Japanese Study Resource Round-Up

Well, I am pretty much back in the groove here, studying lots! I really don't have any adventurous stories to write right now, so I thought I would take a moment and share some of the resources I found really help in my study of Japanese, so anyone else studying Japanese or any other language might be able to benefit.


Tokyo Mokyo's Kana and Kanji Practice Sheet Download Page
I really recommend this page for anyone starting to learn Japanese and wanting to learn the basic writing system. It includes PDF format practice-sheets for both Hiragana, Katakana, and some of the elementary level Kanji.

Genki JACS
I want to keep this post more focused on internet resources and books, but I have to give a shout-out to my school first! GenkiJACS has practically been my home in Japan for the past 2 months, and 5 days a week I attend school there to learn Japanese. The teachers are very approachable, fun and loving people, and the quality of the classes are top-tier. We always have a great time there too, both in and out of the classroom. It is a bit on the expensive side, but not deathly unaffordable, and completely worth every penny I think.

YesJapan.com

I cannot say enough about YesJapan.com, it is in my opinion the best way for someone studying Japanese by themselves to learn the language. Compared to many of the books I've read and used, YesJapan's lessons are much more interesting, engaging, and easier to stay motivated with. The site requires you to have a monthly subscription to use it though, but is relatively cheap and even has a free 7 day trial to check it out before-hand. Along with the lessons, (complete with a free ask-a-teacher service for when you get stuck) YesJapan has quizzes, games, and lots of useful tools to aid in your studies as the site was designed from the ground-up for the self-studier. It also has a very fun and interesting Japan/Japanese language related video webcast that explores different cultural aspects of Japan and teaches the language in ways that textbooks never could. Here's a clip they uploaded to youtube from an episode about Taboos to Avoid in Japan:


- FlashCardExchange.com

I use Flash Card Exchange mainly for pounding new vocabulary into my head, but it is honestly a really great tool for any language learner, it lets you make your own flash-card sets which can be studied any time using a friendly interface, and from anywhere in the world where you can log in to the site. When I am chatting online with my Japanese friends and they use a word that I don't know, and look up the word in my dictionary and think "Hey, that's a cool word/phrase, I should remember that", there are two things I do. First, I try to use the newly learned vocabulary ASAP, the sooner you use it, and the more you use it, the more it sticks.. but also, I log in to my account on FlashCardExchange and throw the new word into one of my flash card sets..

www.sharedtalk.com

SharedTalk.com is a voice-chat website that is setup for the soul-purpose of language exchange. It is free, and is a really great place to meet people to practice speaking the language you are studying with, in exchange for helping them practice speaking your native language. Unlike a lot of other chat sites, sharedtalk is specifically set-up as an international language exchange community, and thus you wont find perverts, weirdos, and other low-lifes there, but rather just people who are students of language and who want to exchange culture and language with you. It's also tonnes of fun!


Genki: An integrated course in Elementary Japanese (book)

Although I find the content of the book to be more class-room geared, and not as engaging for the self-learner as YesJapan, I have to say I am thoroughly impressed with this set of books (there are 2 textbooks, 2 workbooks, and a set of CDs which can be purchased, but really you only NEED the textbook).


Minna No Nihongo
I have only looked at this book briefly when one of my classmates at GenkiJACS showed it to me after I asked him how he learned Japanese, and I was impressed enough that even without having read it from cover-to-cover myself, I thought it deserved a mention. Minna no Nihongo (みんなの日本語) is a book written completely in Japanese using the Japanese syllable-based writing system (see This Page for an explanation of that writing system), so maybe it sounds intimidating for complete-beginners, but as a complimentary tool to other tools like YesJapan, I think this book has a lot of great content and a sound teaching method.

Well, I feel like somewhat of a salesmen for these links, but I thought in the spirit of academics I would share some of my resources with everyone, in case anyone else reading this is interested in learning the language of the rising sun.

Study Slump

Well, for some reason lately I have felt kind of "stuck" in my studies. It is not because my class got exceptionally hard or anything like that, no. I seem to be having a hard time finding my motivation.. Especially last week, but it is comming back now, finally. This is normal I think. Learning Japanese is not an easy task, and I (unfortunately) am a perfectionist sometimes. Furthermore, because of my bad habit of comparing myself to others, I am left with a feeling of apathy (yes I am still Canadian) every time someone waltzes into the room and rolls off a ton of Japanese very fluently that I may (or may not) understand, but sure as heck cannot speak myself, especially not that fluidly.


Above: Flash-card sets, these are really common in Japan for all types of students.

Some of the factors that used to really motivate me don't anymore. Things like the sheer novelty of being in Japan - this has mostly warn off. I am still thrilled to be here, and generally smiling from cheek to cheek, but more and more because of the people I am with and the fun things we are doing than the feeling of "Hey, I made it to Japan!" that used to make me grin so much.

