While he focuses on Japanese and Chinese learning, most of the techniques he recommends can be applied to any language.
Spaced Repetition Software
This moves things from your short term memory into your long term memory through reviewing flashcards using algorithms. There are different options for this software.
If you are like me and tend to get sucked into aimless web browsing this addon for the Firefox browser can help.
Here are some other tips:
1) Read stuff in your target language, from blogs, the paper, to books (young adult level can be a good starting place, but avoid kids books they are not interesting and not that useful).
2) Watch stuff in your target language. Movies that you are already familiar with the plot of but dubbed over in your target language, TV shows and movies that only exist in your target language, etc.
3) Make some friends who speak primarily your target language (this is easier when you live in a country where they speak that language, but if not there are great resources on the web). It’s a great way to inspire yourself because you have the drive to communicate.
I haven’t posted in a long time about my study regime or what resources I have been using lately. This post is going to focus on the audio resources I use, which are mostly podcasts (I’ll post about video resources later).
I spend about 30 minutes to 1.5 hours listening to Japanese. Usually I listen when I am getting ready for work in the morning, driving to the Metro and sometimes on the Metro.
For a long time I have used the free audio from Japanesepod101.com. This is a great resource to supplement other listening because they explain the grammar and new vocabulary and the conversations are realistic. The audio blogs are an especially good resource because there is no English but the level is not extremely advanced.
I subscribe to the premium level service because I wanted to try it out for a year, but honestly if you want to subscribe I recommend subscribing to the Basic subscription. I don’t use most of the extra resources you get with Premium, but the PDFs you get with both Basic and Premium are very useful. I will renew my subscription for Basic when my current subscription expires.
This free podcast and blog/learning center has listening for beginner and more advanced learners. Be careful, some of the audio has non-Japanese people speaking Japanese, which is not great for learning correct pronunciation.
I really like this podcast, but they haven’t put up new lessons in a long time. It is two guys who present dialogues and then discuss them and define the new vocab in Japanese. This podcast is almost entirely in Japanese.
This is an all Japanese podcast which has 2 guys and a girl discussing current fashion trends. This is natural Japanese, but uses Japanese which is a little more formal than some podcasts you find.
I think you can guess what this one is about. It’s sponsored by Proactiv so there is some talk of beauty and a little advertising, but it’s enjoyable listening.
The Jouyou Kanji is the government issued list of kanji that everyone should know. However, the kanji placed on the list are not the most commonly used kanji encountered in everyday life, making the list not as useful as it could be.
I recently read Tae Kim’s post about the proposed revisions to the list and the “usefulness” of the list in the first place. Check it out for a great look at the Jouyou Kanji and how studying from the list might not be the most effective way to learn Japanese.
Recently I have tried to up the amount of Japanese study that I do every day and I have been seeing an improvement in the rate of my language learning. I feel that I am retaining a lot more new words and grammar with my new study regimen.
The main part of my study is using Spaced Repetition Software (SRS) to review vocabulary every day. Depending on how well you know or understand the word or phrase, it brings up the words at different intervals to increase your brains retention. I first learned about SRS from All Japanese All the Time and after reading about his method, I also read a few reviews of the different types of SRS on Nihongo Pera Pera.
Since I have a Mac, I use Anki for my reviewing. With the function to sync to the internet, I can review from my PC at work and my computer at home without losing anything. I try to review every day, and whenever possible I add new vocabulary and sentences. Khaz on AJATT recommends using sentences as much as possible, as it teaches both grammar and vocabulary. When using sentences in my SRS I use only recognition, not production. When I use vocabulary I use both production and recognition.
As my vocabulary increases, I am trying to use more Japanese within the the answer portion of the SRS. For example, I will look up a word in the Sanseido Dictionary and use the Japanese definition as the question, and for the answer I need to guess the word. This is useful, but is slow going both to look up the word, and to be able to understand the definition. As my my vocab improves I will use this more and more.
Next Japanese language post I will talk more about my listening practice.
Some of my frequently used links are below. If you have any good links or books for Japanese practice, please comment below and tell me about them.
