Tofugu.com – Wonky Japanese Language and Culture

In the last couple months, we’ve done two Flutterscape.com giveaways. This is the third, last, and by far best in the series. You’ve gotten your hands on Cupmen and Midori Otoko, but now it’s time for you to choose what you want to win from the awesome Japanese products site. Read more…

P.S. Stick around to the end of this post, where you can win a sexy green USB man.

I bet a lot of you know all about “rock, paper, scissors,” the other way that Japanese people make decisions, but did you know about amidakuji? When you need to assign people or things to an equal number of outcomes, amidakuji is the best way to do it… plus, it kind of reminds me of all those pipes mario smokes has to walk through. Read more…

(Be sure to stick around to the end, where you can win some goodies from FlutterScape) In the past, I’ve written about a few ways you can buy things from Japan. Most of them have been so-so at best. Finally (seriously, it’s about time), someone’s come up with something that works pretty darn well (I’ll tell you about my experience in a bit), and that something is FlutterScape.

FlutterScape seems a little complicated at first, but really it’s quite simple. There are people in Japan going around to various stores taking pictures of things they want to sell. They don’t buy these things from the store until you buy them. Once you buy the item, they go to the store, get the item, and send it to FluttersScape HQ in Japan. Once FlutterScape gets it they forward the money along (or will send it back to you if the person never gets the item for you) and will send the item to you. Seems complicated, but all you really need to know is that you can safely buy something without much worry about getting screwed over very very easily. Read more…

Only two or three more days before you can win these White Rabbit Press flash cards. If you missed it, at the end of this video I told you how to win them. Lucky for all of you, I’ll tell you how to win them right here in this post, as well. Read more…

Have you heard of eduFire SuperPass? Maybe you’ve seen the big banner in the right-side bar. Essentially, SuperPass is a subscription program over at eduFire that lets you take unlimited (SuperPass) classes for a low fee of $29 a month. We’re talking less than $1 a day here, and you can get a lot out of it. I’ve definitely seen a lot of people really improve their Japanese over the last couple of months way faster than if you were meeting with someone once a week, or something along those lines.

BUT, I know a lot of you are poor, and if only you had the chance… just one chance (or eight chances?)… you would eat it up and try your best (and then get pretty good at Japanese!). There are eight blogs out there giving away eduFire SuperPass subscriptions right now. I’ll be giving away some on Tofugu at a later date, so for now, I’ll have to bid you farewell and send you off to eight amazing blogs. Check out their other posts too – all of these blogs are blogs I already read, and you should too! Read more…

Two weeks ago I put up a post about Tenso, the Japanese shipping company, and asked you all to write a haiku in order to win a slick t-shirt. I’ve been through them a bunch of times now, but can’t choose just one. That’s where YOU come in. I need you to vote for your favorites. You have one week to vote, and then we’ll see who won. I’ve narrowed it down to five… which one will you choose?

VOTE NOW!

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: Read more…

This is just a quick post letting you know a couple things.

First, I’m giving a free online lecture about learning Japanese. It’s titled: “Top 10 Free Online Tools for Learning Japanese.” If you’re interested, it will be a great lecture, and I’ll be doing it twice, one for the folks in Eruope, and one for the folks in America. You can see both of them by clicking here. We’re currently in Beta testing for the classroom style lessons (or lecture, in this case), so it won’t cost you anything, and I think I’ll be giving a good lesson, so I hope to see you there. If you don’t intend to show up, though, please don’t sign up. Seats are limited, so please respect those who might want a spot.

Second, the little contest over on the edufirejapanese Youtube Channel was extended, so you have one more week to make a video and have the possibility of winning three free 1-on-1 lessons with any tutor you want. Also, eduFire has sweetened the deal, and is including a $25 gift certificate to each of the three winners for learnoutloud.com, as well as a t-shirt. Everybody on the Internet loves t-shirts. Even I don’t have an eduFire t-shirt. You can win it, and make me feel jealous.

There you have it. Join me in my lesson for free, and go make a video to take part in the eduFire contest! Thanks!

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! Read more…

I’m sure you’ve all been anxiously waiting, hoping to get your グミ sugar fix on sooner rather than later. It’s finally that time, and the five randomly picked Twitter users have been chosen, thanks to the random number generator over at RANDOM.ORG. Two people won from a Twitter follow over at Koichiben, and the other three won by hitting the follow button over at Tofugu’s Twitter page. If you didn’t win, not all hope is lost, though! More information will be after the jump.

If you’re a winner (one of those lucky people pictured above), contact me ASAP so we can choose you a flavor. More info about flavors further down.

So, what if you didn’t win? Well, here’s an option for you, if you want it: Read more…