Also, no longer being on the look-out for a girlfriend kind of takes away a big chunk of motivation. I wont lie, I often dreamt of being able to speak more fluent Japanese so I would have more to say to the cute girls I meet. This is sort of a none-issue now.

Well, luckly.. the lack of motivation is passing.. And, honestly, this is nothing new or strange. In fact, doing a quick Google search, I found a few forum posts from other people going through the same types of feelings while studying foreign language. The key is to keep studying anyways. It is really difficult to see your progress, even more so when you get past the basics.

Above: A pic I snapped of a white board during class at GenkiJACS, usually the lessons are not quite THIS illustrated.

Anyways, I have 4 more weeks of GenkiJACS and I want to make the best of it. Some of my motivations now are taking the JLPT (Japanese Language Proficiency Test) and some professional goals such as working as an interpretter for IT firms. I try to keep those in focus when the "funner" motivations are harder to grasp on to.

On a side note, I went to Dazaifu temple the other day with 2 guys from my dorm (A Japanese and a German). It was really really amazing, the video I got unfortunately does not come close to doing it justice.

東京と美穂 // Tokyo and Miho

Well, I have not died. Sorry to everyone for the extensively long break between updates. After returning from Tokyo I really hit the books at school and got a little lazy about the blog but I will make a long-overdue post on it now.

Anyways, I had an absolutely great time in Tokyo. I suppose I should introduce Miho, my girlfriend.
I met Miho the first time I was in Tokyo towards the beginning of this trip, and we have kept in close touch since. In Japan it is really common for couples to spend Christmas together, Christmas here is almost like Valentines in western countries. Unfortunately both of us had professional/academic obligations around Christmas so we got together for New Years instead (as I said before, probably the MOST important holiday here is New Years, so it worked out well).

I had a great time! We stayed at the very nice Shinagawa Prince Hotel.
I also had make-it-yourself Yakiniku for the first time, which is a meat-lovers dream come true.

We visited the so-romantic Tokyo Tower (which is a replica of the Eiffle tower, but is actually a little taller than the real Eiffle tower), and visited the man made islands of Odaiba, which features a smaller replica of the statue of liberty (its bigger than it looks in the picture, its hard to tell the scale from the picture but its about 3 stories tall), and the FujiTV building.

We also visited Ebisu Garden Place, and I got enough video to put together a nice little clip of that particular adventure..


I love Inoue Mao so I had to get my picture taken with her.. er.. sort of, when we visited FujiTV. By the way, the FujiTV building is really cool!
At the fujiTV building, there was a display set-up all about Mao's new TV mini series about a Japanese princess a few hundred years ago. Hence the Kimono.
Miho has finally come to accept my obsession with Inoue Mao, and has even started to embrace it I think as she took the picture for me.

Aside from that, we went to batting cages, bowling, game-centers, and pretty much everywhere in Tokyo. I have a few videos of some of these places, see below:

Miho and Tim visit Sensoji Temple in Asakusa - Asakusa is a historical area of Tokyo, and the hostel I first stayed at when I arrived in Japan was literally a block behind these temple-grounds. I love Tokyo!


Shibuya Crossing - I returned to shibuya crossing with Miho where we shopped and ate..


Some bar in Harajuku - After settling in at our hotel we grabbed a subway over to Harajuku (known for its hordes of young people with very off-the-wall fassion sense, it is a very artsy area of Tokyo, and one of my favorites!).


Tokyo Tower - Either shortly before or after new years day, we went to Tokyo Tower. It's a very romantic place and I really recommend it! Great view too! The tower is pretty tall, but it's also on a hill which really adds to its height and viewpoint.


Well, it took a while to really get this post put together and I apologize about the delay. I have extended my stay at GenkiJACS Japanese School for 4 more weeks, so I am really hitting the books.

Oh, in other news I have landed a job.. But that will have to wait until another blog post. (Oh the suspense hehehe).

あけまして おめでとう // Happy New Year

Happy New Year from Japan. More specifically, from the city of Tokyo.. I have come back to Tokyo for 1 week since we enjoy a National holiday this week to observe the coming of the new year. New Years is the most important holiday in Japan by far, it is a time to reflect on the past year and start fresh. While we have spring cleaning in Canada and the US, the Japanese completely clean their homes at New Years in what is called O-souji (great cleaning)..

Anyways, I did not bring the chord needed to transfer the pictures and video from my camera to my PC, so I will be making another post after I return to Fukuoka further outlining my stay in Tokyo.

In the mean time, I thought I would share this with everyone.. Last month Japan's Priminister began posting videos on Youtube in an effort to "reach a younger and more international audience", and has even released an english version video of his new years greeting to the world where he outlines some of the issues the world is facing and promises for Japan to play a leading role in helping to find solutions and calls for harmony amongst all nations and world peace. He rarely smiles, in line with his dour image.

Here is the actual video: