Posted by harvey in Crazy Consumers, Travel on 13. Aug, 2010 @ 2:32 pm | 7 Comments
Last week I noticed a sign for a CosPlay convention happening here in Kunming China, so I decided to take a peek. Despite living in Japan for 7 years, and also having lots of Anime-loving friends in the States, I had never been to a CosPlay convention before checking this one out. From the pics [...]
Got great feedback from the first Podcast Recommendation post, so here’s another one! A podcast for your artistic side This video podcast will introduce you to the ancient Japanese poems, Manyoushuu. You would have to have incredibly advanced Japanese mad skillz to understand the language used in the actual poems the first time around, but [...]
Learn Kansaiben the Daichen style! (チンピラ？） In order to, “add value,” I have provided the Japanese text of the Kansai-ben. Starting from 0:41 in the video だまれってゆっとるやろが！ ああ？われら何様のつもりや 大人なめとったら痛い目あうぞ あぁ！ほんましばくぞ、われ。ほっんとに！ Other guy: やめてください。落ち着いて下さい。 おい、今なんの時間や おい、質問聞いとんねや 答えろや 今なんの時間や？遊びの時間か？ ちゃうやろ、英語の時間じゃ 英語の時間なにするんや？英語勉強するんや ったく、ほんまに。 おい、そこの三人 われら三人が一番うるさかったんや ちょっとケジメ付け これでケジメ付けろや これでな、わしの目の前でな、指つめ (eating – おいしいですね) If anyone want’s to do a hiragana [...]
Try this tool from RealWay Media to work on your Japanese reading comprehension. Here’s a screen shot. Click it to enlarge. Learn with the Realway Media Player If you like what you see go check out the actual player and try it out for yourself! You can listen to the English, and read the English [...]
HearJapan turned me on to this Japanese band called Hanumaan. I picked up their album and it’s really good stuff. Energetic. Fun. Fast. Somehow rustic (maybe it’s the grainy video). They recently toured with Asian Kung-fu Generation, another band that I really like. Yup. These guys are hot. distortion Go ahead, tell me you don’t [...]
Big sale on Japanese Phrases for iPhone. Normally it’s $9.99 but for a short time it’s $4.99. This app is made by our friends at TheJapanShop.com, and it’s hot fire! I probably don’t have to tell you how awesome this app is. It’s got thousands (+2,700!!!) of audio clips. Just read the reviews on the [...]
Hello JapanNewbies! Many of you enjoyed the interview with @sandkatt, so I decided to find another willing Japan-head Twitter friend and put them on the spot as well. Meet @Durf! Durf and his Peeps at JapanEcho I have interacted with @Durf for a while now on Twitter, but I hardly know him. I knew he [...]
Was telling a friend about my favorite Murakami Haruki works over lunch a few weeks ago and started talking about “Super-frog Saves Tokyo,” which is in the collection called “After the Quake.” If you’re looking for this in Japanese, the Japanese title of the story is 『かえるくん、東京を救う』and the collection is called『神の子供たちはみな踊る』, which is named after [...]
Some fresh music on HearJapan. I like Kuzoboshi’s sound. Lots of piano. A mix of male and female vocals. The kind of music that will calm you down after a hard day of writing Kanji over and over again… Kuzuboshi – Kankou The description from HearJapan. Kankou is a piano infused indies album from Hiroshima. [...]
I just finished Wendy Tokunaga’s book Love in Translation, and it was great! I normally stay away from “love” stories, because you know – I’m manly… but Wendy’s book has such a direct connection to Japan and Japanese culture that I thought I would give it a try, and I’m glad I did! Wendy has [...]
If you’re looking for another free source of hardcore Japanese language to stuff on your iPhone or iPod Touch, be sure to check out 漫画の新聞 (Manga Newspaper). I think I’m way late to the party, but it seems like Manga Newspaper has been delivering the daily news in Manga format for ages now. Now you [...]
Welcome to JapanNewbie.com! My goal is to get you excited about Japan and the Japanese language. Love it!
Posted by harvey in Books, Gadgets, Language on 30. Aug, 2010 @ 10:40 am | No Comments
Have a Kindle? Want to use it to learn Japanese? This eBook might be a good place to get started. Learn Hiragana on the Kindle TheJapanShop has an inexpensive Kindle eBook available that will teach you Hiragana from scratch. I highly recommend Hiragana as a starting place in your quest to learn Japanese. Once you [...]
Posted by harvey in Culture, Gadgets, Language, Media, Society on 28. Aug, 2010 @ 7:13 pm | No Comments
The next podcast recommendation is Nikkei Veritas Moyamoya Talk by TV Tokyo Announcer Oe Mariko. Moyamoya Talk with Oe Mariko とーく！！！ Just a quick Japanese print culture lesson. Seeing とーく, with it’s と and く in Hiragana placed around a katakana vowel extender ー thing may seem a little weird. Basically, this is トーク which [...]
Posted by harvey in Culture, Language, Media, Society, Working on 17. Aug, 2010 @ 1:25 pm | No Comments
Profile! I'll never be featured on this Podcast… This podcast is called 上田の仕事人名鑑 プロファイル! Basically, the host will go out somewhere in Japan to find hardcore Japanese people working. I don’t mean soft cushy desk jobs, I mean 70 year old men who jump into chest-deep waters with a basket rake tied around their waist and [...]
Posted by harvey in About, Crazy Consumers on 08. Aug, 2010 @ 8:14 pm | 3 Comments
Thanks for entering everyone! The winners of TheJapanShop.com giveaway contest are… *drumroll please…* @meggiEm00m00 via Twitter Mary via the Comments Abhishek Duggal via the Comments Nataliya via the Comments and… Ken via the Comments! We’ll be contacting you by email to tell you how to use the prize! If you don’t hear from me in [...]
Posted by harvey in About, Books on 05. Aug, 2010 @ 8:07 pm | 16 Comments
Hello everyone! As you may or may not have noticed, TheJapanShop.com has a new website! In celebration of this momentous occasion I’m collaborating with TheJapanShop.com to give away $25 dollar TheJapanShop.com gift certificates to 5 lucky readers! How to Enter the Contest: Do all of the following: In the comments on this post, let us [...]
Posted by harvey in Language, Media on 05. Aug, 2010 @ 6:03 am | 1 Comment
I’ve been meaning to put together a list of my favorite Japanese Podcasts for quite some time now, but never seem to get around to it. So, in order to stop the slack, I’ve decided to just do it one at a time and forget about organizing a pretty list. It’ll work out, I promise. [...]
Posted by harvey in Books, Working on 26. Jul, 2010 @ 8:24 am | 3 Comments
Hello JapanNewbies! Today we’ve got another interview for you. A “getting to Japan” success story if you will. Akeem has been accepted to work in Japan as a CIR in the JET program and will be arriving in Japan on July 27th. Which is like, tomorrow, pretty much. Akeem first contacted me long ago, in [...]
Posted by harvey in Books, Crazy Consumers, Language on 18. Jul, 2010 @ 6:09 am | 1 Comment
Hey Everyone! This one is for the actual Newbies out there. I learned through the White Rabbit Press newsletter that they now have a Level 0 Japanese Graded Reader. This means that no matter how newbie you are, you can use this to start reading Japanese. No more excuses! You don’t even need to know [...]
