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

Japanese 101: Particles will be on sale from Friday to Monday!
(Not sure which time zone Friday it will start and when exactly it will end, but it’s more or less Friday to Monday!)

The regular price is $5.99, but this weekend you can get it for the low-low (relatively speaking) price of $3.99!

This App has been growing nicely. It now has more than 200 exercises, all with perfect Japanese audio.

Particles App on Sale!

Also, for five of you who are fast, and on the U.S. iTunes Store, you can download the App for FREE using one of the promotion codes below.

Promotion Codes!
MYFYFRK769L4
HK664MT3T9FY
NNYRMREWXR6A
9EAJERXW9AY3
MRXTNAXLWTY3

Each code can only be used once, and can only be used on the U.S. iTunes Store. To use the codes, go to the iTunes Store in iTunes, click on REDEEM which is on the right-hand side under the “Quick Links” section. If you use a code let us know in the comments so others don’t waste time trying to redeem a code that has already been used.

Some other Reviews of Japanese 101: Particles around the web:
Yonasu.com reviews Particles for iPhone
Liz Learn’s Japanese reviews Particles
Zonjineko on Particles
White Rabbit Press MobileinJapan.com Review of Particles

Finally, here is a quick demo of the App on YouTube!

Enjoy! Particles are hard, but extremely important.

- Harvey

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 app store if you’re not convinced that it’s a good buy.

- Harvey

Zonjineko has written a review (including video!) for the Japanese 101: Particles App!

Zonjineko already had the Particles App when I asked him if he would be interested in writing a review. He even created this great video introducing the app. Good stuff.

Read the review on Zonjineko.com, and check out the YouTube video that I have embedded here as well.

I’m going to take all the feedback from the review to heart and work to continue improving this app – especially the getting rid of the Romaji part. Maybe I was being naive, but I figured since the romaji was on the back of the card it wouldn’t bother anyone yet still be beneficial to beginners. It seems it’s actually more of a distraction though! Feedback heard. The Romaji will get the axe.

By the way, good luck to everyone preparing for the JLPT exam! For those of you who have been using the Japanese 101: Particles App to prepare for JLPT N4 or N5 particle quetions, or simply to build a strong grammar foundation for any level of the test, I trust it has been of some help!

I have some more content in the works for the app so you should have some new questions to drill in the next few days – just waiting for Apple’s approval.

Enjoy!

- Harvey

Related Stuff:
Liz Learn’s Reviews Japanese 101: Particles

Yonasu.com Reviews Japanese 101: Particles

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