The service that lets you do this is called TVU networks.  They explain themselves much better than I can, so let’s let them do it.

TVU uses a new broadcast technology called Real-Time Packet Replication.  With this technology, all the viewers who are watching a channel at the same time are cooperating to give everyone the best possible signal.  TVU’s application does not create any new files on your hard disk because you’re watching live TV. [source]

So, that’s how it’s done, but I bet you want to know how to get it up and running, like now. Who wouldn’t? Ridiculous Japanese commercials await!

How to Watch Japanese Television for Free, from Anywhere:

First, you have to download TVU’s player. It’s a bit glitchy, and not the prettiest application in the world, but like Lang-8, it’s functional, and does a great job doing what it does best.

Download TVU’s media player

From there, it’s really easy. Open up the program and switch the language over to Japanese. It’s up on the top left.

After you do that, all of the Japanese channels that are available will show up. I frequent the first three the most, but there’s a lot of stuff there, including music videos for all you music buffs. Right now, as I write this, I’m watching a show about a boxer who seduces a nun. Only in a Japanese drama, right? Only now, it’s live!

Japanese TV isn’t all you can see, though. Of course, there’s television from all over the world, and you can watch it for free as well. I’ve looked at a few American channels, since I don’t have cable TV at my home (why would I, when I’ve got internet to replace it for less money?).

So, I hope you enjoy this! Try to take breaks and go outside once in a while, yeah?

Once again, thank you rjhoolan for finding this and sharing! You are my new favorite person for the day :)

UPDATE 2-25: Since this is a p2p television thing, your connection, as well as the channels available at any given time, are dependent on who’s using TVU at the time. The people sharing are hooking into their tv, and if nobody is watching a channel at the time you want to watch it, you won’t be able to see it to. So, basically what I’m getting at, is you won’t always get all the channels, and it depends on when you are watching, sadly. Still, I’ve had good luck with it, and it hasn’t caused me any problems.

this is a test, testing the feed footer plugin. swavvy!

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.

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:

I spent a couple of hours going through Genki I. I would summarize the book for you, but I think they do a much better job: “Aim and Purpose: Genki, An Integrated Course in Elementary Japanese is a textbook for beginners in the study of the Japanese language. Students can complete the elementary-level study of Japanese in the 23 lessons of this text, which is divided into two volumes. The book is designed maily for use in university and college courses, but it is also effective for high school students and adults who are beginning to learn Japanese either at school or on their own.”

Overall, I was very impressed with this textbook. I don’t remember what text I used when I first started learning Japanese, but it certainly wasn’t as swanky as this one (swanky is a good thing). I can see why so many Japanese classrooms use this as their only textbook. It has good flow, it does well building lessons on top of each other, and it always gives you just enough information to get you thinking a little bit (good for weeding out the people who only think they want to learn Japanese, but are actually just lazy).

Still, there were a few pitfalls. To find out what they are, and to find out if this Japanese textbook is right for you, click on, my friend, click on.

Good “Building up” Process:

Genki 1 does a great job taking you through things at a reasonable pace. It starts you out with really simple concepts / words and builds you up to the more complicated ones. As long as you go through the textbook correctly, I don’t see anyone having any problem with the more difficult things that come later in the book. One thing that is kind of irking is the lack of “review sections,” though there is nothing stopping you from going back and reviewing sections on your own. Still, since chapters usually build on each other, you’ll find stuff from previous chapters as you progress forward. Going back to make sure you remember everything is still highly recommended.

Vocabulary Lists:

At the ends of chapters, there are “vocabulary lists” that list off all the new words you’ve “learned” throughout the chapter. This is useful to have and study. It certainly would have saved me a lot of time, since I’m the type of person who likes listing things out and covering one side and reciting the other to help me memorize everything.

Genki Workbook / CDs:

If you are clever enough to come up with your own exercises and drills, I don’t think the workbook is really necessary. All it does is give you more stuff to practice, which anyone can do on their own. The CDs, however, are a must (I think). One of the most important things when learning Japanese is your pronunciation, and if you don’t have someone talking to you and correcting you, you have to find something else. The Genki audio CDs are the answer. Although the version of the book that comes with the CDs costs a little bit more, I definitely think they are the answer to a lot of problems I see with traditional self-teachers.

