisisisisisisisssss…..

かき氷 (kakigoori) – Shaved Ice.

Or so the dictionary tells us. I prefer to think of them as mounds of delicious cool. Covered with your favourite flavoured syrup (awesome, two British spellings in a row, right there!), these heavenly creations can be the only thing keeping you alive through many hot days. Other summer necessities include ちゅうちゅう (chuu-chuu) – flavoured ice lollies – or ガリガリ君 (garigari-kun) – a particular brand of ice pole sporting a kid with big teeth!

線香花火 (senkou-hanabi) – Sparkler

A kind of Japanese sparkler. You get all the fizz and crackle of normal sparklers, but with a curious little ball of hot goo forming at the tip. The ball grows bigger and bigger as the firework continues, before dropping to the floor and dying. People compete to see whose ball will hang on the longest. Very poetic and a great metaphor for many things Japanese, I reckon – the fleeting beauty found in transient objects and all that. I’m curious though, do they have these fireworks in other countries? I’ve only seen them in Japan myself.

There you have it then. A few summery Japanese words. Little and often eh? That’s the best way to keep up your Japanese studies, young grasshoppers (or should I say cicadas? har har har).

Well, I know you guys can’t get enough of giveaways around here, so as I promised here’s another great chance to win cool stuff from Japan. I have not less than *12* sets of prizes to ship out, including:

Stuff for learning Japanese while lounging in the loo.

And items for poking people with.

How about a pointy Japanese phrasebook to help your language studies?

Or, since we all worship the Tofu-gu around here, some authentic tofu-flavoured paper! In actual tofu packaging!

Oh yes. These and a Schoolboy-coat-man signed postcard from Japan could be yours. All you have to do is tell me what your best advice is for learning a foreign language.

Check out the full post for detailed information (and an embarrassing video!) I’m also giving a little time extension because you all rock. You have until Wednesday 25th August 2010! Not long then! Go for it!

P.S. If you think summer is too warm, you should follow Gakuranman on Twitter.

P.P.S. If you thought that tofu flavored paper was a good idea, you should try to win something from his contest.

No related posts.

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.

Why Look At Habits?

I think you may think the answer to this is self explanatory, but give me an opportunity to try and create a revelation for you anyways.

Now, I’m not trying to get you to form (actual) good study habits. Perhaps that will be the outcome if you try the following techniques out, but that’s not the end goal. I’m only going to try to help you trick yourself into studying by using certain aspects of “real” habits that you can implement on your own. It’s not easy to form a good habit. It is, however, easy to trick yourself into thinking you have a good habit, and if you do it enough it may just become a reality.

Sure, it’d be easy to say “you should study every day” (and I suppose I do say that), but here’s how you’ll be able to get there, one little victory at a time.

Creating Action Associations

Riddle me this, Batman. Is it easier for a smoker to stop smoking on vacation or at home?

Answer: On vacation. Why? Because there are fewer action associations with smoking.

At home, there are so many reminders that the smoker should start smoking. Ash trays, porches, rooms that are particularly good for smoking, etc. Over time, associations are built up. If I see this, I think “oh, I often smoke there… I should smoke a cigarette.” On vacation, however, none of that exists. There are no associations with Smoking & the hotel pool, for example. That’s not to say there won’t be reminders (ash trays, other people smoking, etc), but there certainly are fewer associations like this.

You can trick your mind into doing something like this with your Japanese studies, as well. I do this with my work time. If I’m at the local cafe, it means I work on TextFugu (and nothing else). If I’m not working on something, I try to do it away from my desk. I’ve created boundaries in my life where I force myself to only do certain things in certain areas. Although this won’t work immediately, you can also choose to separate certain things and associate them with certain places (or things). Some examples of what you could do with Japanese studies:

1. A particular bean bag that you only sit on when you are studying Japanese.
2. A colored light bulb you turn on only when you study Japanese.
3. Certain music you play during Japanese study time, and nowhere else (I’d vote Mozart).
4. A certain part of the house that’s a Japanese study area.

And so on…

The idea is to create associations with things and associate those things with Japanese study (and only Japanese study). Now, this won’t necessarily get you to study (at least, not before you’ve created these associations), so let’s take a look at some other habit-forming trickery that will get you to study. Then, all you have to do is apply this section when you do study and create some action associations. Before you know it, you’ll walk by your beanbag and say, “oh yeah, I study Japanese there. I should study Japanese,” and you’ll become a Japanese studying rock star.

