日本語の道

Lang-8

Lang-8という言語を学んでる人向きのサイトに登録した。

日記を書いて、他の人に訂正してもらうみたい。自分も日記を訂正しなくちゃならないのかな？

時間がなくてまだちゃんと見てないけどこのサイトは役に立ちそうだから是非登録して使ってみてください。俺のニックネームは「Darren」だ（つまんないって？！）。

JLPT x 2

下のサイトによると日本語能力試験が年に2回行われる！

http://www.jees.or.jp/jlpt/jlpt_guide.html

受　付　期　間 ： 平成20年8月1日（金）～9月12日(金）消印有効
※会場収容力の関係で、受験希望地区で受験できない場合がありますので、早めに出願することをおすすめします。なお、平成21年度からは、7月（1級、2級のみ）と12月（1級～4級）の2回の試験を行います。

21年度って来年のことですよね？イギリスでも一級を年に2回受けられるといいな！

Reviewing Kanji

HeisigのRemembering the Kanjiを勉強する人にはReviewing the Kanjiという役に立ちそうなサイトを発見した。

このサイトはフラシュカードを利用して漢字を覚えさせる。

Heisigの本は今まで何回も使ってみたけど毎回俺には合わないと判断した。でももう一回やってみよう。

http://kanji.koohii.com/

www.jlpt.mobi

日本語の力試験の携帯サイトならこのドメーンはいかがでしょうか？
The perfect domain for a mobile Japanese Language Proficiency Test site!

www.jlpt.mobi

このドメーンを売ることにしました。興味がある方こちらへどうぞ。
This domain is now open for bidding.

www.gaijin.mobi

When the mobi domains became available I registered a few domains. I've decided to try GoDaddy's Domain Name Aftermarket to auction off the first of these domains:

www.gaijin.mobi

It's a great domain to have but I don't have the time to devote to developing a new site at the moment. None of my readership need to be told that gaijin or 外人（がいじん）means 'foreigner' in Japanese.

「www.gaijin.mobi」はいいドメインでしょう？去年登録したが売ることにしました。

「your_name@gaijin.mobi」はいかがでしょうか？

JLPT Study

このサイトを知ってますか？

http://www.jlptstudy.com

http://www.jlptstudy.com/forum/

Ami's Kanji

I've received a friendly message from a Japanese teacher, Ami, who is building an incredible JLPT kanji site which includes audio files for pronunciation.

At the moment, level four kanji are all there and I believe she has started on level three. If you are taking these levels then I hope you find this site useful.

> http://aminpo.blog.ocn.ne.jp/kanji/

No Comment

It has come to my attention that many of my friends are reading this site and they often offer feedback regarding posts when I see them. That's great, of course, but why don't they just write me a short comment here? Don't be shy!

Speed Anki

http://speedanki.com/

Thanks to fellow JLPT taker Ben.

JLPT Forums

I've just (re)stumbled across JLPT Forums. Pick up some JLPT info, ask questions and mingle with fellow exam takers!

Kids News

After talking with a Japanese friend about studying Japanese she very kindly said she'd keep an eye out for useful learning resources on the Internet. A short time later and an e-mail arrived from her with the following links. Thanks K :)

読売ジュニアプレス（読売新聞社）
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/junior/

読売新聞ニュース解説（読売新聞社）：
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/nie/note/
（学年ごとに違うトピックになっています。）

こども朝日（朝日新聞社）：
http://www.asagaku.com/index.html

週間こどもニュース（NHK）：
http://www.nhk.or.jp/kdns/index.html
（毎週日曜日にNHKであっているニュースです。）

News 24

Have a look at News 24, the news channel from Nihon TV.

The website offers incredibly high quality news feeds as well as the news in print. If you click on 'News Plus', you can see streaming video of the latest news. Very nice indeed.

[Credit: Jun]

Don't Forget

I just wanted to raise a point about the grammar questions in 1級. Actually, I asked the question I'm about to answer only a month or so ago. The question was,

'How much of an overlap is there in the 1級 and 2級 grammar sections? Are many 2級 grammar points tested on the 1級 paper?'

Finally, after looking at some past papers I can confirm what others have told me - yes, there is a significant overlap. Don't forget to revise your 2級 grammar when taking 1級.

My main before the exam are to revise last year's grammar, taking one reading comprehension I've got left over and to revise the words in my Word Tank.

