Tofugu.com – Wonky Japanese Language and Culture

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. Here’s the itinerary: Read more…

The moment Lang-8 created the option to upgrade to a Premium Account I did it. At first, it was because I wanted to support Lang-8 (hey, they’re cool Froods!) and make sure their servers kept on running. But, the more I looked at the features the more I realized that there’s a lot of awesome potential here, especially when it comes to power users of the site (and if you’re not one, you should become one). Definitely a few new features that could really accelerate your Japanese studies, which makes it worth a deeper look. 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…

Finally! Someone has come out with a strategy for learning Japanese that is easy, simple, and not all that hard. I don’t know why I didn’t come up with this before…oh wait, I did.

Learning Japanese shouldn’t be a complicated thing. People often think that it is, and overcomplicated things for themselves. Granted, learning another language can be a difficult thing, but it shouldn’t be a complicated one. Going around finding “this program” or “that program” will waste more time than it will gain you. You’ll be spending time taking shortcuts and come out way behind in the end. The best way to learn Japanese is to sit down and study it. A lot. Every day. It won’t come right away, and you won’t feel like you’re making progress, but I promise, you are!

The real secret to learning Japanese is Read more…