Study on the go
Posted by Kyle in Uncategorized on October 24, 2009
Slowly but surely services like Wikipedia and online dictionaries are replacing their traditional paper equivalents. (especially among us young folk) Recently these kinds of services have made their way into our pockets. I want to introduce you to a few of my favorite applications for Japanese study on the iPhone.
The first of these is simply called Japanese and is developed by codefromtokyo. In my opinion, Japanese is the most comprehensive, useful dictionary available. The most important feature for me is that the dictionary is available offline. Some of the other dictionaries only work while connected to the internet. I spent a full year studying Japanese in Japan using no other dictionary but this one. The only downside is that it isn’t free, and it isn’t cheap. Japanese is $19.99 on the iTunes Store, but, in my opinion, it is worth every penny.
For those of you who can’t afford a $20 iPhone/iPod Touch app, don’t worry. There are always free alternatives. My second recommendation is an alternative to Japanese. It is called wwwJDic and is developed by Concordia Seminary. I don’t use it much, but I do occasionally when I can’t find an entry with Japanese. A search with this app has very rarely returned zero results. The only limitation is that wwwJDic does not work when offline.
My final recommendation (for now), is an application I have just recently purchased. It’s called iKanji Touch and is developed by ThinkMac Software. This application is an impressive kanji study tool. iKanji Touch has over 2000 kanji grouped by school grades and by JLPT (Japanese Language Proficiency Test) level. According to the developers the algorithm used in ‘Teach Me’ mode is very effective for memorization. I haven’t had a chance to use it much yet, but I look forward to making this app a part of my daily routine. iKanji Touch is $9.99.
Welcome or Welcome Back!
Posted by Kyle in Uncategorized on October 24, 2009
For those of you who have been here before, I am back! I apologize for the absence. You can see what I was up to in Japan on my personal blog at www.kyleeppard.com
Unfortunately, I was unable to restore my previous database backups. So the site won’t have it’s old posts. (Although I wasn’t able to use the backups, I spent an hour or so copying and pasting the old blog from the wayback machine at archive.org.) I will try to get things running like they were before as soon as I can! 
Can your computer display Japanese?
Posted by Kyle in Uncategorized on March 1, 2008
Kanji – Hiragana – Romaji – English
日本語 – にほんご – nihongo – Japanese
If you can see the first two words in the second row, your computer is already configured to display Japanese characters. If you can’t see it, look below, and click on your operating system and follow the instructions on how to enable them.
Japanese Language Support:
All of you Mac OS X and Windows Vista users should already be able to see most languages.
Both of those guides also have instructions on how to install an IME, Input Method Editor. If you would like to be able to type Japanese, go ahead and install one. I would recommend doing this as it will be easier to look up characters and kanji and you will become more familiar with hiragana and katakana. Windows Vista and OS X users will have to enable the IME from within their system settings.
IME Instructions:
I hope you were able to enable Japanese text display on your computer. If you have any trouble, get in touch with me on Skype, leave a comment, or send me an email.
Your next step!
Posted by Kyle in Uncategorized on February 28, 2008
If you’ve been following along, by now, you should be able to both read and write hiragana and katakana. If you can’t do that yet, I would recommend going back and completing that first. You might be able to get by without knowing how to write hiragana and katakana, but I think this will only come back to bite you later.
Your next step is to twofold. You need to start reading about Japanese grammar, and you also need to start studying kanji. Of course, you can always go about this two ways. You can buy material or you can use free material online. The choice is yours. I prefer to have a book or something to hold in my hands.
Grammar Guides:
Buy — Minna no Nihonogo Series (Book 1 and the English guide) if you end up just buying one of them, get the English guide
- This series is really good. It’s the textbook we are currently using here in the JAS program at Ryukoku University in Japan.
Free — Tae Kim’s Japanese Guide to Japanese Grammar (you should start here)
Learning Kanji:
Buy — White Rabbit Press’ Japanese Kanji Flashcards, Volume 1, 3rd Edition
- I bought these as my first set of Kanji flashcards. I didn’t want to go through the trouble of making my own or practicing with digital flashcards. They are awesome. You won’t regret buying them.
Free — Nihongo Resources Learning Kanji
- Before I bought the cards above I was using this site and was learning 10 new kanji each day. This site also has a lot of other good information. Check it out!
You should also find yourself a Japanese-English dictionary. You’re going to be using it a lot. So I would recommend finding a good one. I have a few, but the one I like the most is the Random House Japanese-English English-Japanese Dictionary. It seems to have a lot of words that my others don’t.
If you have any questions at all, let me know. I would be happy to speak with you as well. I’ve got Skype, and there’s an icon in the sidebar on the right.
Study hard!
An update.
Posted by Kyle in Uncategorized on February 28, 2008
Hey everyone! Sorry for the long delay. I’ve been busy with life and studying, but I’m not gone! I have decided to change the goal of this site though. I was discouraged with the original plans of teaching Japanese. Perhaps that is why I never produced anything. I don’t feel that I am at a point where I can effectively teach Japanese to a large audience.
That being said… I am going to use this site to point you to resources that will help you learn Japanese. There is plenty of information out there already, and I know where a lot of it is! I will also from time to time recommend a book or product of some sort that I find useful. So we can learn Japanese together!
If in the end I have only helped one person further their Japanese knowledge, it will have been worth it. So study hard!
Get involved!
Posted by Kyle in Uncategorized on January 21, 2008
Hello friends! If you’re following along leave a comment below. You don’t have to log in. Just fill out the info below and let me know that your studying Japanese. I would really like some feedback! If you have any questions, ask!
So you want to learn Japanese?
Posted by Kyle in Uncategorized on January 12, 2008
I’m going to assume that you would like to learn Japanese. If not, you probably wouldn’t be reading this. However, before you go any further I want you to understand that learning Japanese is a task that, unless you are a genius, will take a lot of work and time (and I emphasis ‘a lot’).
So, if you’re still with me, your first question is what should I study first, right? I think the best and most rewarding thing to start with is written Japanese. Japanese consists of four written systems. Three of these systems are what everyone in the English speaking world recognizes as foreign. While the fourth uses our own roman alphabet. While it is possible to learn to speak Japanese using only the roman alphabet, I don’t think anyone would recommend it. With that said, two of these three native scripts will be your first goal.
Go ahead and CLICK HERE to watch a video about the writing systems. Your first task is to be able to recognize and write both hiragana and katakana. It may seem difficult at first, but I assure you with bit of time here and there you can have them memorized in no time.
Luckily, there are countless tools available online to assist you in learning to recognize hiragana and katakana. Here are a couple of my favorite sites.
Hiragana and Katakana Practice: Real Kana – www.realkana.com
- This is a hiragana and katakana memory game. I used this a lot when I was studying them. Good luck!
Online Japanese Language and Culture Resource Community – http://www.japanese-online.com/
- Sign up for an account and click the ‘download gallery’ in the sidebar. Be sure to check out the rest of their resources as well!
Keep me up to date on your progress! I would love to hear from you!
kyleeppard@lrnjapanese.com
Why?
Posted by Kyle in Uncategorized on January 2, 2008
My name is Kyle Eppard and I used to produce a show called ‘The Jpn Video Podcast.’ It had quite a large following, but I decided that it took too much time and effort to produce. I trashed the whole project, and I feel like I left a lot of people wanting more. lrnjapanese is my attempt to revive the effort. I want to help self-motivated people learn Japanese.
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