Recently, I became a huge fan of podcasts. I thought they were a lot lamer than they really are, so I was surprised when I actually took a look at the Podcast section in iTunes. Now, I’m listening to NPR constantly, especially Car Talk, Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me, and This American Life. This went on for a little while, then I realized that maybe it was possible to listen to Japanese podcasts as well. It would be great for passive Japanese listening practice, and even more importantly, it would be free. Still, in the past I had tried to download Japanese music from Japanese iTunes, and it denied me because I didn’t have a Japanese credit card (though later on we’ll talk about a way around this, according to one of our readers, at the end of the article).

First, let’s take a look at the pluses and minuses of listening to Japanese podcasts. I think it’s important to keep these things in mind, due to the varying types of language the podcast hosts use.

The Goods:

-Great for just hearing the language. It’s easy to subscribe to a lot of podcasts and just listen to them in the background, even. Doesn’t require any extra time to do this, which is very important for me.
-Get’s your mind used to the sounds that make up the Japanese language, and unlike music, podcasts consist of people talking, not singing, so language and pronunciation doesn’t get altered for the purpose of a nice musical sound.
-Podcasts are free, and who doesn’t like free? On top of that, many of them are high quality shows, as in, these are shows from real radio stations made into a format for your computer / iPod.
-Wide Variety of Topics for you to listen to. More variety means you can find what you like.

The Bads:

-A lot of the language that is used is very slangy. Depending on your level of Japanese, this could be a good or a bad thing. Although it’s good to learn how to speak casual Japanese, it’s even more important to learn formal “textbook” Japanese. Though many people will tell you otherwise (and they just don’t know better), it’s very important to know how to talk to people depending on the situation, and casual slangy talk isn’t appropriate in many many situations. As long as you keep this in mind while listening, you’ll be fine.

So How do you get these Podcasts?

*Quick note. I’m using iTunes 7.7. Things could change with future versions, though I feel like for the most part it’s going to be a similar step by step process. Using the directions below, you should be able to figure it out even if your version is a bit different. Alright, here we go!

First, get yourself iTunes, if you don’t have it already. You might need to create an account at this point, though I don’t think you will need to, since Podcasts are free. Scroll down to the very bottom of the iTunes store front page, and you should see something that lets you change your location.

Now, change this to the Japanese store, or, “日本.”

Right here, your store should change to the Japan one. Luckily, most everything should stay in English (except for the titles of the songs / podcasts). Now, on the top left area of the store, there should be a section called “iTunes Store.” Click on “Podcasts.”

From here, you have many options. You are in the Podcast section. Pretty much anything you click on will be a Podcast that you can subscribe to. Here is what I’d suggest you do, though. Below “iTunes store”, after you click on Podcasts, there should be a category (カテゴリ） section, so you can narrow the potential shows down. I like comedy, so that’s what I’ve been subscribing to.

“Video Podcasts” is another available option. That’s another potential section you can take a look at, but not really what we’re talking about today. It’s an awesome section, and I totally recommend it, but I’m going to continue talking about the audio based section for now.

Another thing you can look at, if you don’t want to bother with cateogries, is the “what’s hot” section. Usually iTunes will provide you with a list of popular / staff picked Podcasts for you to look at. There’s some good stuff here, as well.

It really just depends on the type of stuff you like. If you want ot hear really formal Japanese, maybe you should check out the government section. If you want to listen to something with a lot of energy, check out comedy. If you want something nice and simple, maybe you should listen to something from the kids section. Really, the potential is limitless, and there is so much content, and most importantly, it’s really easy to find and download, legally, for free.

I started out by subscribing to “JUNK Podcasts,” which you should be able to see here. I plan on branching out, but I have way too much to listen to still, so I’m going to hold back until I catch up to the most current episodes.

How to Download Japanese Music on iTunes Japan

Now, this is all theoretical. I haven’t confirmed this by trying it out myself (too poor!), but one of our regular commentors, クリス, says this works (so, it probably does). If you navigate the iTunes Japan store, and try to buy some music, it will tell you to set up an account in Japan, with a Japanese credit card. To get around this, all you need to do is get an iTunes gift card and use that instead. It’s just that simple, aparently, and a lot cheaper than trying to buy a ridiculously overpriced Japanese music CD. There are also TV shows, etc., just like the US iTunes, so that might be worth checking out as well (if you want to be legal about it, which we totally recommend and advocate). If anyone else has tried it out and can confirm that it works, let us know in the comments! Also, thank you クリス for the tip!