After three years I am finally leaving Japan. As the plane tickets are finalized (and payed for), and as we pack up our belongings; ruthlessly throwing out the things which we don’t need, the realization that we are actually leaving hits me. I have had a great time living in Japan and I have learned so much. This tangent I have spun off on from my original goal of working in theater has taught me a lot, and now is the time to go back to the States and use these skills I have acquired and find my place.
Inspired by my friend’s post, this is a reflection on my time in Japan.
Things I accomplished:
Learned some Japanese (and learned how to learn a language).
Learned that I love teaching high school students and became a good teacher.
Met my husband and got married (and struggled through a yearlong wait for his spouse visa to be issued. At last!)
Learned about a different culture and how to exist in it (when in Rome…)
Lived on my own for the first time in a rural area and learned how to be fully self-suffient.
Made a few Japanese friends.
Became a better cook.
Helped other Assistant Language Teachers with their problems and hopefully helped them become better teachers.
Things I regret:
Not learning more Japanese.
Not making more Japanese friends.
Not going to Okinawa and Hokkaido.
Not seeing Takarazuka (there are still two months left…)
Not starting a blog about my experiences sooner.
Things I will miss about Japan:
The food (soba, udon, ramen, the special taste of canned coffee, hire katsu ヒレカツ, izakaya 居酒屋 food, all you can drink specials, salad udon, agedashi tofu 揚げ出し豆腐, festival yakisoba焼きそば, and much more.)
Friends I’ve made.
Karaoke boxes!
Purikura (print club!)
Nama gurepufurutsu sawa 生グレープフルーツサワー (shochu (焼酎)- Japanese vodka – soda, and a raw grapefruit that you juice yourself and add to the glass).
Vending machines everywhere; from drinks, to toys, to oden （おでん）…
The magazine I write for has just come out with it’s spring issue, so check it out. This magazine is a quarterly publication about Gunma Prefecture (群馬県), where I currently live.
In this issue:
-Running (And Cycling) For A Cause
by Erin Kessler
-Great Japan Beer Festival
by Bahia Simons-Morton
-Gunma Public: Teacher Dorama
by Joyce Wong
-Koyasan: The Best Of Old Japan In A Day’s Leisurely Walk
by Symerna Blake
As I have been reading about the ongoing primary election battle in the States and thinking about the choice of democratic candidates, I have done a lot of thinking. Rebecca Traister’s article on Salon.com, “Hey, Obama Boys: Back off already!” in particular made me think about the current political climate and about what Hillary Clinton running has done to American feminism. I agree with most things in the article, from the uncalled for Hillary-bashing that has characterized the primaries, to the fact that it has shaped feminism in young women. And what I really realized was that living in Japan, combined with the issues of sexism raised by the primaries, have made me more of a feminist than I ever was when I left the States.
In Japan, the traditional gender roles reminiscent of the American 1950s are thriving. There are few women in high positions within companies and even fewer within politics. The media inundates women with ads aimed at the dutiful housewife and the overworked businessman. While I have noticed change in the media over the past few years, for example I recently saw a business woman in an ad for an energy drink looking every bit as professional as her male counterpart rather than wearing the typical “office girl” uniform, the change is still slow to come.
At the board of education where I work, responsible for education throughout the entire prefecture, there are 7 women, including myself, out of the 50 or so employees who work here. Needless to say, one of them is the mail and tea lady, and none of the department heads or division heads are women. In visiting over 15 schools throughout the prefecture I have only met one female principal and one female vice principal. Intelligent students at the girls’ high school where I used to work had dreams of being bakers, cosmeticians, and entertainers at Disney Land, rather than lawyers or doctors. The “Future Homemakers of Japan” newsletter the school recieved had tips for how to be the best mother. I wonder what sort of newsletters were distributed at the boys high school? Probably nothing about childcare or home life.
