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 learn to read and write Hiragana, you will literally know every single sound that can be made in the Japanese language. Most learner books that include Kanji will have the hiragana readings provided as well, so this is a critical step in the learning process. There are only 46-something Hiragana, so if you really put your mind to it, you can certainly master the Hiragana in a couple of weeks. Do it!

The book content was created by the creator of TheJapanShop.com and his Japanese wife, so you can expect that the quality is excellent.

If anyone else out there is using a Kindle to learn Japanese, I would love to hear about it! Let us know your routine in the comments below!

- Harvey

Links:
Hiragana, The Basics of Japanese on Amazon.com.

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 is a katakana-ification of “Talk,” but they used Hiragana to make it cute. Hiragana is cuter than Katakana. I think this is a fact. That happens quite a bit in advertising, so keep on your toes!

This podcast is basically a conversation about recent business and economic trends that affect Japan. Most of the podcast has someone explaining things to Oe Mariko, and she keeps it moving by asking questions and giving prompts in a quasi-conversational manner. The podcast description says that it will clear up those unclear, fuzzy, you know… “モヤモヤ” subjects that you need to know if you’re an individual investor or just want to keep up to speed with the latest trends affecting the Japanese economy.

For example, on my flight back from China yesterday I was listening to one podcast where they happened to mention the increasing numbers of Chinese tourists in Japan. They went through the demographics of the visitors, what they were likely to spend on gifts, the places they were likely to visit, Japan’s readiness in regards to the increase in non-English speaking tourists, stuff like that. I recommend this podcast to anyone learning Japanese because it’s not as much of an in your face information dump as a straight forward news podcast, yet the conversation is serious enough that you’ll still learn lots from it.

Here is a link to the Moyamoya Talk Podcast Website.

You can also follow the host, Mariko on Twitter!

Here is a direct link to the Moyamoya Talk files in the feed.

Be sure to check out the Manyoushuu Podcast Recommendation, and Nikkei Trendy Podcast Recommendation, and the Profile Podcast from the other posts in this series!

- Harvey

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 I see around the internet of Comic-Con and whatnot, I think this one was not quite up to par with the rest, but it was still interesting.

Shopping for Anime Goods

This event had more people showing up to buy anime related goods rather than actually cosplaying. They were selling everything including little Dragon Ball figures, obviously pirated Anime themed jigsaw puzzles, character hats and costumes, and even unrelated stuff like random handmade jewelry.

Do you recognize the character hats?

There were indeed cosplayers, and this girl here with the giant hammer gets my vote for the best outfit.

I don’t know what character she was playing… anyone out there know? Maybe it’s an original character? Or Chinese?

Hammer Girl

I don’t know if this happens in CosPlay places in Japan or the states as often… but here in Kunming China there were quite a lot of guys dressing up as girl characters… with stockings and make up and everything. Not for me, but hey, I guess they did a good job. A Chinese teacher who was with me said that some of them looked prettier than she did… doh.

It was great to see the Japan-China culture mix though. There are lots of young Chinese who are very much into Japanese Anime. Some of the more popular ones seem to be Miyazaki Hayao stuff, and also Inuyasha.

Anyway, more pics from the cosplay event below. Enjoy!

- Harvey

She's a man, man.

2 girls 1 guy

Advent Chldren on the big screen!

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 24 hours, drop me a line and I’ll be sure to get you your goods.

Thanks for entering! I hope you enjoy your stuff!

- Harvey

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 Kanji (they provide the furigana readings). This type of exercise is a good change of pace from memorizing random vocabulary and studying grammar.

Level 0 Graded Reader

Graded Japanese readers are basically texts that use a fixed amount of vocabulary, set grammar patterns, and a set number of Kanji, so that students can get through them while learning the Japanese appropriate to their level.

I’m a fan of the graded reader approach for studying foreign languages. I used a few graded Chinese readers here in China when I was first getting started. They really help to get you over the fear of seeing a bunch of foreign language text all at once.

Eventually you’ll need to start reading Japanese text you find in the wild, but for an absolute beginner that’s not always practical, and can be a bit overwhelming. These readers will help ease you into reading more and more Japanese. Then with time, making the jump to “wild” Japanese won’t be as intimidating.

After you get going with these readers I would recommend supplementing your studies with Japaense in the wild to keep you on your toes. The “wild stuff” will serve as a good reminder that most Japanese isn’t artificially tailored to what you are supposed to know, as is the case with the graded readers. So, I recommend building a skeleton foundation of knowledge with the readers, and then adding the meat with Japanese from the wild.

Think of it like this. When you go to the gym to practice boxing or something you’ll probably meet with your instructor and hit the pads that he wears on his hands using the punches that you know. When you get into the ring with a real opponent they’re obviously not going to move like the pads and wait for your practiced punches… but that doesn’t mean that the drills in the gym weren’t worth it! (Disclaimer: I don’t box.)

Use graded readers as your predictable punching bag for Japanese language learning. Use random tweets from super game designer @Kojima_Hideo or super housewife @youtomama0307jp as your real live opponents. (Don’t hit @youtomama though, she’s nice.)

がんばれ！

- Harvey

P.S. Zonjineko likes Graded Readers too!