The Self Teacher / Self Learner:

Although Genki claims that this book was made for both self teachers and classroom learners, I think it’s pretty apparent that their primary concern was the latter of the two. I’m not saying that this is a bad book for self learners, though. I’m just saying that a classroom user will get a much richer experience out of this book if used with a teacher. That is true with all text books, I think, so I wouldn’t worry about it too much. If you get this book and you are a self-teacher, I would suggest you do a few extra things:

• Learn hiragana before you start studying with this book
• Test yourself often
• Get the workbook for extra practice
• Get the version of Genki with CDs included (for your listening and pronunciation practice)
• Take your time

Rushing through the book without a teacher will only be a waste of time. Definitely make sure you understand everything in a chapter before moving on. I know it’s easy to become impatient with this kind of thing, but you have to go through it slowly in order to give yourself a good foundation.

The Content:

I would say that the content of the book itself is fairly boring, but what text book isn’t (That Dirty Japanese language book doesn’t count). You will be barraged with questions like “what time is it?” or “what is your phone number.” Unfortunately this isn’t something you can really escape in any beginning text book. I don’t know why, but these are all things you have to learn before getting to the fun stuff. You’ll just have to be patient and march through it all.

One more strange thing about the content that interested me was their love of putting you in “host family” situations. A lot of the example situations take place between you and your host family. Granted, a lot of people are working towards this, but this isn’t quite as useful for someone learning Japanese for business (not to say that the grammar and vocabulary might not be useful; it’s just that it will feel less applicable). Still, business or not, I think this is a good book for anyone, as it does a good job giving people a good Japanese language foundation.

Conclusion: Should I buy it?

The short answer is “yes,” and the long answer is “no.” If you are going to buy this book, you should be sure that you’ll continue with your Japanese. It’s not super cheap (though it is better than most text books), and it’s not super engaging, so patience is really key. If you are a self-teacher and you are motivated, then this book will probably be great for you. If you are in a classroom, then you probably don’t get to choose your book anyways (though this might be a good book for supplemental materials). If I had to start all over, then I think this would be my book of choice.

Overall Score: 9/10*

*This score was revised from a 10/10 down to what it is now. My previous rating was based on a curve (since I’ve looked at a lot of other texts) and that made things confusing. Here is the new rating, as well as why I rated it this way:

Although Genki isn’t perfect, it is almost there. Compared to other text books, Genki is phenomenal. If you have a good teacher, Genki goes even farther up and beyond the call of duty. It can be good even if you are self teaching yourself, too, but you have to be a motivated person. What it is missing, in my mind, is entertainment value. “Ha!” you say. “My text books don’t have to be entertaining for me to learn from them!” I totally agree with you, but think of how much easier it would be if the text actually was enjoyable to read. What if there were little stories strewn about the book that made you laugh and want to continue on? That, I think, would be the perfect text book. Unfortunately, a book that is entertaining AND educational doesn’t exist at the moment, so Genki will be your best bet.
Want to Buy Genki? You can find it on Amazon.

Every week (i.e. whenever time allows), I’ll be doing a “Japan week in review.” These segments will cover smaller news articles from throughout the week that we don’t want to cover individually. Although these articles of news won’t necessarily be very important, they’ll surely be interesting instead. Included after the break is a video; before that, though, let’s go through the stories not covered in moving picture.

Army of Tiny Crustaceans is Destroying a Small Japanese Island: On a small island 1650 ft off the cost of Hiroshima, a whole bunch of tiny crustaceans are burrowing into the island, causing it to break apart into a billion little pieces. The island’s name is Hoboro, if you ever want to visit, though I’m not sure why you would, since it’s inhabited (except for our friends the “nanatsuba-kotsubumushi,” of course). Supposedly the increasing number of these shrimp/crab relatives was caused by increasing temperature of surrounding waters, which caused plankton blooms. These little guys love the stuff, so they reproduced like crazy. Since they make their homes by burrowing into rock, they are destroying the island one burrow at a time. Reports say that the island could disappear within the century if this keeps up. Wow! [source]

Japan Stops their Brutal “Research” of Whales: When Japan “researches” whales, they kill them in large numbers and feed them to their upper classes. “I say, Mr. Tanaka, I’m going to have to research some more of that ‘Whale Curry‘, it tastes smashing” (British Accent). Thankfully, due to international pressures, Japan has halted (for now) this nasty practice. We’ll see how long Japan can keep from eating that lovely whale cocaine. [source]

Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda’s Vlog: As you can in the video above, Yasuo Fukuda (along with the whole Liberal Democratic Party) has started a Youtube page. You can even check out his English Video and see what the Prime Minister actually had to say (instead of what he said in my video). It’s pretty interesting and pretty blah at the same time. His English is fairly good, anyways. I’ll include it below for your convenience:

