Archive for 'Products'
Why you should use a Mac to study Japanese
Posted on 09. Jun, 2009 by koichi.
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. (more…)
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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 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. (more…)
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Live Action (Chinese) DragonBall Movie
Posted on 04. May, 2009 by koichi.
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? (more…)
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Tenso: Get Your Own Japanese Shipping Address (and ship things on the cheap)
Posted on 21. Apr, 2009 by koichi.
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. (more…)
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Nipponster’s Japanese Toolbar
Posted on 08. Mar, 2009 by koichi.
Nipponster recently updated their “Japanese toolbar,” which now includes my Top Ten List of Free Japanese Resources in an easy to access tab. After I was notified, I fired up a non-beta version of Firefox to try it out (also works on other browsers), and came away pretty impressed. It really puts together a lot of useful resources for Japanese learners and enthusiasts, all in one place. Here are some of the features you’ll see if you give it a whirl. (more…)
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Yokai Attack! The Japanese Monster Survival Guide Review
Posted on 09. Oct, 2008 by koichi.
Matt Alt from AltJapan sent me this book he and Hiroko Yoda wrote about Japanese monsters. He must have known of my infatuation (perhaps long-term romance is another word) with Godzilla and other monsters, so of course, I enjoyed going through it immensely. (more…)
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Anime on Hulu: Not all that bad, surprisingly
Posted on 03. Oct, 2008 by koichi.
Now, you will almost never see Tofugu talking about anime on the site, at least not directly. But how could I not pass this up. I’m not particularly interested in the fact that Hulu has anime. Who cares about that? The most interesting thing is that they aren’t dubbing (most of) it. It comes in Japanese, and they provide subtitles. Considering that Hulu is very similar to watching normal television programming, their decision to not do sucky dubbed versions of shows surprised me. Well done, Hulu, well done. I’m actually impressed. (more…)
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How to Watch Live Japanese Television (For Free!)
Posted on 24. Aug, 2008 by koichi.
This article is all thanks to rjhoolan, who tipped me on this via Twitter. First off, thank you rjhoolan for this tip. It’s freakin amazing! Anyways, if you’re reading this, you probably want to watch some Japanese television. Not only that, but you probably want some LIVE Japanese television. I’ve got some good news and some bad news. Let’s start with the bad: This doesn’t work on a Mac. Supposedly they’re working on a Mac version, but who knows when that will turn out. But, if you have Windows (or are running bootcamp, VMware, or Parallels on your Mac), this should work fine. If you ask me, this is a good enough reason to install windows on VMware, allow it a mere 256mb, and let it do its magic. It’s that amazing.
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! (more…)
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Jim Breen on the iPhone
Posted on 06. Aug, 2008 by koichi.
I’ve always been a fan of Jim Breen’s Japanese dictionary, so when I found out that there’s an iPhone app out for it, I was really happy. Finally, I don’t have to load the entire Jim Breen page, and now, with the iPhone’s new ability to write in Japanese, all my dirty iPhone dreams would become a mobile reality.
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. (more…)
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Tofugu’s Japan Week in Review 1: Fukuda, Elevators, & Mochi Death
Posted on 05. Jan, 2008 by koichi.
December 27, 2007 – January 4, 2008
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] (more…)
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