Perfect input for Japanese learners.
Video:
Books:
http://www.google.co.jp/search?q=池上彰&hl=ja&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbo=u&tbs=vid:1,bks:1&source=og&sa=N&tab=vp
Wikipedia:
TV:
2010年6月25日金曜日
池上彰
If you are at all interested in politics, history, current affairs, economics, or the news in general you should probably be reading and watching 池上彰 (Ikegami Akira). A best selling author, the former journalist specializes in presenting typically heavy topics in a plain, interesting, and easy to understand manner.
2010年2月12日金曜日
Google Blog Search Japan
Google has a blog searching feature that is available in Japan:
Similar to Twitter, blogs can be a good input resource (though the length is certainly longer). Try searching for your favorite topics. For example:
Hint: Google Reader is a nice tool to use for tracking blogs.
2009年5月19日火曜日
J-J Dictionaries
There are arguments for and against, but I think eventually anyone going for normal, educated adult level fluency in a language will begin using monolingual dictionaries at some point:
Samples:
2009年3月16日月曜日
SRS Methods
A few articles by Khatzumoto and a couple of blog posts by Steve Kaufmann have gotten me thinking more about using an SRS for language learning. My specific use of it right now is for reading, but I think these concepts apply to language aquisition overall.
(1) I think it is important to use an SRS not as a memorization tool, but rather as a way to "make the brain more attentive", as Steve Kaufmann often says. An SRS should be used simply to provide multiple opportunities to see a certain phrase or sentence again-and-again so we have more chances to think about the words, patterns, and meanings captured in that item. Nothing more, nothing less.
(2) Daily use, if possible, is ideal but it also needs to be a periphery habit. 5 minutes here, 10 minutes there. That is good enough. Use it to fill in the gaps between the time you are working with primary materials (books, articles, listening, etc.)
(3) You should not pressure yourself with the SRS. If you keep forgetting an item, who cares? You will get it eventually. If you just don't like a particular item, go ahead and delete it. You should attempt to SRS for probably at least 25 minutes everyday but not much more than that. If you miss a day or two here and there, no worries.
(4) About 20 sentences/phrases a day is equal to roughly 600 items a month. That's about 7,200 a year. 30 a day is just over 10,000 in a year.
(5) Just be a monster with the input collection. Get most of your stuff from the Internet where you can copy and paste easily. If you don't want to spend huge amounts of time trying to fill in the back, leave it blank for now and maybe you will fill it in later. Again, no pressure and no worries.
2009年3月15日日曜日
Intermediate Conversation Texts
Found this on the Reviewing the Kanji forum:
Looks nice if you are looking for text that is past the beginner level but still limited in scope and vocuabulary so you have a good chance of getting a high percentage coverage of it.
2009年2月18日水曜日
毎日小学生新聞
The Mainichi Elemetnary Student's Newspaper is a nice starting point for newspaper reading. Readable for intermediate learners (probably past JLPT 3), furigana, pictures and interesting content.
Website: http://mainichi.jp/life/edu/maishou/
Subscribe (Japan only): https://form.mainichi.co.jp/annuncio/koudoku/form.html
2009年1月19日月曜日
On Reading
Peter Maydell on reading J-go:
When you are at the beginning stage he points out that reading your textbook is probably more useful than reading much real material as you will just be lost without a basic grammatical background. I would tend to agree, but keep in mind your goal is not to learn grammar, but Japanese. Read your textbook sentences, read the translation, and only look at grammar notes if you absolutely need it.
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