Writing Down Exactly What You Plan To Do

Did you know that if you write down exactly what you’re planning to do you’ll have a 75% higher chance that you’ll actually do it? I’ve used this with all sorts of things, and it works great.

Here’s how you do it.

1. Figure out what it is you want / need to do (it’s really important that you want to do something. If you don’t want to do it, well, you’ll find a way not to do it, so I can’t help you much there). I’m guessing the thing you want to do is study Japanese, because that’s what this article’s all about.
2. Get a piece of paper (I’d recommend writing this by hand… there’s just something about writing by hand that makes things feel more solid) and a pen/pencil.
3. Write down exactly what it is you plan to do. This includes, when you’ll do something (down to the minute), where you’ll do it (one the beanbag?), how you’ll do it (I’ll use TextFugu to learn Japanese, of course! DOI), and what you’ll do (I’m going to study kanji XYZ in this study session).

The more specific you get, the better all this works. When you do this, for some reason you get something special stuck in your mind. When the time comes, you’re way more likely to get out the study tools and get studying. I definitely challenge all of you to give this a try, even if it’s with something else in your life. This trick is incredibly useful.

For me, I use it check e-mail (though, sometimes I’m bad and break this rule). Although I don’t include the “place” in my plan, every morning I decide what time I’ll check my e-mail. For example, this morning I said I’d check my e-mail at 9am, and that’s exactly what I did. Most days I choose a time that’s around 1pm or 2pm, and limit the amount of time I have. So, in the morning I’ll write down: “Checking e-mail between 2pm-3pm today.” Then, when 2pm rolls around, I’m checking my e-mail and I stop at 3pm. For some reason, when I do this, it totally stops me from worrying about e-mail the rest of the day. When I don’t do this, I check e-mail every 30 minutes (definitely a bad addiction).

For you, you could come up with something like this for your Japanese studies:

From 2pm-3pm today, I will sit down at my desk and open up my kanji book. I am going to study the kanji 食, 飲, 県, 急. I will learn the on’yomi and kun’yomi of them, as well as three common  vocab that use each one of those. At 3pm I will stop studying and go do XZY.

See how incredibly specific that was? The more specific you can make these, the more likely you’re going to actually do them and follow through. Doing this essentially creates a fake habit in your brain. Really, all habits do is tell you what you should do and when you should do it. By writing down exactly what you’re going to do and how you’re going to do it, you’re tricking your brain into thinking this is something you always do in this place and at this time. It’s really great brain hackery, if you ask me.

Give this a try and let me know how it goes for you!

Writing Down What You Won’t Do

Just like the previous section, this one also involves writing things down. The difference is that you’ll be writing down the things you don’t want to do. There’s only so much time in a day, and there’s always a lot of things competing for your time. You can use the techniques in the above section to come up with things you won’t be doing during the day as well. This leaves more time for other things (like studying your Japanese) and will allow you to focus more effectively when you do start studying Japanese.

Things I sometimes add to my not-to-do list:

• No checking e-mail except during e-mail checking time
• No Google Reader (this week, this day, this month, etc).
• Check Twitter only during lunch time
• Don’t listen to music while I’m working

And so on. Think of the bad habits you have. Now, write out your not-to-do list. This will trick your brain into thinking you don’t really do those things (or, at the very least, you’ll get an alert in your head the moment you try to do one of these things, and it will say “hey, you said you weren’t going to do that,” so you have time to stop yourself).

Make The Road Easier

Really, when you think about it, habits are habits because they’re really easy to do. Well, they’re not necessarily easy, but at the very least you think they are. They’ve become so ordinary and regular that you go on autopilot when you’re completing these habits. Do you really think about brushing your teeth every night, or do you just kind of… do it? I’m guessing it’s more of the latter. Habits are pretty darn easy to do as long as you actually have those habits. That’s the difficult part.

One thing you can do, however, is make the things you want to be habits easier. For example, if you want to create a good habit to exercise every morning, you should put your exercise clothes out and ready to go the night before. This little thing make sit just a little bit easier to exercise when you really don’t want to early that next morning. Perhaps you could pack your lunch the night before so you have more time. There are any number of things you could do to make the “dreaded” act of exercising easier on yourself, which means you’re likely to do it more often, which means you’re more likely to turn it into an actual habit.

With Japanese, you can do the same thing. A little prep goes a long way. Here are some ways to make Japanese study easier, which in turn will help you make Japanese study into a more regular habit.

