Archive for 'Study Tools'
Practice Kana, Kanji, and Particles with Nihongoup
Posted on 05. Jun, 2009 by koichi.
Philip Seyfi sent me an e-mail asking me to check out his Adobe Air application Nihongoup (for a long time I thought its name was some sort of weird misspelling, or a fish reference, which of course we approve of). He hooked me up with a free copy (it’s normally $4.99) as well as five more to give away to all of you. You’ll have to keep reading to figure out how you can win. (more…)
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Japanese Particles [Cheatsheet]
Posted on 25. Mar, 2009 by koichi.
Japanese particles can be fun, if by fun you mean eye gouges and hair pulls. I haven’t come across too many people that enjoy Japanese particles. Tolerate? Sure, there are a few, but most people aren’t fans, and most teachers don’t make things too easy. Yesterday I taught a couple of courses on Japanese particles over at eduFire, and did everything I could to make particles easy and understandable. I figure if someone like me, who lacks a technical understanding of all grammar (in English, especially), can understand particles, then so should everyone else. I made things easy, cut out the fat, and simplified everything as much as possible, and I think for the most part it worked for people! (more…)
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Adding Furigana to Your Kanji
Posted on 09. Dec, 2008 by koichi.
This is just a quick post mostly referencing an article over at NihonHacks (so you can just go over there and read about it too), about a couple cool tools to add furigana over your kanji (furigana = hiragana that’s on top of kanji to show you how to pronounce it).
There are two tools – one for adding furigana to OpenOffice documents (which is really useful since you can just copy and paste a bunch of Japanese into it, and then get the furigana), and another for Firefox. (more…)
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39 Free Japanese Courses You Should Sign Up For Right Now
Posted on 03. Dec, 2008 by koichi.
Big news over at eduFire. I migggghhhttt have had something to do with it (wink wink, nudge nudge, Monty Python reference), but there’s a huge number of free live Japanese courses starting in the next few days. I counted 35, total, not including the courses from me I just put up (where up to 99 of you can join a course). Here’s a list of all the courses, along with an explanation of how these courses work. (more…)
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How to Follow Japan-Blogs Like a Pro (Plus Some e-Begging For Your Help)
Posted on 25. Nov, 2008 by koichi.
I follow hundreds of Japan-related blogs, just so I can keep up with the Japan-news (and the blogging competition, too). It may seem really difficult to follow so many blogs (not to mention all the others I read), but with RSS, it’s super easy… Oh, and did I mention addictingly fun, too?
Tofugu is currently participating in DailyBlogTips’ “Blogging Idol 2,” which is a pretty big competition that has a lot to do with RSS. Right now, Tofugu is in 11th place (out of over a hundred), and would definitely love your help! You can make our dreams come true by voting for us (pretty please?), or just by subscribing to our RSS feed, which is what I’ll be telling you about after the break. Just so it’s not too much e-begging for you to handle, I’ll be spinning it in a way that makes things wonderful for you too: (more…)
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iKnow: The Best Japanese Vocabulary Flashcard Site on the Web
Posted on 18. Nov, 2008 by koichi.
We’ve all been through it. We’ve all experienced it. Studying vocabulary can be a huge drag. There are tons of different resources for vocab studying, but none of them out there are really really good. Usually, you have to input all the information yourself (which takes longer than just studying without flashcards), or you just study and forget to go back. No vocabulary resource has been so streamlined and so well put together before iKnow.co.jp, which, of course, is what we’ll be looking at in pretty good detail today.
If you’ve ever had trouble with vocabulary, iKnow will change that. If you think you’ve been doing fine all this time, you’ll soon realize that it can only get better for you.
Here’s why iKnow is so good at pile driving kanji / vocabulary into the mat (is my WWF vocab okay?). Firstly, iKnow hits vocab from all angles. Hands on learner, visual learner, auditory learner… doesn’t matter. There’s something for everyone. In fact, if you use all these angles to your advantage, you’re only solidifying and remembering recently learned vocab more efficiently and better. I don’t know how often I forget vocab I’ve just learned. iKnow prevents this as much as possible. (more…)
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Japanese Counters (the Free e-Book)
Posted on 06. Nov, 2008 by koichi.
A few days ago I did a live e-lecture about Japanese counters (and how suicidal they can make you). To go along with the presentation, I put together an e-book for you to use as a Japanese counter resource. Let’s take a closer look at counters, and then I’ll provide the link to the e-book which goes into a lot more detail and specifics! (more…)
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Top 10 Online Resources for Learning Japanese for Free
Posted on 21. Oct, 2008 by koichi.
I’m really proud and excited to announce Tofugu’s first annual “Top 10 Online Resources for Learning Japanese for Free” list, which includes an e-book that’s available for download at the end of the article. There’s also video down there for all you people who don’t like reading things!
Have you ever wondered what was out there in the tubes of the interwebs in terms of improving your Japanese? Honestly, a whole lot of junk. Some of that junk is mediocre, but most of it is pretty junky. I’ve sifted through all that and came up with a list of the best Japanese resources on the web. Granted, everything is just my opinion, but I think this is a really well rounded list that should have something (hopefully a few things) for everyone! If you’ve been a reader on Tofugu for a while now, you’ve probably seen some of these. Still there’s a lot of new stuff here, so please, dive in, and tell me what you think! (more…)
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How to Get Free Japanese Lessons (In more than one way!)
Posted on 23. Sep, 2008 by koichi.
So, as I promised (and a day late), here’s how you can get you fill of free Japanese lessons, right from your own home. There’s two ways to do it. The first way involves a contest (I’ll talk about this more a little later) and the second way just involves clicking around a new Youtube channel I’m a part of. Let’s go into more detail! (more…)
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EduFire Review: Learn Japanese (or any language) Online via Webcam with a Private Tutor
Posted on 28. Aug, 2008 by koichi.
First off, I love eduFire. It’s a great website with great people, a great interface, and a great mission: They want to make it easy for tutors to teach students a foreign language. Right now, there are forty-three languages being taught on eduFire (and that number is growing as tutors increase), including Arabic, English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Mandarin, Portuguese, Russian, and of course, Japanese. And yes, I am one of the forty-one Japanese tutors currently teaching on eduFire (but more on that later).
But, how does everything work? Everything’s pretty simple right now, and the eduFire staff are constantly making improvements to the site, mostly based on user suggestion. The site’s creators are very good about listening and responding to feedback, and their employees are very friendly (If you are a tutor, you will be contacted by Marco, who will join your lesson as a “student” and walk you through eduFire and answer your questions. Super cool Frood. (more…)
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