Anyone panicking yet?? 頑張ろう！

MLC Japanese

Don't forget this great site for your JLPT preparations:

> http://www.mlcjapanese.co.jp/Download.htm

J Podcast

Though I'm not sure how good this site will be, this is a new podcast site called Learn Japanese. I quote:

Learn Japanese. A cool podcast to learn about the language, culture people and various goings on in Japan.

I've listened to the first podcast, which is quite professional, though it just covers very basic conversation. One of the Japanese men in the model conversations doesn't sound very natural, though. Also, how natural does this conversation sound?

こんばんは、元気？
こんばんは、元気じゃない。

> Learn Japanese

Amazon Order

An incoming batch of JLPT books is on it's way. It might take a few weeks until I get these books, but once I have them I should have enough to tackle the test. Passing is another matter.

１・２級対策　文法・語彙（unicom）
ハイスコア文法1級―日本語能力試験で差をつける出題基準外の表
完全マスター1級 日本語能力試験文法問題対策
完全マスター1級 日本語能力試験読解問題対策
日本語能力試験合格への道1級対策模擬テスト
予想と対策 日本語能力試験1級受験問題集

Books Online

If you are looking for some books to help you prepare for the JLPT then try the following two links:

> http://www.sogakusha.co.jp/
> http://www.thejapanshop.net/jlpt.htm

[Thanks to Taylor for these links.]

Kaomoji

さっき、インターネットで日本にいるアメリカ人と話してた。彼も日本語能力試験を受ける人で知り合った。楽しく日本語でＩＭチャットしてて、彼が顔文字を使った。それで、俺は「自分で書くの」って聞いたら、「ううん」と言われて、リンクを教えてもらった。

それから顔文字辞書というものをダウンロードして、インスタールしたら、簡単に顔文字を書けるようになった！打ち方は漢字といっしょ。例えば、「あくま」打って、スペースを押したら、「悪魔」とか「悪魔ビーム!!^(＃￣□￣)^o―∈‥・・━━━☆」とか「バタン ヘ(。_+)★━…………￢_(｀－´ )ψ アクマビーム!!」が出てくる！

笑う　->　ヽ(;´Д｀)ノわらいすぎた～っ!
ねむい　->　(=_ヾ) ネムネムゥ
元気　->　“o(￣‐￣*) ゲンキゲンキ!!

チョウ便利だ。(..)(^^)(^。^)(*^o^)(^Ｏ^)ウレシーーー!!

> Oranges 顔文字3.1 (636.3K)
> Kaomoji.com IME 2000.20-5554.zip (171.9K)

> http://www.kaomoji.net/
> http://ns.31rsm.ne.jp/~orange/oranges-kaomoji.html
> http://yurirei.pinoko.jp/kaomozi.html

Japanese Radio 2

www.lfx.jp
www.tfm.co.jp
www.tfm.co.jp/radiobar/
www.j-wave.co.jp/radiobar/ms.htm
www.radionikkei.jp/contents/live.asx
http://i-radio.nifty.com
http://fmosaka.net/iiv/

Thanks to Jun for these links.

Japanese Radio

As some of you may find these useful, here are some Japanese radio and news links:

http://news.tbs.co.jp/
www.fnn-news.com/OX/
www.yomiuri.co.jp/stream/index.htm
www.nhk.or.jp/r-news/
www.radiojapan.com
www.mrt-miyazaki.co.jp/
www.jetro.go.jp/tv/internet

Thanks to Michael for kindly sending me these links.

Face Letters

I've found a 顔文字 website which you can use for cut and paste. As I'm useless at making 顔文字 myself, this could be quite useful! (^-^*)/ｺﾝﾁｬ!

JLPT Site

I've just come across a forum based site for the JLPT:

> http://www.jlpt.com/

JGram.org

I've found site called JGram: The Japanese Grammar Database. The site relies on user contributions and has a community feel to it. There are categories for the JLPT and others such as 'social e-mail' and 'business e-mail'.

How do you say 'Check it out!' in Japanese?? 見てみ?

> JGram: The Japanese Grammar Database

Japanese Mail

Do you use web-mail for sending and receiving Japanese mail? Are there any ways to get it to work reliably with yahoo.com mail accounts? I've only just found out that yahoo.com doesn't support non-Roman character sets. I find this bitterly dissapointing when other services clearly support Japanese 100%.

> Notes to Myself (original post) - please comment here.