• Decide exactly what you’re going to study next at the end of your previous session.
• Stop studying when you feel most motivated to keep studying
• Start reading about what you’re going to study next the day before. Just a little bit, like five minutes will do. This will make it so you’ve already started, and starting is always the hardest part. The next day all you need to do is continue where you left off from your mini study session.
• Put out the flashcards you’re going to learn tomorrow today. Put them out on their own, though. This is a lot less daunting than putting them on top of a huge stack.
• Put some paper and pencils/pens out, all ready for studying so you don’t have to do it tomorrow.

Do you notice a pattern in some of these? A lot of them have to do with planning ahead and knowing what you’re going to do the next day. With habits, you always know what you’re going to do next. it’s autopilot, after all. Japanese studies is one of those things where you have to learn something new every day, which makes it much harder to form a habit around. If you take an extra five minutes at the end of every study session and decide exactly what you’re going to do next, you’re making studying the next day 100x easier on yourself. With habits, they’re easy to do because you know exactly what to do. So, with Japanese studies, you’re making habit-forming a lot easier if you figure out what you’re doing next before you actually do it.

What Are Your Tricks?

There has to be a bunch of habit-forming hacks out there that you’ve used and love. Share your secrets in the comments and help others trying to study Japanese, too! :)

P.S. You should make a habit out of following Tofugu on Twitter

P.P.S. Don’t you think your friends need to form better habits too? You should “like” this article by clicking the like button below to share it with them.

Related posts:

1. Be Inspired (By TextFugu’s “Inspirational Japanese Learning” List)
2. How To Learn Japanese Using Flickr
3. 12 Completely (Un)inspiring Images To Help You Learn Kanji

I’m guessing a lot of you know how to type in Japanese (hint: you don’t need a Japanese keyboard), but did you know about all the “hidden” special characters you can type out while you’re in Japanese input mode? You aren’t only limited to hiragana, katakana, romaji, and kanji. There are a score of other weird characters you can use to make your text a lot more interesting, you know? Here’s a lot of them (mostly the good ones) with an explanation of what they are and how to get them to show up!

Typing Musical Notes and Notation in Japanese

One of the things you’ll see quite often when reading Japanese blogs / text messages is various music-related symbols. There are a bunch of them, but they can all be called by the same word. It’s just like when you type in a Japanese word and hit space to see what kanji you can choose from, except this time you type in a Japanese word to show a list of possible symbols you can use.

So, as long as you know the word you can get the symbols for it! Let’s start with おんぷ (above). If you don’t know how to read hiragana, perhaps it’s time to learn how to read hiragana?

Notes: おんぷ

By typing in おんぷ, you get access to all kinds of musical notes.

♩　♫　♪　♬

Beyond musical notes, though, you can type other music related things.

Sharp:　しゃーぷ

Flat:　ふらっと

If you read these out, you’ll notice that they’re just readings of the words “sharp” and “flat.” If you hit space after typing しゃーぷ or ふらっと, you’ll get yourself the following sharp / flat symbols.

♯　♭

If you want to “jazz up” (har dee har har) your text, you can use some of these musical notations. Yee Haw! ♬

Typing Shapes In Japanese

If you can type musical notes, you should be able to type simple shapes, too, right? To type shapes in Japanese, you pretty much only have to know the word for the shape, hit space a few times after you type it in, and find the shape and type of shape you want.

Squares: しかく

□　■　◇　◆

Triangles: さんかく

△　▲　▽　▼　▷ ▶　◁　◀

Circles: まる

○　●　◎　◉　◯

Stars: ほし

☆　★　※　＊

Arrows: やじるし

→　←　↑　↓　⇄　⇅　⇔　⇦　⇧　⇨　⇩　☜　☝　☞　☟

Hearts: はーと

♡　♥

These shapes are pretty simple. If you want to get a little more complicated, there are even more options in the “symbols” category.

Typing “Symbols”

This is where things start getting interesting, I think (and possibly a lot less useful). These symbols include playing card symbols and more.

Playing Card Symbols: とらんぷ

とらんぷ (or trump) are what playing cards are called. When you type this in, you get the clubs, diamonds, spades, and hearts symbols.

♠　♣　♥　♦　♡　♢　♧　♤

Beyond trump cards, there are a number of other symbols as well, typed in a couple of different ways.

Emoji: えもじ

☎　♨　〄　〠

〠 is a variant postal mark

〄 shows that a product complies with the Japanese industrial standard

♨ looks like a cup of java but actually has to do with hot springs (which Japan has a lot of)

☎ is a telephone symbol. You might see this next to a telephone number.

