A company called Rye Studio makes a series of picture book apps for iPhone and iPad that read you a story while showing you the text in Chinese. Listening to target language text being read at native speed while reading along is a great way to pick up new vocabulary if you ask me.

What’s that you say? You’re not studying Chinese, you’re learning Japanese! Of course! Well, the kicker is that you can watch the story while reading and listening to it in a variety of languages… including Japanese in most cases! (Not that I’m spending all my time in China looking for Japanese language sources… no not at all… I just happened to notice this and decided to tell you about it… yeah that’s it…)

Mulan in Chinese!

Mulan in Japanese!

And rest assured, the Japanese seems to be being read by a native speaker as far as I and my Japanese wife can tell. So yeah, it’s high quality stuff.

The following Rye Studio stories are available in Japanese:
The Little Snail かたつむり
Mulan ムーラン
The Magic Brush and Maliang 魔法の筆と馬良
The Monkeys Who Tried to Catch the Mooon 猿とお月さん

There are lots more as well!

Also, these apps all run on your iPhone or iPod Touch as well. The screen shots in this post are all from the iPhone and iPod Touch screens. Note, it’s a universal app, so you only have to buy it once and you can run it on both of your devices.

Well worth a look!

So I recently started watching the ひかるの碁 (hikaru no go) anime, and as what I assume is normal for most people who do the same, I now find myself wanting to learn how to play Go.

If you haven’t watched Hikaru no Go I would recommend checking it out. You can stream it (in Japanese language thank-you-very-much) on Netflix. It’s amazing how they can make such an old fuddy duddy game like Go into a fairly exciting Anime!

Anyway, so let’s talk about my quest to learn Go. I figured that there would be an App for that, and after some sleuthing I found SmartGo!

I’ve been running SmartGo Kifu, which is the iPad version. The iPad is a great size for this type of thing. SmartGo is also available for the iPhone and iPod Touch.

I’ve been using SmartGo for a few weeks now, and so far I really like it. One of the greatest features I noticed early on is that the game allows you to create a profile, and it tracks your progress as you play. You get a player rating, and your opponents slowly increase (or decrease) in strength as you win and lose games. If your rating really sucks, like I do now, you even start with a handicap.

Getting wasted by SmartGo Kifu for iPad. I'm black.

As an incentive to not suck, the game starts off allowing you only to play on a 9×9 board and the 11×11 and 13×13 board options are locked. I’m only playing at level 6++ on a good day now, and the 11×11 board unlocks when you reach level 11, and the 13×13 board is unlocked when you beat level 13 playing on a 11×11 board. So I have a long ways to go. One game on the 9×9 board only takes about 15-20 minutes to complete, so it’s a good size for a quick learning match.

Another simple yet great thing about this app is that the computer will make smart decisions about when to resign when you’re winning. One of the hardest things (I think) about learning to play Go is that if you’re playing against another human who is also a newbie, you’ll both have no idea when the game is really over… A pro can look at the game in progress and understand when one side has already been to be defeated, but to a newb this can be tough to judge and you’ll end up placing pieces on the board until it’s full.

The menu interface for SmartGo isn’t the best – it has so many options that it sometimes feels a little cluttered when you’re digging through the menus. But then again, you you’ll be spending most of your time simply staring at the beautiful image of the wooden board and the pieces anyway, so that’s not a big deal. The menu only really comes into play when you’re switching profiles, or when setting it up for the first time.

I’m not there yet skill-wise, but it’s nice to know that SmartGo Kifu also provides a ton of professional games that you can replay and study if you’re so inclined. I’m sure that I’ll be using this app for a long time!

Have fun!

Related:

Twitter friend @ciholmer also recommended this online community to play Go http://gobase.org/

Hikaru no Go is currently available on Netflix streaming!

SmartGo Kifu for iPad

The title is, “Gengou Free” By Masayuki Akamatsu.

It converts the year counting system you’re used to, like 2011, into the Japanese system which is like 平成 (Heisei) 23.

You know how when you’re filling out some form at a service counter Japan, you’re doing alright filling out your 名前 and your 住所 like a rock star, the staff are complimenting your awesome Japanese skills, and then suddenly the form asks for the year you first moved to Japan or something using the Japanese emperor system? And you’re all like… what?! 知るかそんな！It’s 2001 but I dunno what that is in 平成！ But you’re too embarrassed to ask… cause you know, you’re rock star. So then you star sweatin’.

No more! Just whip out this app and you’re good to go!

Convert Years!

Good stuff!

This 空調服 company has created a line of products that use a low amount of energy to keep us cool in the humid summer months. How do they do it? To put it simply, the clothes and other products incorporate a battery-powered fan.

What? What’s that you say? You ask why their website URL is www.9229.co.jp?

Let’s have a momentary language geek-out session.

The number nine is 九 (kyuu, also pronounced ku).
The number 2 is 二 (ni, or 二つ futatsu).
The company name, 空調服 (kuuchoufuku)
So… 空(9 ku)調(?)服(2 fu, 9 ku).
See? The numbers sound like the name of the company. Not sure about the second 2 though… What is that?? Someone help me out.

This video shows one of their jackets. When it’s hot, flip the switch on, zip up your jacket (zip up when it’s hot?? Yes.) and enjoy the cool breeze.

This video shows the 空調座布団 (kuuchou zabuton). A zabuton is the cushion that many Japanese use to sit on when sitting on the floor, or to place on a chair for added comfort. The fan and airway will prevent your nether regions from getting all sweaty. Don’t you hate it when they get sweaty?

There is a twitpic posted by @mayanoko that shows some 空調服 in the wild.

Don’t want to spend the money to buy one of these excellent jackets? Well, this guy figured out that you can make your our 空調服 in your home. All you need is a fan.

Be sure that your cat doesn’t get in the way, and that the fan blades don’t chop off your ちくび though.

Here is another video of 空調服 in action.

Here is a guy actually doing work wearing 空調服.

This guy says that the 空調服 is so nice that he might even wear it on the train on the way to work.

I could use one of these here in Shanghai. It’s brutally humid here!

Click to watch video on YouTube

Controlling stuff with your brain is freakin’ awesome too.

Wearing brain-controllec cat ears? Take my money now!

This Wired Magazine article explains quite nicely:

“The cat ear product, called “necomimi” is a novelty hair band that is worn in the normal way but features sensors that pick up on brain signals and convert them into visible actions — in this case by wiggling the cat ears.”

Here are some youtube videos literally showing the ears in action.

Well, it wouldn’t be a JapanNebwie post without a little Japanese language education thrown in now would it…

The Japanese in that 2nd video title is 脳波ネコミミを体験！

脳波 (nouha) literally means, “brain” “waves.”
ネコ (neko) is katakana for 猫 which is “cat.”
ミミ (mimi) is katakana for 耳 which is “ears.”

When you’re watching the second video you’ll hear the person running the trials telling people to either リラックス (rirakkusu) “relax” or to 集中する (shuuchuu suru) which means to concentrate. If they concentrate the ears should go up. It seems that people have a harder time getting the ears to relax again once they have gotten them to stand up…

Pretty straight forward. And now you know how to stay brain waves in Japanese.

The company that makes these is called ニューロウェア (Neurowear). Here is Neurowear’s official vol1 blog post on the product.

You know though… after watching that first YouTube video… I can’t help to think that they’re sort of a wearable… I mean, did you see how they perk up when the girl looked at that cute guy? It’s kind of like the function that males naturally have, but is normally hidden away from public view. Is my mind in the gutter?

I’ve said too much.