*EDIT 8-22: Ah Ha! So you need a Japanese gift card. Thank you for the clarification in the comments!

So, any Japanese Podcasts you’re listening to now that you’ve read this?

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. Sometimes, the web version requires you to scroll through lists and lists of results. Although it is sometimes difficult to find the vocabulary word you were originally searching for, Jim Breen’s depth of search results are handy when you’re looking for something out of the ordinary.

Back to the iPhone version!

The iPhone version is quite a bit worse than the real version. The iPhone version will only allow you to see the first page of results when the vocab word you’re looking for can sometimes be on page two or three. For example, when I searched for telephone, it wouldn’t come up with 電話 (でんわ). Instead, it came up with things like telephone box, push pin telephone, etc. The results for telephone were probably on pages two or three, but since those results aren’t included in the iPhone version, there was no way to find the right translation. There were situations like this where it was obvious it didn’t quite work right, so at least you won’t be tricked into thinking a translation is something it’s not.

Here’s one that did work. I searched for the word Monkey, and it came up with these results:

I turned “Common Words Only,” since this normally helps the real version of this dictionary come up with more usable search results.

First result was correct! Sadly, the results aren’t always the best possible results. That’s something that hopefully they will work on for the future of this app.

Translating Kanji into English

Here’s another feature I was excited about. Since the iPhone can now type in Japanese, being able to look up kanji would be wonderful. Unfortunately, at this time (August 6, 2008), the app just crashes whenever you try to look something up. I hope they fix this feature soon.

Overall Impressions

I wasn’t entirely impressed with this application. It has a lot of potential for being a great Japanese dictionary for the iPhone, but it just doesn’t work consistantly enough (right now). I think it will get better, so it’s worth checking out after they fix some of the bugs. There’s another Japanese dictionary on the iTunes App store, iJisho, but that ones way way worse, plus it costs money. The wwwJDic application is free, and you can’t beat  that, especially when it beats the current competition (which isn’t all that great either).

Even though this application is buggy, and it doesn’t always come up with good search results, it’s still the best thing available, so if you’re looking for a Japanese dictionary for your iPhone, this is your best bet.

Other News: Don’t forget about our Twitter Contest, where you can win the tastiest Japanese candy in the whole world known and unknown plus the universe too.

Over the last five years or so, I feel like I’ve noticed an influx in “instant gratification textbooks.” Everyone is trying to claim that they can teach you Japanese faster. One book will say it can teach you Japanese in 12 very easy five minute lessons, another will say they can teach you everything you’d ever need to know in a week. I’ve even seen some that say “Learn Japanese now!”

I think sometimes we forget that speed isn’t the point. Learning  Japanese FAST is like cramming for an exam. Maybe you’ll remember for a little while (a very little while), but in the end, you’ll just end up forgetting and burning yourself out. It’s not a race, and it should never be thought of that way.

I could be wrong, but I bet a lot of people get tempted into buying one of these “fast” Japanese language books. People want instant gratification, and when a book markets this temptation, they sell books, but people don’t learn very much. When I go to the bookstore, it feels like most of the books in the Japanese section are like this: Quick one-night-stand textbooks that steal your money on the way out the next morning. They must be making money.

Basically, all I’m saying is don’t get tempted! Take the high road! Learning Japanese takes a lot of time, but trying to skip steps to speed it up won’t help any. If you want to speed up what you are learning, just study more; that’s all there is to it. If you spend too much time trying to figure out innovative new approaches to learning Japanese, you’ll waste a lot of time that you could be using to study.

Here is a little video for you to watch, mostly just entertainment, and me making a fool out of myself. Besides being the most embarrassing thing I’ve ever done, his video is dedicated to Erin, because she hates this song so much, and I love it.

Let’s go down the list of name honorifics and review each one separately. It’s really good to know how to use each of these (if you don’t), since you can come across as pretty rude when you make a mistake!

