JLR: Japanese for All Occasions

Yesterday, I rediscovered a book I bought a while ago to improve my Japanese called Japanese for All Occasions: Mastering Speech Styles from Casual to Honorific by Taeko Kamiya. It’s published by Kodansha International, which makes a bunch of Japanese culture and learning books. I haven’t really used the book, but I skimmed through it and decided I’ll make it a part of my study plan for the next three months.

What I like about this book:

• No romaji! This book is not for beginners. You need to at least know kana and some Elementary Japanese (vocabulary and grammar) to really benefit from this book. So, it’s for Intermediate learners.
• Conversations/Dialogues. This is the majority of the book (19 dialogue lessons, 57 dialogues) with pictures, explanations of new phrases, English translations and grammar notes.
• Charts. Although some programs give you organized charts for reference, most of the ones that I’ve seen are not as nice as the ones in this book. There are vocabulary charts, conjugation charts (for verbs, adjectives) that are more complete than any other charts I’ve seen in other books. The verb conjugation charts include all (I think) of the conjugations covered in both Genki I & II textbooks.
• Audio CD. This covers all of the dialogues in the book and the example sentences in the first section of the book, none of  the charts though.
• There’s Furigana! If you don’t know what furigana is, I’ll explain. It’s small kana characters that appear above kanji to help you know how to read the kanji they accompany. Most of the kanji have furigana, but it doesn’t hurt to know some kanji before picking up this book.

What I dislike:

• While I was skimming the first section of the book, I did not see any mention of using じゃあ instead of で（は）. Actually, this contraction is explained later on in one of the notes in the dialogue section, but I think it should have been put in the beginning of the book with the conjugation charts. 
• I did find a small English translation mistake in the front of the book, where the word “after” was typed instead of “every” . But from what I’ve seen so far that was just a typo and most of the book’s English is correct.
• Sometimes the print seems a bit small (furigana, charts and in the appendices).

Conclusion:

This seems like a great book and if you want to work on your 警護（けいご）formal language and other speech styles and levels, this is a good book to purchase.

Resources:

http://www.kodansha-intl.com

Jumping on the Bandwagon

A lot of my friends and classmates have been telling me that I need to start watching Japanese dramas, saying it was a good way to get better at Japanese. Since I’m off from school for about three months and I’ll be going to study in Japan, I’ve decided to take some of their advice.

I grew up watching anime, so it’s a habit that’s followed me into adulthood; although, I watch anime less since I’m more focused on school. But, when I do watch anime, I try to see if I can catch any words I know in Japanese. Of course, that only works when I watch subbed anime, which is what I primarily watch now.

Recently, I’ve been watching a series called “Mainichi Kaasan,” which I’ve probably mentioned before in another post. Since I’ve been studying Japanese more seriously recently, I’ve noticed I understand a lot more. That and the series doesn’t use a lot of complicated grammar or advance vocabulary. As for Japanese drama, I’m slowly starting to watch it. I’ve started out with the series “Nihonjin no Shiranai Nihongo” or “The Japanese the Japanese (people) don’t know”.

How to learn Japanese from blogs

One thing I have been doing more of this month is reading language blogs. Some of the blogs I read are about learning foreign languages in general, some are by people  writing about learning Japanese and some are by people who are polyglots. Keeping a blog about your language studies is a great way to reflect and constantly reevaluate how you study or to even practice using the language you are studying, but reading other blogs can teach you more than what you can learn by yourself. Some things you can learn from reading other blogs are about study techniques, different learning resources and how other language learners confronted their language learning obstacles.

How do you find language blogs to follow? If you have an account on a blogging website, use the search feature to find other blogs that cover the topics you are interested in following such as ‘learning Japanese’. Even if you do not have a blogging account, you can still search for blogs using Google’s blog search. The more advance you are in your language studies, the more specific you can get with your searches. A lot of YouTube channels have accompanying blogs, so if there is a language channel you like to follow, they probably have a blog or website that you can add to a Reader, such as Google Reader. I recommend using a Reader or RSS to keep track of the blogs you like to follow, especially if you subscribe to a lot of them. If you are at a  more advanced level in your language studies, I recommend following a blog written in the language you are studying. Of course, if you know another language, you can look for blogs written in that other language about learning Japanese and vice versa. While most blogs will not teach you another language, you can definitely benefit from reading what language bloggers, who may be more knowledgeable than you,  have to say.