Mobile Post Offices: In Aichi Prefecture (where I used to live), a lot of rural post offices are getting shut down. To combat the obvious problems that would arise because of this, mobile post offices (big vans) are being sent out. People can do all the normal mail stuff as well as withdraw money from ATMs. One neat little tidbit for the non-Japanese explorer: If you need to withdraw money from an ATM, the post office is the way to go! Most ATMs won’t accept your cards, but for some reason post office (and Airport) ATMs often do. Just something good to know if you are visiting. [source]

Death By Mochi is Wonderfully Tasty: Every New Years, a lot of Japanese people eat mochi soup (zoni). It’s one of those things that if you grow up with it you’ll absolutely love it. With every wonderful thing comes a price, though, and Mochi Soup is no exception. Every year a handful of people die from choking on the mochi, although usually they are of the elderly variety. This year four people died, and ten people were hospitalized - a pretty average New Years in my book. Party on, Garth. [source]

Ass n’ Boobs Airbag: You really just have to look at the picture. These airbags are supposedly better for you when you smash your face into them. I imagine they’d be a lot more fun too. Made by Takata, these airbags will reduce injury from airbags, but greatly increase (suspicious) male driver collisions. [source]

Tallest Elevator Test Tower: *Ah, dang, I messed up on this one. I thought it was the tallest elevator (as said in the video above). It’s actually the world’s tallest elevator testing tower, which sounds a lot less impressive, because I don’t imagine there are very many towers dedicated to elevator testing. Still, it seems like a pretty cool place to visit, so why not check it out if you’re near Inazawa City? [source]

Japanese Inmates Think Their Jumpsuits Aren’t Stylish: Aw damn, and I thought gray with vertical stripes was in again. O Brother Where Art Thou is hax. Recently a survey was done showing everyone what everyone already knew: Jail cells are too small, solitary confinement is no fun, and their clothes aren’t very fashionable. It’s not like we’d want our prisoners to be wearing the latest fads. How would we tell them apart from society? They have to look crazy, otherwise it would be hard to spot them amongst the millions of spiffy Japanese teenagers.

Hello Kitty Shames Soldiers, Kills You With Love: Apparently Hello Kitty has come out with it’s newest (and cutest!) high powered rifle … just kidding. Actually, a crazy gun-otaku put together a themed Hello Kitty AR-15 rifle for his wife. Here’s a quote from the creator: “Well, in the “spirit” of the California Assault Weapon Ban I decided to do my best to alleviate the fears of my fellow citizens and gun-banning legislators when I put together a new AR-15 for my wife.” Maybe if President Bush saw these he’d start equipping our fearless soldiers with these deadly assault rifles. [source]

So what do you think about this week’s useless Japanese News? I’m particularly interested in politicians blogging. I don’t think they pull it off very well, with Mr. Fukuda being no exception. All the American candidates are using Youtube as well, though for a different purpose. Fukuda’s use of it is more of a running thing; I think it’s good to keep the young’uns informed. Otherwise, I’m terrified of the Hello Kitty Gun, laughing at the Japanese inmates, and craving Mochi Soup. I might have to go make some of that right now, I think we have leftovers. See you all next week (or so)!

*Update: Aw, man, I kind of feel bad for posting this. I’m not very happy with it, overall. This has been a big learning opportunity, so there will be big improvements on this series for next time, though. Until next time…

The most important part is the top left. That baby’s never been happier!

Basically, what you do is you stick the soft end in the baby’s sloppy, gushing nose and put the other end in your mouth. Luckily there is an easy to clean bottle between you and your child’s snot factory, but what seems to be missing is the brown paper bag for when you have to throw up. Maybe that will appear in version two. If you’d like to see the product “live” on video, go ahead and read more:

If you like this video, then check out Zenhill’s other stuff!

I really want to know about the market research before the Mama Hanamizu Totte was released. Granted, Japan is a pretty sexist society, but I love how papa is left completely free of responsibility when it comes to sucking baby’s brains out. I’m pretty sure there isn’t a Papa Hanamizu Totte. I guess papa is busy enough slapping his children for kanchoing him in the butt.

Luckily, as long as your child is old enough (or you’re brave enough), you can do a thing called “self mucus sucking.” Strangely, I found a couple of Japanese blogs that talked a little about this. Unfortunately, the children doing it don’t seem to have the right idea. They try though:

Stay away mom. I don’t want another lobotomy. (Source)

I can’t figure out why it isn’t working…oh wait, that’s because both tubes are in the same nostril. (Source)

Here Mommy! Now that I’ve put both tubes in my nose you try to do it! (Source)

In all honesty, though, this is another one of those genius Japanese products. Have you ever seen the book “Crazy Japanese Inventions?” (or something like that) This really feels like one of those except so much better. No more raw noses from blowing. No more clogged noses…even the toughest clogs can be torn right out of your inner sanctum with one sharp swig on the ‘ol hanamizu totte. Still, something like this would never sell over here. It’s not a pill so us American’s won’t deal with it.

