I am months late to the game, but I found this interesting Japanese-learning website set up by the Japan Foundation called Erin’s Challenge! I can speak Japanese. It has a few dozen short skits with copyable soft-subs in Japanese, kana, romaji and English and a bunch of Flash learning apps. The corny acting is so amusing. The website also comes in Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese and Korean.

The Flash video player it uses to do soft-sub and line-by-line playback makes me wonder if a similar interface might be helpful for anime/drama playback. Everything is soft-subbed these days; maybe it’s time we do something with it.

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Post tags: erin's challenge, japan foundation

The Victory Pose!

I scored 335/400 overall with the breakdown as follows:
Vocabulary: 69/100
Listening: 90/100
Reading & Grammar: 176/200

I was 8 points short of my goal of 343. For the record, I scored 381 for JLPT 3 in 2004 and 362 for JLPT 2 in 2005. I did quite badly for the vocabulary section. I guess this is what I get for being too lazy to memorize kanji.

So, how did everyone else do?

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Post tags: doremi, jlpt, lol

I’m sure everyone knows and loves Rei, but what the heck is 絶対領域? Answer lies after the break.

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Read the rest of Japanese Titbits #3 – 絶対領域 (492 words)

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Post tags: akihabara, Japanese, lol, orz, zettai ryouiki

Like any Singaporean who has taken the test before would tell you, it all begins at Tanah Merah MRT Station…

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Read the rest of My final JLPT adventure (186 words)

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Post tags: japanese school, jlpt, singapore

You hear it in anime and drama all the time, often without realizing it. It is the bane non-native Japanese speakers (or at least one of the numerous). It lurks in the shadows as it descends upon you with such suddenness and ferocity that leaves you confused and speechless. It was invented by the Japanese with the sole purpose of making foreigners suffer in eternal damnation and to punish us for pretending to speak the language.

It is 敬語 (keigo), or the dreadful “levels of politeness” in Japanese. Haruhi save us all. Keigo mainly involves the manipulation of verbs. Please read the chapter on verbs first if you haven’t already.

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Read the rest of Beginner’s Japanese – Chapter VI – Keigo (1,948 words)

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Post tags: Japanese, keigo

Anyway, I’m going to spend a little time today talking about the difference between hentai and ecchi and why Hentai, as we use it, is really an English word.

There’s nothing NSFW. Really. Okay maybe there is a little…

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Read the rest of Japanese Titbits #2 – Hentai vs. Ecchi (849 words)

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Post tags: ecchi, hentai, Japanese, lol

Finally, a new chapter! Sorry it took so long, but I’m lazy. :( This time I’ll introduce Japanese adjectives. Adjective is pretty simple in Japanese so this chapter will hopefully be clear and not as confusing as kanji…

Please make sure you’e read the previous chapters first before continuing as I won’t be explaining the things that I’ve already covered before, such as basic sentence structure and kanji, again.

Suzumiya-sama is the image girl for this chapter.

Lacus will be the image girl for the next chapter.

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Read the rest of Beginner’s Japanese – Chapter V – Adjectives (1,904 words)

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Post tags: adjectives, Japanese

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Read the rest of Japanese Titbits #1 – 黄昏 (tasogare) (311 words)

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Post tags: Japanese

Today’s lesson will not focus on any particular topic. Instead, we will take a look at some of the interesting things you can find in the Japanese language, things that you probably won’t find in a textbook. Maybe. In a sense, I’m lumping all the small miscellaneous topics into a katamari. I’ll probably include a Katamari chapter every few lessons.

Okay, so that’s really just an excuse for me to write a really short chapter of randomness because I am sort of busy this week.

On another note, Katamari chapters will not have any theme character but instead have a variety of pictures from various forgotten directories on my computer. I bet an archaeologist can publish a few books just by digging through my hard drives.

Your nominations from last week will carry on to next chapter.

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Read the rest of Beginner’s Japanese – Chapter IV – 1st Katamari (1,053 words)

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Post tags: Japanese

Well, let me just assure you that kanji is one of the craziest things about Japanese. Wars have been fought over deciding how a kanji should be read.

I realized that in order to get to the more interesting stuff, I need to first explain kanji and related topics. So I’ll be doing a crash course to kanji today and then we’ll get to the things that I promised in the next lesson. Really.

Before we start, here are your character nominations for this week’s chapter:

• Yuki Nagato (Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu)
• Lacus Clyne (Gundam SEED)
• Suiseiseki (Rozen Maiden)
• Shana (Shakugan no Shana)
• Mahoro (Mahoromatic)
• Nanaka Shirakawa (D.C. II)
• Saber (Fate/stay night)
• Kotori Shirakawa (D.C.)

Tough call. But…

Mahoro wins!!!… just because I happen to have some pictures of her lying around. ^^;; On to today’s lesson…

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Read the rest of Beginner’s Japanese – Chapter III – Kanji (2,031 words)

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Post tags: Japanese, kanji