Postal: ゆうびん

〒　〠

You might see these symbols on letters or on a Japanese address (especially the first one).

Other Characters?

There are a few more things you can type in using Japanese input, but nothing all that interesting. The ones I’ve written about above are the best and most useful (unless you’re typing out a lot of math, or something). If you are interested in the other ones, check out the Wikipedia article or this article.

Now, I fully expect all your Tofugu comments to be full of musical notes and onsen symbols. Have at it!

P.S. Interested in business? Check out my business blog.

P.P.S. If you can type 140 special characters in Japanese, you should follow Tofugu on Twitter.

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I get all kinds of weird questions in my e-mail inbox. Sometimes they’re creepy, sometimes they’re hilarious, sometimes they’re interesting, and sometimes they’re a part of a pattern. This is one of those patterns. A few times a month I’ll get the following question:

What is the best Japanese Language electronic dictionary?

Once I get the same question too many times, there’s a good likelihood that I’ll just write the answer via a post here, which is exactly what’ I’m doing. So, what is the best Japanese Language electronic dictionary out there? Let’s find out.

The Best Japanese Language Electronic Dictionary Is… Not a Japanese Language Electronic Dictionary…

Guh-what? You’d think that if you were in the market to buy an electronic dictionary you’d buy an electronic dictionary… at least in the “traditional” sense. You can see pictures of them above. Now, for sure, they do the things they’re supposed to do, but that’s about it. If you buy one, you probably won’t be disappointed on this front. You’ll be able to look up words, see sentences, and in some hear audio. Not too shabby.

For me, though, I don’t feel like that’s enough, at least not in this day and age. Even though these do exactly what you want them to do, I don’t think they’re the best tool for the job. Here’s why:

• They’re big (though the big screen could be considered a plus)
• They’re bulky, try putting one of the regular sized ones in your pocket
• They aren’t versatile
• They’re expensive (approximately $200-$400+)

By now, I bet you’ve already guessed the “electronic dictionary” that I’d recommend.

Get An iPod Touch / iPhone Instead Of a Japanese Electronic Dictionary

Instead of a Japanese language electronic dictionary, I highly recommend you get an iPhone or iPod Touch. I think it’s an easy decision, but that’s also because I’m an Apple fanboy. Still, I think anyone will see the logic here.

• An iPod Touch comes in at $179 (if you buy it at Costco) or $199 from the Apple store. This is the same price as the lower end models of the Japanese electronic dictionaries, but you get so much more.
• You can download a dictionary application to your iPhone or iPod Touch. My favorite is “Japanese” because everything is stored locally (i.e. no need for an internet connection to look things up). This app is $16, which is pretty expensive for an iPhone app, but well worth it if you were planning on putting down $200-$400+ on an electronic dictionary. Update: A lot of people seem to like “Kotoba” as well. I haven’t tried it, but it seems to be highly recommended (and free!)
• There are tons of other Japanese language learning related applications in the iTunes store as well. There are so many different things you can get (and who knows what will come out in the future), making it an awesome (mobile) platform for practicing your Japanese.
• You can download Japanese Podcasts to your iPod / iPhone, and listen to them for continued practice while you’re driving, sitting around, at work, at school, etc.
• You can do other things with it, so you aren’t just pinned down to using it to study Japanese (you know, all the things an iPod Touch / iPhone are supposed to do, right?).

So, basically it’s better, more mobile, has apps, and costs less. What is there not to like? Granted, regular Japanese electronic dictionaries have their perks, too, I’m sure, but I personally don’t see the purpose of getting one when you could do this instead.

If that didn’t convince you, watch this video, which just says the same things you just read all over again.

Anyone else doing the same thing? Any angry Japanese electronic dictionary users out there? Let me know in the comments what you think.

Related posts:

1. How To Use Evernote To Study Japanese (Or Any Other Language)
2. What I Want To See With Apple’s iPad (In Regards To Japanese)

Japanese girls are great for a lot of reasons, I mean, get real, they’re loved world wide because they’re small, cute, wear tiny tiny skirts, and sometimes dress up in school uniforms (even if they’re not in school anymore).  It seems to be a rite of passage for every male exchange student, every JET, and everyone visiting Japan to try to find a Japanese girlfriend when they visit…

Many people even say that “the best way to learn a language is to date someone who speaks it!”  Sorry, but for the sake of your Japanese language skills

Flirting DOESN’T CUT IT!

I assure you, the longer you date a Japanese girl, the less likely you will be able read the rude t-shirt you started wearing to find one!  Why you might ask?  It only makes sense that the more you speak Japanese, the better you get, right? Right?  RIGHT?!

Wrong, and here’s why:

1.  You are lazy

Sure.  At first you might say, “Oh man, I’m going to get so good at kanji, and grammar, and all that stuff now!” and you might even convince your girlfriend to tutor you everyday, but that won’t last. It NEVER does. There are exceptions to the rule, but most of the time you’ve got a lot more “fun and important” things to do with your girlfriend than talk about freaking kanji radicals and grammar points (…at least I HOPE you do).  You’ll also have a lot more “unfun” things to talk about like when her mom is coming to visit or how bad you made the bathroom smell.  In any case, there will be times when you’ll get lazy and just use the easiest words you can think of, even if it’s just English that sounds kind of like Japanese.

2.  You will mix English and Japanese

There are lots of terms for this phenomenon, and it is not limited to just speakers of English and Japanese, but it is the DEVIL!!! This stupid practice, mostly caused by laziness will literally ruin your chances of speaking intelligible Japanese, and probably your girlfriend’s chances of remembering English.  You will create your own little language that no one else really understands, not even you, and that makes for absolutely terrible communication.

Here is a sample conversation that doesn’t make sense:

A.  When do you think the 図書館 is open?

B.  さあ、I don’t know, after dinner you should チェック。

A.  めんどくさいな。

B.  Don’t be a バカ。ほら見て、このサイトで it’s written right here!

A.   そうか。Fine, 夕飯を食べたら I’m gonna go return these 本。

See?  This conversation is wrong in too many ways to  “counto.”

3.  Getting made fun of sucks

No matter how good at speaking Japanese you get, there will always be ways to get made fun of by your girlfriend.  Some are simply called “cute” for speaking with an accent, while others get called out on their weird grammar or pronunciation.  No matter what, most guys HATE criticism, even backhanded statements about how cute you are!  It makes you feel stupid, like you are being treated like a small child, and it’s easy to get defensive.  Even people who speak really awesome Japanese get made fun of because they speak better Japanese than normal people!  It’s frustrating!  It’s only fair though, because I’m sure not many of you can honestly say you’ve never made fun of Japanese English or “カタカナ イングリーシュ.”  It’s just so cute and funny.  アイ　ライク　ユウー！カン　ウイ　ハング　アウト　ツモーロ？ “I like you!  Can we hang out tomorrow?” Awwwwwww….okay, fair is fair.

4.  あんたの彼女とばかり話してると、かわいい女の子みたいに話しちゃうわよ！笑

This title means, if you talk with your girlfriend all the time, you might end up sounding like our friend above:

「あたし美しいね〜!」”I’m sooo beautiful!” (said very cutely)

This is probably not desirable, and believe me, everyone will let you know how girly you sound.  This unfortunate scenario also occurs a lot because a huge portion of Japanese instructors are women, and most foreign guys don’t spend their time looking for manly sounding Japanese dudes to chase around.  If you are just starting your language learning experience, you won’t be able to help but talk like girl.  On the flip side, if you over compensate, and try to talk like a Japanese THUG, then your friends, girlfriend, their friends friends, will think you’ve lost your mind and will all laugh until they turn blue.

5.  Your girlfriend wants to learn English

I know Koichi hates this with a passion, but most guys learning Japanese are going to try to get girlfriends in Japan by becoming language partners.  Sorry Koichi, but it’s the birds and the bees, and it’s the way it will always be.  Men, chances are your future girlfriend isn’t going to date you because she’s really pumped about teaching someone basic Japanese over and over again.  If anything, she’ll agree to hang out with you because she wants to learn English, at least as one of the perks.  If that is the case, you will probably spend a lot more time explaining things in English rather than learning Japanese.

6.  No keigo or kanji with your girlfriend

Maybe I have exaggerated a smidge in the above parts, and there are significant linguistic improvements that can be made in your life by chasing Japanese girls.  Keigo (formal language) and Kanji skills are probably not included in this theoretical list of benefits.  Unless you want your conversations with your girlfriend to sound like two bankers who aren’t quite sure which of them is 先輩「せんぱい」 “senior,” you won’t be getting a lot of time practicing keigo.  Even Japanese people have trouble learning keigo because no one uses it with anyone close to them.  Using keigo with people you like makes you sound like you are being especially cold and probably mad at them.  It’s like when your parents were driving the car on a road trip when you were a little kid, and your dad is super lost and your mom asks overly kindly “Honey, would it be at all possible if we could stop and ask for directions?” to which your dad replies very politely and forcefully restrained “Darling, if we can just find the freeway, there will be no need to stop and bother the gas station attendant…”  It’s a little different in Japanese, but it’s the same concept that something isn’t right if you’re suddenly being very formal.  It sounds weird to the point where a lot of girls really don’t like to practice it with their boyfriends.  Sorry guys.