San:

Overview: This is the most common. It can be used on boys or girls. It can be used in formal and (somewhat) informal situations. Pretty much, san is your fail safe when you don’t know which one ot use. You probably won’t get in trouble if you use this one, so it’s good to use with frequency.

Do Not: Refer to yourself as [your name]-san. This is very rude. You might as well start asking people to get on their knees and bow down to you. Only use this on other people.

Other Uses: You can also attach san to some nouns, usually jobs. For example, booksellers are called honya-san. I know that some uses like this are more common than others so I’d say it’s best not to jump to conclusions and start turning every noun you see into name-honorific enders.

Trivial Fact: Ever notice how a lot of Japanese usernames on the net end with three? I just read this on Wikipedia, and it completely makes sense. Since the number three in Japanese is san, some people use this to end their names. I think it’s clever, anyways.

Also, in the Kansai area of Japan (they speak a different dialect, kind of like how people in Texas would have “southern accents” in America), some people use han instead of san (apparently). I can’t confirm this from experience, but that’s what I read.

Sama

Overview: Most likely, you’ll never run into an appropriate situation to use sama, unless of course you want to be a little sarcastic. The only time you’ll be using sama is if 1) you’re working for a company and you’re talking to a customre, or 2) you want to be sarcastic about someone who thinks really highly about themselves.

Do Not: EVER refer to yourself as sama…well, that is, unless you’re making fun of yourself. Otherwise, there’s no reason to do it, and if you do it with a serious face, people will think you’re a big stuck up snob.

Trivial Fact: Aparently, there’s also a “Chama” version of sama. Typically, you would use this when talking to someone who is older.

Kun

Overview: This is where you start getting more casual. Kun is primarily used when refering to other males, usually by someone of high status to someone younger / lower status than them. A good example would be a teacher talking to a (usually male) student. Some (masculine) females get called (name)-kun, though this is less common.

Do Not: Use this on someone of higher status than you. That means teachers, people that are older than you, parents, etc. You get the picture. If you aren’t sure, then just use san - at least you’ll be safe that way.

Chan

Overview: Now we’re in deep waters. Chan is primarily used on children, female family members, lovers, and close friends. Really, it’s a term of indearment. Often times, one’s name will be shortened to add chan to it. For example, I get the Ko-chan treatment instead of Koichi-chan, which just sounds awkward.

Do Not: (once again), use it on anyone of higher status than you. If you are using chan, the person should be much younger, or you better know that person really well.

Trivial Fact: Unlike all the other name honorifics, it’s actually not too horrible to refer to yourself and add the chan to the end. Children do this a lot, but so do some adults. Adding chan to a name can sometimes become a nickname that’s used instead of the real name, at which point it becomes acceptable to refer to yourself while using the honorific.

Another interesting thing about chan is that it is paired up with ojii and obaa (oji-chan / oba-chan), roughly meaning grandma and grandpa. Once Gma and Gpa get old, they come full circle, and you get to use the honorific reserved for children on them. Poor guys.

Anyways…

If you were confused by that, then just know this is barely touching the surface. Knowing what name honorific to use in what situation is one of the easiest things to learn in terms of the whole hierarchy in Japanese speech. It gets so much worse. Anime, I think, will often give people the wrong idea when it comes to how to use san, kun, sama, & chan (another good reason to get yourself a teacher of some sort). Anyways, speaking of anime messing honorifics up, next time I’ll be talking about the difference between senpai, kohai, and sensei. Actually, come ot think of it, this might be one of the few things they might be getting right.

So, here’s the test. If you were to email me (or someone else you don’t really know), what honorific would you use?

If I were to email our author Erin, which one would I use?

If I were to email our other author Viet, which one would I use?

Lastly, here’s a trick question, what about Santa Claus?

Well, it’s that time of year, isn’t it? Some of you are getting out of school for summer break and some of you haven’t had to go to school for decades. Some of you took Japanese classes at school, and some of you are self-taught. Either way, summer makes it really easy not to continue studying your Japanese (or anything, for that matter). I’ve thought through some tips to keep the study-love going during the lazy season.