Day 22

It’s been a while since I wrote a post about my progress. I’ve definitely have not been as productive as I wanted to be, but I am still studying and I think that is great that I have not stopped studying and being productive completely. I’m continually trying out new programs for studying, which I think is evident by all of the JLR posts I’ve been writing.  I’ve had a lot of realizations recently. For one, I realized that there is only so much I can do in one day and it’s not realistic to think I can study all day, every day. I am constantly changing my schedule and being flexible about my study habits, because not every day can be the same and I have other things to do with my time.

Another realization that I have come to is that I have been studying passively, not always, but there are some aspects of my studying that I need to be more engaged in. For example, I have been experimenting with using non-Japanese learning material to learn Japanese such as reading books and playing video games. I can remember the meanings of some of the new words and phrases that I encounter, but I cannot tell you how to pronounce them. I have an iKnow account, which I primarily use for their Japanese Core study lists to build my Japanese vocabulary, but I can make custom lists as well. So, I have started using the custom list feature in order to actively study the new words and phrases I encounter.

I’m glad that I created this blog. Why? Because it forces me to constantly reflect and think about how I am studying and encourages me to become better at studying Japanese. I realized that while having a blog is great, I need to see what other people are doing in order to study Japanese. For me, that means reading other language blogs, watching YouTube videos and discovering other language websites etc. Learning a language is not just a thing you do, it’s a lifelong commitment. While I may have three months until I study abroad, my language studies will continue after I come back, just as they began before I knew I was accepted to study abroad in Japan.

JLR: Dr. Moku

Dr. Moku is a smartphone (Android and iPhone) and Desktop application for learning how to read kana through picture associations. You can try the app for free and if you like it, you can get the paid (full) version. The Android application is cheaper than the iPhone application.

Resources:

http://drmoku.com/

JLR: iStart Japanese

If you are new to learning Japanese, then iStart Japanese may be for you. It is an iPod/iPhone application that teaches basic Japanese.

What I like:

• 51 lessons
• Culture lessons/information
• Learn 250 Japanese words
• Learn hiragana and katakana
• Flashcards
• Quizzes
• App dictionary English>Japanese/Japanese>English
• You can get it on sale for half off throughout the year.

What I dislike:

• Slow pace
• Only teaches Beginner/Elementary Japanese
• Kind of dry, but pretty thorough (but not as thorough as Genki I textbook)

Conclusion:

It’s a good application for beginners.

Resources:

App Store

http://www.miraijapanese.com

JLR: Thumbelina and other stories

I recently posted about アカン日本語, which was made by DICO Co. Ltd. Their company also makes story book iPod/iPhone applications such as  Thumbelina.

What I like:

• There’s audio in multiple languages, including Japanese.
• There’s text in multiple languages, including Japanese.
• Record and become your own narrator feature.
• You can create multiple narrators.
• Music.
• Touching pictures activates special effects (such as noises and movement).
• Pop-up book screen for skipping ahead or going back in the story.
• Some of their apps are free.

What I dislike:

• Nothing.

Conclusion:

I like the concept of this application and hope that its producers come out with more applications such as this one. I definitely recommend it.

Resources:

http://www.dico4u.com/en/

App Store

JLR: アカン日本語

アカン日本語 is an iPod/iPhone application that teaches slang words in Japanese.

What I like:

• Teaches slang
• Has English translation to accompany Japanese slang word
• Explanations are in Japanese
• Free

What I dislike:

• I would be nice if there was an English translation for the Japanese explanations

Conclusion:

I recommend it.

Resources:

http://www.dico4u.com/en/

JLR: Hiragana Tango

Hiragana Tango 1 & 2 are applications for iPod/iPhone. You can try it for free with a limited number of vocabulary or buy the paid version.

What I like:

• 3 Mini-games
• Audio
• Free versions

What I dislike:

• All of the vocabulary words are written in hiragana, even the ones that should be written in katakana.

Conclusion:

I tried this application out and it’s okay if you’re a beginner, but I really dislike the fact that they wrote the vocabulary that should have been written in katakana in hiragana.

JLR: Read Doraemon in Japanese

If you own an iPod/iPhone, you can buy a book called ドラえもんの秘密 or Doraemon’s Secret.

What I like:

• It’s a book!
• 232 pages
• Marking feature/highlighting feature
• I got it on sale.
• You can use it to build your vocabulary
• Font is fairly large/legible.

What I disliked:

• Nothing yet, I’m still reading it.

Conclusion:

This book is not meant to be Japanese learning material, but it can easily function as one with the help of a dictionary.  You should be at least intermediate level to read this book