For kanji, unless your girlfriend is really into calligraphy and wants to practice together everyday, she probably won’t be a big resource for helping you there.  Some people try to hand write letters, but most would rather be doing other things, like eating nachos.  A popular solution is email, but I can assure you, everyone can type a ZILLION more kanji than they can actually write!  You, me, and most Japanese people under 30 included.  Now there’s even 191 more kanji we’re all supposed to know…so better start writing some really complex love letters!

7.  Jesus that’s fast! Can’t you speak slowly?!  Oh wait…you are?

It may seem like your girlfriend is talking like a machine gun to you, but wait until she gets around her friends…it’s a blur of giggling lightning!  For a lot of us, the only real part we participate in once they get going is listening to how silly or cute we sound if we try to say anything.  That means that most of the time she’s going easy on you.  It’s nice and practical for mutual understanding, but really it’s like using training wheels all the time.  Once you take them off, you’ll crash and burn in real conversations.  An obvious solution is to tell her to speak normally to you, but that often doesn’t last long.  If she tells you at lightning speed to “Bring the chopsticks” はしを持って来てね 「hashiwomottekitene」and you hear “Go to the bridge and back” 橋に行って来てね「hashiniittekitene」she’s probably going to get tired of you fast if you’re gone for an hour while she’s waiting for chopsticks!

橋だろ？！

8.  Your conversation topics will be limited

Some of you might be dating Japanese bioethics experts who take time and care to explain each vocabulary to you to ensure that you understand every word, but most of you will be repeating the following conversation far more often:

A.  今日何食べよう？「kyounanitabeyou?」”What should we eat today?”

B.  さあ、なにがいい？ 「saa, nanigaii?」”Uhh, well what do you want?”

A.  分からない。冷蔵庫に何が入っている？「wakaranai. reizokoninanigahaitteiru?」”I don’t know.  What’s in the fridge?”

B.  あまり何もないよ。「amarinanimonaiyo」”There’s not much.”

On the edge of your seat yet??  It’s like repeating basic Japanese class over and over again.  Some of you will get to delve into deeper topics from time to time, but it’s not like you’re going to be seriously practicing Japanese all the time with every conversation.  It gets tiring to have real deep conversations all the time, so it’s really easy to be lazy and stick to the mundane stuff, and mix in some English when you don’t know the right word and hope she understands.  BAD BAD BAD!

9.  Your girlfriend probably doesn’t know Japanese very well

I hate to criticize your girlfriend without having met her, but her Japanese is probably not perfect.  Unless she’s used to teaching foreigners all the time, it’s likely that she won’t be able to tell you much about how to learn Japanese.  She learned it a loooong time ago, and way differently than you’re going to have to do.  It’s not going to help you that much to go sit in on an elementary school Japanese language class in Japan.  Too much worrying about protecting your anus from mean children to focus anyway.

The Japanese your girlfriend uses isn’t even exactly the same thing you’ll be learning.  Her kanji’s probably off some of the time, and the grammar she uses sometimes won’t be found in your textbook.  That’s okay for basic practice, and it’s great to learn theoretical and practical use of Japanese, but this isn’t Japanese class it’s your GIRLFRIEND.

10.  Just kidding.

Getting a Japanese girlfriend really can improve your Japanese.  A lot.  Please don’t run away from Japanese girls screaming that you need to protect your language skills.  Please.  A lot of them are nice, fun, and might actually speak to you in Japanese.  If you practice with real people, then maybe you won’t sound like a conversation from Nakama or Genki, which will make people laugh way more than if you actually try.  Hopefully you’ll learn lots of cool things about culture, dating style, a new world view, and if you’re lucky, find more meaningful things to talk about than kanji radicals.  Just keep in mind the frustrations and pitfalls along the road, don’t give up, and don’t stop actually studying.  みんな頑張れ！

P.S. All this probably applies to Japanese boyfriends, too, for all of you that like boys and not girls.