Don’t take a break

This is an easy trap to fall into. “I’ll just take a couple of weeks off and then I’ll really study after that.” WRONG. Though this may actually work for a few people, it’s best not to take a break and stick to your schedule. For every day that you don’t practice, it gets a little bit easier to not study the next day, and then the next day, and then pretty soon you’ll be taking the entire summer off. A whole summer is a long time not to practice something, especially something so forgetful as language (not to mention the kanji. Oh god, the kanji!). Don’t stop studying just because it’s summer, but also…

Don’t Overdo it!

When people get inspired or motivated, they often tend to burn themselves out as well. Don’t start the summer with the expectation that you will study four hours a day. A few exceptional people might be able to do this. You and me, you know, the “normal people,” can never do this. Make a schedule, take scheduled breaks, just don’t overdo it. It all depends on you, but I’d suggest studying 30 minutes a day, five days a week. Yep, that’s it. Better yet, if you only have thirty minutes to do something, most likely you’ll find more efficient ways to do it, or you’ll study harder during those thirty minutes. Thirty minutes a day will be tough enough for most people. It’s not the actual studying that’s hard, it’s sticking with your schedule, no matter how short it is.

An Opportunity for Review

When you start your “summer studies,” it might be good to take this opportunity to review, especially if you are formally taught Japanese in your school. Whether you understood everything or not, it’s good to go back and solidify your knowledge. One of the Japanese professors at my university had to take Japanese 1 twice when he was in college, due to transferring schools. Although he was a bit peeved to take the same class twice, he came out a much better Japanese student in the end. That first year is really important when it comes to pronunciation, how you read, how you write, grammar, etc., so why not take summer as an opportunity to really get to know those things? You cover a lot of stuff in Japanese class, and it’s impossible to feel really comfortable with everything. Spend a couple of weeks going over your previous lessons. Become a pro in stuff you’ve already done! A good site for Japanese review (and learning) is the cool frood over at TaeKim’s Guide to Japanese. Everything is nicely laid out and there are plenty of examples.

Have a Little Fun!

Pshhhh, it’s summer, enjoy yourself a little. I know I promote all this “studying stuff” and it doesn’t seem that fun, but that’s what you have to deal with when you want to learn another language. Still, there’s opportunity to try new things and study “differently.” When you’re in school, it’s hard to come up with the time to do anything except your homework (that and socializing, working, etc). Now that it’s summer, you probably have a little extra time. Why not try something else? Here are some “alternative” Japanese study methods that will give you a new view on Japanese studies. Check them out!

Lang-8: I’ve been pimping Lang-8 for a few weeks now. It’s a great service for people who want to practice reading and writing Japanese. It’s kind of a language social networking website. The premise is pretty simple. You write journal entries in the language you are learning (i.e. probably Japanese), natives in that language will correct your journal entries for you, and finally, if you’re a nice person, you’ll help some people who are learning your own native language. I’ve learned tons since using the site 6-8 months ago. You can read more about it in my article over here.

Start a Blog (in Japanese): It has never been easier to start a blog. You can get a blog for free over at wordpress.com, blogger.com, or livejournal.com. I’m a big Wordpress fan, but all of those will work (and are very easy to set up). I have a blog in Japanese over at Koichiben.com, where I talk about American culture and the English language (kind of the Bizarro version of Tofugu). If you start at the beginning and read all of the articles, you’ll see a vast improvement. I’m learning new things every time, and I even get the articles edited first via the kind users at Lang-8. I know a few other people who have blogs in Japanese, and it’s been very helpful to them as well. If you can get people to visit it, then it’s like you have to update it every once in a while, which means your Japanese has to get better. I don’t know about you, but I enjoy blogging, so blogging in Japanese only seemed like the natural thing to do for practice, and almost any level of Japanese learner can do this, as long as they have some basics down. Heck, you can even throw some ads on there and attempt to make some money from it (though, don’t expect more than pocket change unless you become ridiculously popular).

Start a Vlog (in Japanese): It’s also a good way to get people to visit your blog, if you do that as well. That’s pretty much how I built Koichiben up. One of the disadvantages to only blogging in Japanese is the lack of speaking practice. Starting a Vlog along with your Blog will help round out the experience a little bit. Another option, if you don’t want people to see you would be to start a podcast in Japanese.