School nurses “tsk” about mothers who do not get up at 5:30 A.M. to prepare a proper Japanese breakfast of rice, fish, and miso soup. Even worse are the mothers who don’t have the time to pack their husband’s or children’s lunches. None of the men in my office pack their lunches, nor did the male teachers at the girls’ high school; it was always wives or mothers who did it. Every time I brought lunch made by my husband men and women alike released a collective gasp at the idea that a man could cook.
Everywhere I look, I see women in skirts, from business women, to the girls school uniforms which never include pants. Some Japanese women, when around men, raise their voice an octave and use the most feminine forms of speech such as “atashi” instead of “watashi” meaning “I”, to create wholly feminine airs.
That is not to say that I disapprove of women wanting to be feminine, or women wanting to be mothers, or stay-at-home mothers for that matter. Caring for children is an important and worthwhile pursuit. But I do find myself wincing when I think of being a housewife as a career. For me, that path would hold no satisfaction. As I look around Japan, I truly appreciate how lucky I am to have so many options as I woman.
When Hillary first decided to run for office, I found myself understanding those women who Traister calls the “second-wave feminists”. They are of a generation who never thought they would see a women get this far. And while I am leaning toward supporting Obama, I have tremendous respect for Clinton making such a powerful stand. Maybe she isn’t best woman for the job, but the fact that she is a strong woman who has gone so far and done so much is deserving of a little more respect than she has been given by the media, and certainly by the men who seem to hate her disproportionally to her failings.
Watching the election from Japan has certainly given me a different perspective than what I would have were I living in the States right now. Surprisingly, the election has been a hot topic here, especially in discussing who is better for the job as president: Obama or Clinton. I can’t help but wonder if the reason for this hype is because the idea of a black president or a female president is such an alien idea to the Japanese. Regardless of the reasons, this election is being watched by Japan the world and whatever the outcome, history is being made. Let’s just try to do it with a little less debate about which is more relevant; racism or sexism.
As email use becomes more prevalent in schools, it can be both a blessing for student- teacher communication, and it can also open up students to bad situations. After a principal was recently caught for threatening a student by email when she wanted to end a relationship they had been having, this article discusses the current use of email and student-teacher relationships in Japan. Gunma is mentioned.
“With the exception of the dynamic years early in the Meiji Era (1868-1912), and the decade of national restoration following the end of World War II in 1945, Japanese people have steered away from any sort of leadership that appeared genuinely committed to social and political change.”
Writer blogs her way to top literary prize : Most blog postings in Japanese; “Technorati found 37 percent of all postings were in Japanese — about 1.5 million per day.”
I recently came across a Japan blog, blogging about blogging in Japan. It’s true; those of us living in Japan just cannot resist blogging about our “unique” experiences living in this country. Like the man in the cautionary tale at the beginning of the post, I resisted blogging for more than 2 years in Japan. Now, just as I am preparing to leave, I have entered the world of Japan blogs.
“The Westerner’s Fear of the Neosign” seems to both mock and delight in the blogs of foreign bloggers living in Japan. He summarizes it quite nicely here:
The Greater Japanese Co-Prosperity Blogosphere
Every blog about Japan – and there are too many to count – reveals a dossier of prejudices that the author either held already or nurtured during that vital first year in the country. It’s no surprise that blogs are appended so innocuously -“a blog about my life in Japan”, “thoughts on Japanese society”, “visual culture in Japan” – since this is all the author believes himself to be doing.
With so much effort put into framing Japan for an online audience, why is it that when asked that most basic and predictable of questions by Japanese – “What do you think of Japan?” – the usually candidly functioning Western tongue is afflicted by paralysis? It’s not only to avoid being negative. Hardly any foreigners, save for newbies – and aren’t they just terrifically mockable? I mean, they actually reduce complex issues to opinions – can state in a few concise phrases what they really think of Japan. The truth is embedded in our blogging activities but we lack the critical insight to tease it out until it shines.
To identify which concept best summarizes your Japan blog, read the full entry How’s Your Japan Blog? For handy reference, he also includes a Japanese summary of the all the concepts to use when a Japanese person innocently asks you, “So, what do you think of Japan?”
