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I found this free Japanese learning resource that teaches the top 2000 Japanese words at smartfm.com, there is also, for more advanced students, the next 6000 words, as well as 2000 kanji and hirigana and katakana for beginners.
Definitely try this out, it’s free and it does a good job with repetition, and also has time based practice games to help increase your speed. you can select to learn 5 or 10 words per session, I choose 5 because I am an あほじじ。。
one of the things I really like about it is that it drills you in both the hirigana and the kanji, and you have to pass a quiz several times before you are really considered to have learned it. So far, it is the best free resource I’ve found.
I’ve been studying a lot lately, and I picked up some books at the used book store. As I read books on learning Japanese, I’ll post my thoughts on them, so hopefully it will be useful to others.
Barron’s Japanese Grammar is a pocket sized book, that’s more of a quick reference than an actual textbook. You won’t find exercises or quizzes, but there is a lot of useful information. Read the rest of this entry »
I’ve been neglecting my blog for a few days, but hopefully this post will help make up for it…
I was looking online for a good color (色) list in Japanese, but didn’t find anything I was satisfied with, so I made my own, with a visual of the colors along with the kanji and hirigana, and I’m posting it here if anyone can also find it useful.
Learning Japanese in a home with three native speakers, I expect them to laugh at me a lot, as I make a lot of mistakes. A LOT of mistakes…sometimes they are practically rolling on the floor, and between catching thier breath and the next bout of giggles, they correct me.
But this evening something different came up. Apparently my pronunciation of ら, り, る and れ is incorrect but ろ is ok. It doesn’t seem to matter how I place my tongue in my mouth, it comes out the same way.
I can’t tell the difference in how they say it, compared to how I say it, but all three of them were trying to get me to pronounce it right, without success.
Any tips on what I might be doing wrong or how to correct it?
If you’re serious about learning Japanese, then you are probably already aware of the Japanese Learning Proficiency Test (JLPT). It is the official certification for understanding the Japanese language.
The test is only available once per year, and registration is only open for a couple of months, this year from Aug. 3rd to Sept 24th and the test date is Dec. 6th. There are only 7 locations to take the test in the US, and seating is limited at many of them. It’s inexpensive to take the test ($40-50 depending on the level) Read the rest of this entry »
While driving with my girlfriend today, we were cut off in traffic by another driver. This led to her mumbling a string of choice words in Japanese, only one of which I understood…
I said, “Did you just call that guy an octopus?”
Yes, the word she used was tako (たこ) pronounced like a Mexican taco.
“Why would you call him an octopus?”, I asked.
“It means ‘stupid’ like an octopus has a big head and no brain, just full of black ink.” She said, and told me that it’s in common usage in Japan. Read the rest of this entry »
So you want to learn Japanese? You must like a challenge… Learning Japanese is like starting to learn everything from scratch, since almost everything is different from what you are accustomed to. Different characters, pronunciations, grammar, and learning to read, write and pronounce Hirigana, Katakana, Kanji and Romaji.
Where to start? That depends, if you want to be fluent in all aspects there is a lot more to do than if you want to learn some conversational Japanese. If conversation is all you need, there are several good audio discs that you can listen to while driving, provided that they don’t make you sleepy.
I’m going for the whole thing, and eventually take the JLPT tests. The JLPT is the official test for fluency in four levels, starting with four and working up to level one. Passing the level one test says that you are fluent, and can take a few years to accomplish. Read the rest of this entry »
If you’ve ever been to a site like engrish.com you will see some very funny cases of differences in translations grammar and punctuation.
One of the most common is mispronouncing the “R” sound with “L” and vise-versa.
This can also be tricky for English speakers, especially if they are learning Japanese using Romanji (or English characters) which isn’t recommended.
Here’s why: Read the rest of this entry »