Plan a Trip to Japan: You don’t even have to actually go (though that would be awesome). Just planning a trip to Japan will help you learn some Japanese, get you more familiar with the geography, help you understand how trains work, teach you about Japanese money, and tell you about some of the history of the country. It might even inspire you to study Japanese harder, since you might end up wanting to actually take this trip you planned someday. This isn’t Japanese study persé, but it is surprisingly educational if you take it seriously. There are a bunch of websites out there about traveling to Japan. I think the Tofugu team primarily used Japan-Guide for our last trip. Still, to find the really cool places, sometimes you have to delve into the Japanese website world and poke around. This is where the education really begins.

Get Familiar with Culture, Current Events

Do you all know what an RSS reader is? If you do, then you know how amazingly convenient and addictive they can be. I use google reader to organize all the things I want to read on the internet. Basically, an RSS reader lets you subscribe to websites (this website, included) so that whenever they update with new content, you’ll get it sent directly to your reader. This means, you can read all your favorite blogs in one place (or, sometimes, only parts of them). If you haven’t, you should subscribe to Tofugu’s feed! Anyways, enough self-promotion.

There are tons of websites out there that do Japanese news, culture, etc. Tofugu, believe it or not, is only one of them (ZOMG, what?). There are a bunch of other sites that cover cool Japanese things, and you can subscribe to all of them via RSS. Here’s just a few of my favorites: RockingInHakata, PinkTentacle, WhatJapanThinks, and NihonHacks. Also, there’s this sweet website that is like a Digg website just for Japan-related things: JapanSoc.

I always think it’s important to learn culture when learning language, but I’m going to save that for it’s own article sometime. Just let it be known that there are many aspects of the Japanese language that make absolutely no sense unless you understand the cultural background, and by cultural background I don’t mean anime, in case you were hoping. Anyways, learning about the culture and reading up on Japan’s current events will help paint a realistic and well-rounded picture of Japan, which in turn will make you a better language student. Very abstract, but I really believe it!

Figuring out a Schedule that Works for You

Actually, figuring out a schedule is the easy part. Sticking with it is difficult. There are so many ways to figure out and stick to a schedule, but only some of them will work for you. I’m not here to tell people how to schedule their time, but maybe you can help. How do you schedule Japanese study time? How do you stick with it? Let us all know - the more the better. I don’t think there’s one “best” way, so the more ideas we throw out there, the higher the likelyhood we’ll figure something out that works for somebody!

Anyways, I wish you all the best of luck in studying your Japanese this summer. Tofugu will be right there with you, getting angry if you don’t study, so don’t slack off too much.

I’ve been really surprised lately. I’ve gotten a few emails from people that ask me why kanji is necessary. “Kanji is sooo hard” they say. “Why do Japanese bother learning kanji when they could just use a phonetic alphabet? I mean, they have hiragana already, why would you need kanji when hiragana does the same thing? It seems old fashioned!”

If you’ve studied Japanese for a while, you probably know the answer. Sure, hiragana is pretty convenient when you are first starting out. Why write 寿司 (sushi) when you could write it much more simply, すし? Gosh, look at all those strokes, look at all that extra time! Both versions are two characters long, but it’s obvious that the second is easier.

Alright, I’ll admit, writing everything in hiragana would be faster…but would it be easier? Here is why you need to learn kanji, and have to use it. Learn to love kanji, folks.

1. Once you start writing sentences, hiragana is no longer readable. For example, I’ll write two identical sentences. One with hiragana only, and one normally.今日、寿司を食べに行きますか？

きょう、すしをたべにいきますか？

Do you notice the difference? The second sentence is very difficult to read. There is nothing separating the words from each other. In Japanese, there are no spaces between words, so kanji helps break words apart, making it easy to read. As I’m sure you can imagine, long sentences would get even more difficult to read, and when you don’t know where one word begins and another one ends, reading errors can occur. You could be thinking that one word is another by combining the back end of one word to the front end of another…then where would you be?