So, what do you think? Would you use it? Just imagine your mom trying to pull this on you in public.

I don’t remember how I originally stumbled upon him (though I think it was through maxdesu’s subscription page), but I remember being immediately fascinated by his videos. This is why I subscribed:

1. He’s a very fast, crisp, and fluent Japanese speaker. I watch his videos and practice my Japanese listening. You can’t do this with every video you come across. Moonkey’s Japanese is good Japanese, not like the stuff you find in anime or yakuza films.
2. He’s a really nice guy. If you write him a comment, he’ll write you something meaningful back…though, I’m not sure how this works in English. From what I can tell his English is poor at best. Why not try commenting to him in Japanese?
3. He’s got that special something. All his shots are well planned out, no matter how simple they are. He’s good at setting up scenes and framing things up. A little planning goes a long way. It makes everything more enjoyable to watch.

Here are a couple of my favorites. Just remember, there are so many more videos out there. If you like his videos, you should subscribe to him and watch more:

…and…

I hope you enjoy Moonkey4U as much as I have (so far). He comes out with videos fairly regularly - so you’re never kept waiting too long. If you like him, please be sure to comment on his page and tell him! I’m sure he enjoys hearing from all sorts of people, he seems like that kind of guy.

*This article marks the beginning of the “profile” section, which discovers fairly obscure Japanese people that should be ruling the world. The goal is to find someone new every week (or every once in a while), so saying that, we’ll be adding a “profile” category over on the right. Check it out for new people (weeks after this article is written) to get more.Today’s profile is the infamous Segata Sanshiro. Although I wrote about him over in English Koichiben (now very dead, thanks to Tofugu), I don’t think that Mr. Sanshiro got the worship he deserves. So to start things off, I’m throwing out a repeat, but hopefully you can forgive me, because if not, Segata Sanshiro will come back from the dead and break your little PS3 fanboy/girl fingers.

Segata Sanshiro was created by Sega to promote the Sega Saturn, and he did a good job of it too. The only part of the world that the Sega Saturn did well in was Japan, and it was all thanks to the ridiculous Segata Sanshiro advertising campaign. In reality, the Sega Saturn wasn’t that great of a system. It had limited 3D capabilities (most of the games were 2d) and it was very difficult to code for (compared to the PS1). In order for Sega Saturn to live on and lead the successful life it did in Japan, Sega had to come up with a clever advertising campaign…here’s his story:

Segata Sanshiro is a mountain hermit judo master who is constantly training with gigantic Sega Saturn consoles/controllers, carrying them on his back and punching the buttons. Occasionally he takes a break from his training and comes down from the mountain, tracking down those who aren’t playing Sega Saturn, punishing them with physical pain and yelling at them: “You must play Sega Saturn!” To him, playing Sega Saturn is the most important thing in daily life, and if you’re out socializing, playing baseball, or doing anything else, you’d better fear for your life.

When he’s not throwing men, women, zombies, and children to the floor, he’s taking part in other activities, often altered in such a way that proves Segata Sanshiro’s superior manliness over the rest of the world, including Chuck Norris. He’s won an Olympic speed skating medal (without wearing skates), single handedly won the soccer World Cup twice (though he kinda broke the rules), and can roundhouse kick home runs with pristine accuracy (we’re talking bare feet).

Thanks to all of this, the Sega Saturn did extremely well in Japan, even though it failed in America and Europe. Segata Sanshiro gained so much fandom that he got his very own video game (where you punish those who aren’t playing Sega Saturn? I have no idea) and his very own theme song. On top of that, Segata Sanshiro was so cool that he got his own action figure (ps1 pwning abilities sold separately). The strange thing about the action figure is that it had a “15 years or older” tag on it. That’s probably because kids that bought the doll would immediately show signs of puberty and facial hair, due to the emanating manliness. Eventually, later on, they came out with a Segata Sanshiro soundtrack, which sold an amazing 100,000 copies in Japan. I’m guessing people were too afraid not to buy it.

Well, that ends our first profile piece. There’s so much more information out there on Segata Sanshiro, if you’re interested. If you want to see some of his commercials you can scuttle around on youtube or just check the video below. Thanks for reading, and remember, Sega Saturn, Shiro! (or die).