This post was written by Nick W., who has traveled throughout many regions of Japan in search of unique cultural gems.  He is currently earning his MBA and has researched topics like folk music in WWII Japan and Ainu cultural revival through music.  His favorite Japanese musician is the late Nujabes.  He does have a nice Japanese girlfriend, but is too lazy to learn much Japanese from her.

Related posts:

1. Should You Learn Japanese From a Native Speaker or a “Foreigner”?
2. 12 Completely (Un)inspiring Images To Help You Learn Kanji

When it comes down to it, I’m pretty certain that most people don’t quit learning Japanese because it’s too hard. Really, the Japanese language isn’t that hard at all (at least if you know English already, which is a big ol’ mess by comparison). The problem with most Japanese learners is that they just don’t have the right motivation and inspiration to keep them going. Learning a new language is 99% motivation and 1% “other.” Originally, I kept this mailing list reserved for TextFugu members only. This morning, though, I took a looksy over the TextFugu Manifesto (as I try to do every morning) and stopped for a moment on #3: “Help People To Learn Japanese.” That’s when I realized that this mailing list is perfect for anyone learning Japanese (whether they use TextFugu or not), and thought it could be really useful if made available to the public.

What Is The “TextFugu Inspirational Mailing List”?

At the core, it’s all about inspiration. I created this list thanks to all the inspiration I get from the PhilosophersNotes mailing list (you should join it, it’s awesome). I thought I could create something similar, but much more targeted towards Japanese language learners. The goal is to help you stay motivated and happy, so that you can study Japanese more effectively than ever before (because, really, unhappy people don’t study Japanese very effectively). The mailing list is set up in an “autoresponder” format, which means there are quite a few e-mails already written out, and ready to go. You just have to sign up and you’ll start getting them week after week after week (until you decide to unsubscribe). You won’t find any hard sales pitches or anything like that either because this mailing list is set up for actual, paying, TextFugu members.

So, if you’re studying Japanese, you should give it a shot and see if you like it (I’m guessing this list won’t be for everyone, since not everyone is keen on motivational writing). Each week contains an e-mail with some kind of lesson, idea, or task to help you stay motivated enough to keep studying (or start studying) Japanese. I hope you like it!

[ Join the TextFugu Inspirational Mailing List ]

P.S. If you’re not into inspiration, there’s always the Tofugu Newsletter (which comes out more occasionally) and the Tofugu Twitter Account.

Related posts:

1. Tofugu’s 100 Best Resources For Learning Japanese
2. What A Police Negotiator Can Teach You About Learning Japanese

Bad news everyone. It looks like if you want to be considered as a literate member of the Japanese society, you’re going to have to learn an additional 196 kanji to make it in every day life. A proposal is in (and it seems like it’s going to pass… I guess the folks at the Agency For Cultural Affairs don’t have anything better to do) to increase “everyday kanji” to 2136 (that’s up from 1945).

It’s Happened Before

Changing the number of Joyo kanji (i.e. all the kanji you’re supposed to know if you want to be a functioning adult) isn’t new, though. They’ve done it a good number of times in the past.

1923: There were 1962 kanji considered to be standard kanji everyone should learn.

1931: This number went down to 1858 (how great would it be to live back when kanji numbers were this low? It feels like we’re talking gas prices, here).

1942: There was a lot of nationalistic fervor going on, so they jacked the kanji numbers up to 2528. Who cares about all the death and tragedy from the war. The real tragedy is the number of kanji kids had to learn. This was the true kanjipocolypse.

1946: Things came back under control, and kanji goes down to 1850. I’m actually surprised by this one, especially since there was so much interest in “Japanese-ness” because of the occupation. I would have guessed this number to be higher, but perhaps they just switched back to pre-war numbers, shifting a few around to make it seem different.

1981: This is the number most of you know now, if you’re shooting for Joyo proficiency. Right now you learn 1945 kanji, and this is also the number I use on TextFugu (though I actually get rid of some of the useless ones), and a lot of other people use it too. It’s going to be interesting to see what happens when this number goes up.

November, 2010: This is when it’s looking like things could go through officially. At this time, Joyo kanji will jump from 1945 to 2136. This is going to be fun!

Why The Kanji Change, Guys?

So, there is actually some logic behind this change (believe it or not!). It seems as though technology is changing the way people interact with kanji, making it so recognizing kanji is more important than being able to write it properly. It’s the same with English, too. Ask me how to spell almost anything with more than three words and I’ll get it wroung. If spell check didn’t exist, it’d be over for me.