2. Kanji gives meaning to words. This sort of follows the same concept as English synonyms. In English, you just take the context and work with it. In Japanese, kanji helps give meaning to words. Let’s take the example of the word “Kanji,” since that’s what we’re working with. If you wrote kanji in hiragana, it would be more difficult to understand its meaning. If you wrote it in kanji, you could tell the difference. For example:

かんじ　→　漢字
かんじ　→　感じ
かんじ　→　幹事
かんじ　→　監事

…And the list goes on. There are many many more examples out there, but as you can see, kanji really helps to bring context to words.

3. It looks nicer when you write in kanji. Sure, this is just my own opinion, but I really think it’s true. Kanji can be very beautiful. It has a soft spot in my heart, even if the rest of my heart hates it. Japanese parents tell their kids they have to learn to write beautifully, otherwise people will judge them on their handwriting. People must think I’m a slob that makes a lot of mistakes…or a twelve year old.

4. Kanji is easier to read. “What??” You say. “Impossible!” Okay, so it’s true. Having to learn how to read kanji sucks. In the long run, though, it makes you an incredibly fast reader. I always wondered how my Japanese friends could read things so quickly. One day it hit me. Since each kanji has it’s own meaning, once you know kanji well, you can skim over things, basically one kanji at a time, and get the meaning of a sentence very quickly. You don’t have to read all the hiragana (though I’m sure people do read it, otherwise it would be unnecessary). Instead, you can understand the meaning of something just by jumping from kanji to kanji.

5. Kanji Takes up less space. You know those darn 10 page papers you have to write in English class? Psshh, you could write a 7 page paper if you were writing it in Japanese, especially if you were typing it. Typing in Japanese makes things so much easier. Kanji takes up less space than just writing in hiragana. Often times, two or three characters will be condensed into one kanji. It’s so efficient.

6. It could be worse. At least there is hiragana. For example, Mandarin Chinese is only kanji. I remember trying to learn that. Feel fortunate that you are learning Japanese, because really, it could be a lot harder.

So there you have it. Learn your kanji and learn it well. Besides, kanji is friggin’ cool. You’ll thank me when you’ve become a speed reader.

The other day I came across a copy of the video I made (with a few other folks) for my Japanese final at the end of high school. I’m probably wrong, but I feel like video finals in Japanese high school classes are very common. It’s something that links us all together somehow.

Our video was originally going to be a two minute Japanese Mentos commercial…which then turned into a candy commercial…which then turned into a twenty minute ridiculous film that barely references candy or Mentos at all. I’ve abridged the video down so you can see just the interesting parts (including my commentary). You can see the abridged version (as well as the full, twenty minute version), after the break. Keep in mind, this was my first video ever, so it’s ever crappier than more recent work.

At the part where we shoot the gun, our teacher let out a yelp of terror. This video was so violent that Tomoko Sensei (our teacher) told the class we got a C, even though we got the highest score possible. Still, what else can you expect from a bunch of high school guys? If anything, knowing us, I’m surprised there weren’t more fight scenes.

Here’s the full version, if you want to sit through the whole thing. Keep in mind that the entire thing is dubbed horribly, and should only be watched when you’re really really bored. One fun thing I like to do is go through this video and count how many times Viet’s limbs appear in the shots when they aren’t supposed to. How many can you count?

I don’t know if the people in the video want their identities to be told, so I’ll only include first names. Still, I’ve got to credit everyone. Here’s the rundown.

Directing / Editing: Koichi & Sean
Jack, the main character: Sean
Buddha: Koichi
Melvin, Great Warrior of the East: Viet (yep, Tofugu’s Viet)
Vincent, the roommate: Greg
Qwest Employee: Tom

So, how many of you have made Japanese video finals? I bet a lot of you have, at some point. I also bet half of them contained seppuku scenes. If you have one, please share! Link us somewhere down below, I love watching these kinds of things, haha.

This Post was brought to you by:

You know, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but sometimes it’s my job. If you’ve ever used your Japanese with a Japanese person, you know how impressed…they seem. You say something (anything, even if it’s only vaguely Japanese) and they will respond with ecstatic claps, squeals of joy, and “jyouzu jyouzu sugoi jyouzu” over and over like a broken record.

