Instead of a regular post today, I wanted to post up a few things. To be fair, one of the sections of this post is about a ginormous guide that was originally going to be this post (but was too guide-y), so if you’re looking for your regular dose of Japanese content, just jump to [...]
One of the things I’ve learned about learning a language over the years is that association in memory is a very (very) powerful tool. Memories are almost always learned best when you associate them with another already learned memory. So, if you can attach a new memory to an old one, then the effectiveness of [...]
If you study kanji for long enough you’ll begin to see patterns emerge. At first, they won’t make too much sense and you’ll think it’s pure luck. You’ll make a couple of connections and say “Hey! Nice! This made it easier to remember this kanji. Lucky me.” Then, you’ll go about your life as if [...]
For the last month I’ve been working hard on advanced materials for TextFugu. During that time, some changes have happened in my mind, and one way or another (I’ll explain in a second), it came to be that instead of an advanced section for TextFugu, we’ll be putting out an entirely separate resource. If all [...]
I almost gave up on Japanese once. When I first started self-studying Japanese, I was overwhelmed by the sheer amount of stuff there was to learn. I can even remember that panicky feeling like it was yesterday: in one hand I had the CD sleeve for MARS, Gackt’s sophomore album, in the other I had [...]
Most of the world doesn’t speak Japanese. In fact, only 1.8% of the world speaks Japanese, and most of these people live on a series of islands that add up to, approximately, the size of the state of California. If you happen to live outside of this island (statistically, you probably do), then the chances [...]
Eventually you’re going to graduate. You’re not going to be in Japanese class forever. And since you already know how to survive the classroom, you need to know what to do afterwards. So what do you do once you don’t have a schedule or classmates or teachers or homework!? Is it possible to maintain your [...]
