Tofugu.com – Wonky Japanese Language and Culture

I get all kinds of weird questions in my e-mail inbox. Sometimes they’re creepy, sometimes they’re hilarious, sometimes they’re interesting, and sometimes they’re a part of a pattern. This is one of those patterns. A few times a month I’ll get the following question:

What is the best Japanese Language electronic dictionary?

Once I get the same question too many times, there’s a good likelihood that I’ll just write the answer via a post here, which is exactly what’ I’m doing. So, what is the best Japanese Language electronic dictionary out there? Let’s find out. Read more…

With the advent of computers, e-mail, and all those other fancy things that causes our handwriting to be terrible and makes us dependent on spell check, getting opportunities to actually write kanji with our hands is becoming rarer and rarer. I know my hands hurt several seconds into writing something. I have weak hands that a grandma would scoff at (though they’re very beautiful, I’m pretty sure I could go into hand modeling if this whole blogging thing doesn’t work out).

The other day I got an e-mail from Skritter. They’re a pretty rag-tag bunch, but I like that. Skritter lets you practice writing kanji using various flash card sets (either Skritter made, community made, or you-made). Sure, you could do all this with your hands, but here’s what makes Skritter interesting. 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…

One application which I’ve used for a long time is Evernote, though I’ve mostly been collecting and organizing recipes… until now. Just today, as I was scrolling through the Asahi Shinbun, I had an epiphany. I should be saving articles, sentences, vocabulary, and what-have-you in Evernote so that I can easily search for them later if I ever need to come up with examples on how grammar, vocab, etc., is used in a sentence. Doing this with Japanese blogs would be splendid too. More importantly, I’m going to deconstruct how to use Evernote for language learning (specifically Japanese in this article). It’s a very powerful tool with a lot of potential – I’m sure you’ll even find some interesting uses that I won’t even think of too. Read more…

Apple’s iPad announcement has (finally) arrived blessed itself upon me, and of course, my first thoughts (besides when can I spend my money on this) are “How will this make Japanese learning better?”

Of course, the iPad is poised to change the way we learn in a lot of ways (textbooks, learning games, etc), but since Japanese is one of the most popular languages to learn out there, and because those that learn Japanese tend to be a lot more tech savvy than, say, those who learn Spanish (take that, Spanish!), there’s going to be a huge amount of Japanese + iPad potential as soon as it comes out in March (or April, if you want the 3G enabled one). Read more…

One of the most common e-mail questions I get is “Should I buy Rosetta Stone Japanese?” It’s time to put an end to this e-mail silliness. From now on, I get to link to this post and video. Hopefully you, whoever “you” are (tell me in the comments), can get something out of this post as well. Read more…

Mmm. Macs. I’m about the biggest fanboy you’ll see, which probably means a totally biased review. This morning, on the way to work, I made the trek to my version of Mecca and walked past ground zero for Apple’s Worldwide Developer’s Conference. I’ve been thinking about how macs make it easier for me to study Japanese, but the announcement of one particular feature on Snow Leopard (the new OS, which will cost a mere $29) has motivated me to finish this article. Here’s Mac versus PC, blow by blow, when it comes to Japanese study. Let the flame wars begin. Read more…

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 Ha! Logo is now NihongoUp! Don’t say we never did anything for you). 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. Read more…

We’ve had a lot of “fun” with DragonBall as of late, and after this tip I couldn’t help but post this as well. I’ve seen little bits of this live action Chinese Dragonball knockoff, but not more than a couple of minutes. You know, actually, the fact that this is a Chinese movie kind of makes sense, since Dragonball really came from the Chinese Monkey King anyways, and at least it’s better than the American version. So, if you want to watch the entire movie (full of English dubbed goodness), go below the fold. This is good stuff, I, uh, promise? Read more…

What Tenso is doing is one of those ideas where you think “dang, I shoulda thought of that.” It’s simple, it’s helpful, and provides a really good service. I tried it out recently, and they let me pick out a Japanese t-shirt and ship it via their service, so that I can give it away to one of you. More information on that at the end of the post.

So here’s the rundown on Tenso: 1) You go to a Japanese website that sells something. 2) You order the item, and have it shipped to your tenso.com address (the address is free). The package is then sent to them, located in Tokyo. 3) They get the package, and then send it to you at a discounted rate. Read more…