Gosh, I really don’t want to do this, but I thought you should all know the truth. Here’s what Japanese people actually think about your Japanese:

Now, I don’t want to get you down. I don’t want to uninspire you. It’s not your fault. You can blame the philosophers, the “intellectuals”, and the cultural anthropologists of the Japanese post-war era. Most of the blame can be put on them, amongst others.

You see, there is this thing called Nihonjinron, which basically means “Theory of the Japanese (people).” Right after World War II, Japan was feeling particularly sad. They had just lost the war, and they were being occupied by the Americans. Nihonjinron was this big thing that came along that helped separate the Japanese from the threat of western cultural influence. Nihonjinron is full of bogus theories that make the Japanese unique from everyone else.

Although there are a ton of Nihonjinron theories out there, here are a few of the more ridiculous ones, for your enjoyment:

1. Japanese evolved from a separate set of primates, which makes them unique (and, to some, superior).
2. Japanese have a special “masculine and feminine” that makes them unique. They believe that this feminine form of language came from thousands of years ago. Although it was proven that feminine language only came into existence in the Meiji Era, most Japanese still believe in this, and are taught this in school.
3. Japanese brains are different from non-Japanese brains. More on this in the next point.
4. And finally, the one that has to do with this article: The Japanese language is so unique that only people with specially developed (Japanese brains) can hope to ever be able to understand it and speak it. And this is why…

Japanese people aren’t actually impressed with your Japanese. Well, I shouldn’t say that. They are impressed, but mostly because they never expected you to be able to speak any Japanese in the first place.

Japanese people think they are very unique. They think that they are the most unique and homogenized culture on earth. It is prejudice like this that causes them problems when it comes to internationalization.

So now, if you’ve ever wondered why Japanese people are so impressed by the littlest bits of Japanese, now you know. Don’t get discouraged, though! I’m not saying your Japanese is bad. It’s hard to become perfect. I mean, look at Japanese people who try to speak English. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a native Japanese person develop “perfect” Engrish. It’s tough both ways…though, I suppose the difficulty in English is probably due to the fact that only big Caucasians (who of course have bigger, specialized brains) can comprehend the vastness of the English language. Amerikajinron, anybody?

*disclaimer: This, of course, isn’t to say that every Japanese person thinks like this. This is just one explanation to the “why Japanese praise people speaking Japanese so much” theory.

Anyways, I should explain to you what Lang-8 is all about. They do a better job explaining it than I do, so here you go:

Let me explain these three steps in more detail

1) You can write entries in the languages you are studying
So, say you are studying Japanese (which you probably are, if you’re visiting this site). On Lang-8, the most-used feature is the “diary” (yes, you get to be a 12 year old girl all over again. Sorry, no ponies on this site, though). In your diary, you can write whatever you want. I plan on using my diary this summer to fix mistakes on my Koichiben posts. Basically, you can write about whatever you want. Some people write about current news that interests them, others write about their lives, and some (like me) write crazy articles about American culture and language.

If you’re nice enough, you’ll also write everything in your native language (Japanese and then, afterwards, in English). This way, others can see what the translation is supposed to be and can help correct your Japanese with more accuracy. On top of this, it gives people that are learning English an opportunity to practice their reading more.

2) Other users (Native speakers) correct your entries
After you write an article, all you need to do is sit back and wait for your friends to correct it for you. Since you are learning Japanese, native Japanese speakers will come along and fix your mistakes, give you comments/suggestions, and tell you anything else you did wrong. Here’s an example of part of an article I put up about “the meaning of the word love in America.” Here are Miki’s corrections:

The corrections are in blue on your diary page, so you can easily see how people made changes, which in turn really helps you to learn. Users can also highlight text red, make things bold, and cross words out. More on that later.

3) You can help teach others your own language as well
You can’t just take take take, right? It’s always a good idea to help others as well. If you can speak English, then why not help a native Japanese person with their English, and practice your Japanese reading at the same time (since people usually write in both their native language and the language they are learning)? Recent diary entries from your friends will show up on your front page, so they are easy to find. Here is an example diary entry from a user than I am Lang-8 “friends” with. This person seems to have taken the “recent news” approach, and is writing about some old actress:

After reading the diary entry, I’ll scroll down a little farther and find the section that allows me to make corrections, sentence by sentence. It looks like this:

Everyone has their own way of making corrections, so you’ll have to figure out your own style at some point. Either way, Lang-8 makes it easy to make corrections and make them simple, so it’s really a pleasure to help others out (and a pleasure for others to help you).