JLPT in England

I've just stumbled across the SOAS web page, where various Japanese courses are offered here in London. I found a JLPT page only to discover that this is the JLPT page in England.

"In the UK the test is administered by SOAS Language Centre, University of London, on behalf of the Japan Foundation."

So applications are sent to SOAS and the tests are also taken there.

This has got me thinking if I should apply for the test this year. Such a lack of Japanese study and lately, lack of daily exposure, have led to a sharp decline in my Japanese ability.

I'd prefer to fail miserably at 1 kyu than to score worse than last time at 2 kyu. Also, I could sample just how difficult 1 kyu is. Is that logical? Or maybe I shouldn't take the test this time around.

教えて！Goo

Tae Kim kindly told us about 教えて! Goo in the post "Kanji Variation", a website where people ask and answer questions. Again, this site could potentially be useful for readers of this site so I'm posting these links.

教えて! goo > 教育 > 国語

More Japanese

Have you noticed that suddenly www.nihongonomichi.com has become 'more Japanese'. Many of the words which were originally the same as when publishing an English blog (e.g. 'Comment') have now changed to Japanese! Interestingly, 'PermaLink' is still written in English.

TypePad has obviously been making some improvements to their multi-lingual software. It's just a shame I can't read 'preview' and 'post' for my own comments :)

Study for the JLPT has been progressing. Well, some days are good, some are bad. I'll probably write fewer posts in the run up to the exam but rest assured that things should pick up in December.

日本語の道.com

日本語の道 now officially has its own domain name: www.nihongonomichi.com!

日本語～なるほど…

At first I was watching an NHK English conversation program, which I normally find quite educational - listening to English & Japanese sentence translations. Then, following this, by chance I saw a program called 日本語～なるほど, that I'd never seen before. It looks fairly boring: a couple of people sitting at a desk discussing the Japanese language with example video clips; but the content was really good.

The topic of the program was 「コンビ二けいご」 which struck me as an interesting topic. For example, the type of language the waiter/waitress uses when you go to a restaurant, or the language used at shop tills. It's not really everyday language you would use at home is it?!

I didn't know that なるほど was quite a polite phrase. Nor did I know that the past tense 'feels' more polite. E.g. ありがとうございました is more polite than ありがとうございます.

The next program will be about 若者の言葉！For example, びみょうとか… 見たい！

About 日本語の道

Who Runs 日本語の道?

Name	Darren Cheng
Location	London, England
Age	26
English Blog	www.notestomyself.net

The name: 日本語の道

日本語の道 (Nihongo No Michi) : 'Japanese Road'.

日本語の道 Entry Categories

ウェッブ	Web or Internet related
単語 (たんご）	Japanese Vocabulary
文法 (ぶんぽう)	Japanese Grammar
漢字 (かんじ)	Japanese Kanji
発音 (はつおん)	Japanese Accent
言い方 (いいかた)	Japanese Speech Style

What is 日本語の道?

This site, started on 17th May 2004, is my online journal which documents things I learn day-by-day about the Japanese language. These are typically parts of Japanese which can't be easily learnt from books. To really get to know a language you have to get your hands dirty and use it for real communication; and in my case, jump in at the Japanese deep end!

Throughout my time studying Japanese I have written in many notebooks, made word cards, various notes, memos... these items invariably get lost or disorganised. This site will be my centralised Japanese language study notepad from here on in. With the ability to search for posts it should be easy to locate entries. An added bonus is that using a computer I can use kanji I have no idea how to write =)

Posts are categorised as explained above. These categories include Japanese vocabulary, Japanese grammar, Japanese kanji, accent and speech style.

Though initially solely intended for a personal diary, I have realised that further explanations of certain points might make the site useful as a language resource for other learners of Japanese. Therefore, sometimes I try to do this.

Apologies if I should post incorrect information; please remember that I am merely studying Japanese as a relative beginner myself.

Along with my daily revelations I also recommend Japanese books, CDs, study aids (e.g. kanji flash cards) and websites.

Feel free to send feedback - if you find the site useful please leave a comment or two.

All content is © Darren Cheng 2004 unless otherwise stated.

日本語の道

日本語のホームページを作ろうと思ってる！やっとこのページを作ってる！

This site will serve as a note pad to follow my discoveries, to try and write Japanese paragraphs now and then and to chart my progress as time goes by. For the moment it will be a private blog for testing purposes, but if I continue to post to it then who knows, I might make my embarrassing Japanese public!