Writing in Japanese is as simple as writing out the sounds and then picking the correct kanji that you want to correlate with that sound. As long as you can recognize the kanji, you can also write it (at least, with your cell phone, computer, or iPad). Since more people are relying on these devices, the powers that be decided that they should add some “commonly used kanji” to the master list, even though many people don’t know how to write them. Since technology is changing the way we read and write, though, it seems to work out okay.

So, you can thank your iPhones, iPads, laptops, computers, and so on for this 10% increase in kanji you’ll have to learn, come this November.

Oh, well, there is one consolation prize. Even though they’re adding 196 kanji, they’re removing some too. How many? Well… it’s only five, but I’m sure they’re really really useless, and you probably never learned them anyways.

So how will you prepare for the kanjipocolypse?

[Slashdot & Examiner - Thanks to @mhashizu for the tip!]

P.S. If you want an additional 196 Twitter followers, you should follow Tofugu on Twitter.

P.S. If you’re glad it’s not 1942 you should subscribe to the Tofugu Newsletter.

Related posts:

1. 12 Completely (Un)inspiring Images To Help You Learn Kanji
2. Skritter’s A Great Way To Practice Kanji, Stroke Order
3. The History Of Kanji

The other day I got an e-mail from Skritter. They’re a pretty rag-tag bunch, but I like that. Skritter lets you practice writing kanji using various flash card sets (either Skritter made, community made, or you-made). Sure, you could do all this with your hands, but here’s what makes Skritter interesting.

Writing / Drawing Your Kanji Into Skritter

Let’s start with both the best and worst part about Skritter. You can draw kanji into the kanji area (it’ll ask you to write a kanji, and you write it) which is totally awesome… if you have a tablet. Now, Skritter seems to know this and they recommend some fairly affordable tablets that you can purchase to use with their service, but in my opinion you’re only getting around 25% of the potential benefit if you use your mouse to write stuff in. Take a look at how things are done:

I was using my mouse (you can tell by how sloppy it is), though I imagine that if I pulled out my tablet It would be a much better experience. Using a mouse wasn’t bad per se, but it could have been better. Using a tablet will allow you to write faster, practice writing kanji the way you’d actually write kanji, and probably learn a lot more effectively. There’s just something weird about using a mouse, though it still works.

Practicing Stroke Order

If you watch the video above, you’ll see that I mess up the stroke order on 月 (whoops!). It took me a while to realize this, but Skritter actually keeps track of your stroke order accuracy as well. Here I thought I was pretty good at stroke order, but it turns out I’m kind of so-so, especially with more complicated kanji. Skritter’s a great tool for learning and practicing stroke order.

This is probably my favorite feature of Skritter right here – it’s something you can’t really get immediate feedback on when you’re writing with a pencil and paper.

For those of you who are beginners of kanji, you can also see the outline of the kanji as well (if you want). This is great for people just learning a kanji who need a little help, though it gives you as much (or as little) help as you need, when you need it. I’d recommend turning everything off, it’ll help you build your brain power up.

Vocab Learning

Skritter’s more about learning the vocab surrounding various kanji / words, which I think is great. That’s the more useful part, anyways, depending on what your goals are, and Skritter has a lot to learn from, including lists that come from various Japanese textbooks (Though TextFugu subscribers will have to wait – no TextFugu list yet).

On top of that, there are some user generated lists, Skritter lists, and lists you can make yourself. This isn’t a bad way to practice vocabulary at all. Where Smart.fm is great for being able to read vocab and kanji, Skritter is great for being able to write those same words. Although similar, I’d say they compliment each other very nicely.

All in all, Skritter’s a neat little tool. I’d definitely recommend you get a tablet if you’re going to use Skritter, though, otherwise you’re missing out. They have a two week free trial, though it’s going to cost you $9.95 a month after that. Not a bad price at all, if you ask me. That’s like going out to lunch, once a month, except you get to eat kanji instead. nom nom nom.

I probably wouldn’t recommend Skritter as your catch-all solution to Japanese learning, though I would recommend it to those of you who want to practice writing their kanji. It does a great job doing what it does, so if you treat it like that, you’ll have a wonderful experience.

Sign up for the trial and tell me what you think. What are your impressions of it?

[Skritter.com]

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1. The 5 Biggest Mistakes People Make When Learning Kanji
2. Question: How Should You Learn Kanji?
3. Learn Japanese Vocabulary Faster By Becoming A Nintendo DS Kanji Sono Mama Jedi Master