Making Friends in Lang-8:
Unlike Mixi, making friends on Lang-8 is very easy. Everyone using the service wants to make friends, even if they don’t know you already. The more friends you have the faster and more thoroughly your diaries will be corrected. When going out and making Lang-8 friends, I would suggest that you only make friends with people whose native language is Japanese. This makes things a lot more simple.

To make friends on Lang-8, I created tabs of everyone on the “People match to your language study!” (great English, right?) section (on the left side of your profile page). I then hit the “add to my friends list button” if they were native Japanese speakers and sent them the following message. Feel free to use it if you want:

hi!
lang-8に入ったばっかりです！
お友達になりませんか？
よろしくお願いいたします

It is basically saying: “I just got into Lang-8! Will you be my friend? I’m looking forward to your reply.” It’s also very polite, so you won’t have to worry about offending anyone.

Other Lang-8 Features:
There are some other features on Lang-8 that I don’t really use, but are worth mentioning.

One of the things you can do, which is a lot like writing in your diary, is to write a review of something (movie, game, restaurant, whatever). I don’t see why you can’t just do this in your diary, though, so I’m not sure how much you’ll use this feature.

The other feature, which is slightly more useful, is the ability to join groups. There aren’t a ton of groups out there, but if you can find one that matches your interests, then maybe you’ll be able to enjoy it enough to make things worthwhile. I personally haven’t joined any groups yet, but maybe you are the groupy kind of person.

Cons:
I couldn’t find too much wrong with Lang-8, though the design of the site bothers me (maybe I’m just a very picky / visual person). It’s pretty darn fugly, though, if you ask me. Still, you shouldn’t let this bother you or stop you from using Lang-8, it’s still a great service, and content is king, right?

Another con is that you really need to have your Japanese basics down before you get started (not Lang-8’s fault, only yours, you lazy bum). It’s all about reading and writing, so if you’re unable to do those things at least on a basic level, then you need to hit the books before signing up.

Lastly, you have to make friends before you can really start to appreciating it. This usually involves a day or two of blindly asking 40-50 random people to be your friend. Luckily, the response rate is pretty fast, and the success rate is pretty high. Still, this is the internet, and nobody on the internet is patient.

Conclusion:
Yeah, Lang-8 is amazing. You should really go visit them right now, if you’re learning Japanese. Using this website to its full potential is quite possibly the best thing ever. Sometimes I feel like I learn more from Lang-8 than from real teachers, mostly thanks to the format of the corrections. Here, I’ll even provide you with a big button you can press to join Lang-8. Making things easier, one Tofugu user at a time:

Oh, and here’s a video review:

Wow Mixi, way to put a damper on things. About two months ago, I put up a tutorial on how to get started with Mixi so that you could use it to practice your Japanese. Now it seems like Mixi is pretty much off limits (for now) to foreigners without a Japanese cell phone email addresses. This theoretically means you have to be living in Japan, and own a cell phone if you want to be able to join Mixi now.

Here are the new rules:

1. You have to confirm a Japanese cell phone email address (docomo, AU, softbank, etc).
2. You also have to confirm a normal email address (hotmail, gmail, whatever).

If you don’t have both of these, you don’t get into Mixi, simple as that. I’ll still be happy to send folks invites, just know that you won’t be able to complete the registration process unless you have a Japanese cell phone.

Anyways, now the important thing is to try and figure out a way around this. Anyone know of a way to get a Japanese cell phone email without actually owning a cell phone? Anyone know a way to circumvent this? I invited myself to Mixi, but I couldn’t figure anything out. I looked around online as well. Still nothing. If any of you know, please let me know in the comments and I’ll make a post about it so we can get this Mixi train rolling again.

UPDATE: Just because some of you seemed worried, if you are already registered with Mixi, you’re okay (for now). I can’t see them shutting down already created accounts just because you don’t have a Japanese mobile email…though, perhaps I wouldn’t put it past them as well. Mixi has done some other crazy stuff that makes me think they are internazis (Thanks for the link, Caitlin).