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Posted by harvey in Language on 13. Mar, 2010 @ 11:34 am | 1 Comment
I found this TED Talk with Timothy Ferriss, author of The 4-Hour Workweek, where he happens to mention his approach to learning foreign languages, and specifically Japanese.
Pretty interesting. I had no idea he was an old school Japan-head.
I think his idea of focusing on the joyo Kanji is a good idea. It certainly [...]
Posted by harvey in Society, Working on 12. Mar, 2010 @ 8:15 am | 1 Comment
A friend of mine had the pretty rare experience of working in a company that still does the Radio Exercises (ラジオ体操) before starting work each morning.
The video says it all.
Japan is a quirky place.
I once worked in a company which still had the ラジオ体操 music play over the loud speakers each morning and after lunch, [...]
Posted by harvey in Travel on 07. Mar, 2010 @ 10:47 am | No Comments
As many of you know I’m now living in China, but I am going to be visiting Japan again in April. This gives me a chance to give the Japan Rail Pass a try!
The Japan Rail Pass can only be purchased from outside of Japan, as it’s meant to give short-time visitors to Japan a [...]
Posted by harvey in Gadgets, Language, Media on 12. Feb, 2010 @ 4:55 am | 2 Comments
Yet another iPod Touch or iPhone App to help you learn Japanese has been released. This one was released my my former school, IUC Japan.
iKIC is available as a free limited download, and as a iKIC full paid version with more content. You can also purchase add-ons for the paid version that adds even more [...]
Posted by harvey in Language, Media, Music on 04. Feb, 2010 @ 6:06 am | 1 Comment
Get ready for Highway Star and Smoke on the Water Japanese Style!
Highway Star in DIRECT translation.
The musician went by the name of Ousama 王様 (king) and was a musician engaging in this style called “chokuyaku rock” 直訳ロック. Here is Ousama on Wikipedia (Japanese). The focus of this music is on the lyrics, because they’re just [...]
Posted by harvey in Food, Humor, Language, Media on 25. Jan, 2010 @ 7:16 am | 3 Comments
These are just too funny. Sure I could have tweeted it… but this deserves more permanent placement.
Be sure you catch the Kansai-ben speaking mameshiba commercial that I posted earlier!
- Harvey
Posted by harvey in Culture, Society on 14. Jan, 2010 @ 3:43 am | 10 Comments
There’s no doubt that there are some quirky aspects to Japan and Japanese culture, but how about state-sponsored quirkiness?
Meet Misako Aoki (青木美沙子), one of Japan’s three Cute Ambassadors who were appointed by the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs February 2009.
Cute Ambassador: Misako Aoki
Misako Aoki, in all her ultra-cute Lolita garb, performs an official function [...]
Posted by harvey in Media on 07. Jan, 2010 @ 2:08 am | 1 Comment
I heard that @Durf translated some stuff for the Mori Art Museum related to this video.
Awesome.
This is awesome. Actually though, I sent my seasons greetings via email. I’m sorry.
- Harvey
