Noverber lessons!

So for this whole month, my videos on Youtube have been lessons about the basics of verbs. Today I've posted the last video of the series - here's the list if you missed them! Through this series I go over the difference in polite and plain verbs, how to categorize verbs into different classes, and how to conjugate verbs in both the polite and plain form.

This should be a good base in the basics of Japanese verbs, which will allow you to start forming sentences and learn more advanced grammar points further down the line. Enjoy!

1. Formal vs Plain Verbs


2. Switching between Plain and Masu


3. -Masu Form Conjugations


4. Te-form Song


5. Plain Form Conjugations

Bento!

So I just put up a video on Youtube about Bento if you're interested in it or want to see what kind of materials I have! I have lots of different things, from bento boxes to rice molds.



Thanks for watching!

QuirkyLife: Part 3

This round of vlogs has to do with the reading contest hosted by ReadMOD through Twitter: Tadoku! I offer a bunch of tips, though, on reading as well as just studying in general.

Tadoku and Yotsubato Review


Tip for Convenient Japanese Reading


Koukou Debut Review


Variety Shows Subtitles


Keeping Track of Pagecount


Using Twitter for Japanese Reading


MEGU Pet App Review


Final Thoughts on Tadoku and Japanese Reading

Fun Interactive Games on Youtube to Learn Japanese

Something I've been trying out lately on my Youtube channels is creating a game that allows one to practice some basic Japanese grammar and/or vocab that I go over in my video lessons. It takes sooo much time to make! Not only is it more complicated to film than most of my other stuff, but I edit the game into several different videos and have to add a bunch of annotations to make the game work.

That being said, I really love the concept and have a lot of fun making these. As a kid I had always wanted to make my own computer games through video like this, and now I'm able to do it through Youtube! And I hope other people are enjoying them and learning from them as well. :)

If you're interested, here's the first episode of what I'm hoping will be a continuous series of this game (as of now, I've made two parts, and even have a little story that will be tying them all together).



Aaaand part 2!



Let me know what you think! And also let me know if you know of anything similar. I haven't seen any other games like these on Youtube for Japanese learning (or any language learning, for that matter), so if you know of any, I'd love to see other people's take on this concept!

QuirkyLife: Part 2

Hey guys! First of all - sorry about basically skipping the month of July there. I've been really focusing on my Youtube stuff instead, not to mention I was out of the country for a little while. First thing I'd like to catch up on is some of my personal vlogs, so here's a QuirkyLife update! Enjoy~ :)

On the Roof


Birthday Stuff (and Portal 2!)


Un peu en Francais


First Days of Summer


Haircut!


Summer Classes begin...


Swim Plan


As always, thanks for watching! :)

Japanese Lesson: Direction words

The past couple of weeks on my Youtube channel has been focused on Japanese direction words! Starting out with a fun and active way to learn the words themselves...



Then moving on to how to use these words in a sentence...



And finally, I created my first interactive Japanese game through video! This took so much time to make, although it was a lot of fun. Quiz yourself in what I hope will be a fun and effective series!

Japanese Lesson: Yoroshiku Onegaishimasu

I recently uploaded my next Japanese lesson over on Youtube so go check it out! I go over the meaning of the phrase "Yoroshiku Onegaishimasu" and different situations where you can use it. Context is super important when it comes to this phrase, so I hope you can get a better idea of how to use it yourself!

Japanese Lesson: Pronunciation (and beginner's words)

So I finally posted my FIRST actual Japanese lesson! I've been giving a ton of tips on how to go about learning Japanese, and now, I'm actually teaching you the language itself. This first one is very basic with a focus on how to pronounce things in Japanese. I use some beginner's words to illustrate these pronunciation rules, so by the end of it, you know how to say - and correctly pronounce - a basic introduction!

Hope to make more of these (there will be more intermediate lessons in the future as well), and I hope they were helpful. Happy learning!

Arashi Radio Shows

Here's the Youtube video I made about Arashi's radio shows. Enjoy!

QuirkyLife: Part 1

So for those who don't follow it, along with my main CultureQuirk channel, I also have a second channel where I do more casual vlogs. I still talk about a lot of the same things, but I go more into stuff going on into my private life. They're less structured, and unlike my main channel, which I update once a week, there are no regular updates as of now. If you're interested in getting to know me a little better, please go take a look at my QuirkyLifeBlog channel. :)

Instead of making a blog post every time I make a video for QuirkyLife, I'll just make a post every 1-2 months and compile all the videos then (kinda like what I do with my tweet log). Here they are!

Intro/自己紹介


Japanese Speaking Practice


Global Fair


Cardcaptor Sakura


Stupid Lighting!


Arashi CD's and Meetup


Adshap8's Japanese Monologue Contest


iPhone Vlog Test


Japan Earthquakes


Random Sillyness + Silent Hill 4


So many ways to help Japan!


Study Abroad and Shoutouts


Monologue Contest Entry


Staring Sheep


Getting back to normal


Goodies!


Thanks for watching! :D

Japanese Monologue Contest

So I recently sent in a video to participate in adshap8's Japanese monologue contest and here's the final video with all of the contestants! Head over to Japanese Level Up to vote on the one you liked best! (*cough* vote for me! *cough*)

EDIT: I ended up winning the contest! Thank you sooo much to everyone who voted for me! :D

How to Help Japan

It's been a couple of weeks now since the great Tohoku earthquake and all the hardships that followed. While I strongly believe Japan will recover from this, there is still so much that needs to be done. I've donated what I could, but I would like to continue to do as much as I can for the relief effort. I'd also like to let you know of some ways that YOU can help.

I've created a new email address where you can reach me about these efforts in helping Japan: culturequirkfundraising@gmail.com. If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, please send me an email about it!

1. Donate

The first big way you can help is the rather obvious option of donating money. Do your research to find the charity you’re most comfortable with, or maybe send smaller amounts to multiple charities to "cover your bases."

I personally donated to the Red Cross. You can donate at www.redcross.org, or you can text REDCROSS to 90999 to make a $10 donation that will automatically be added to your phone bill.

This website also has a list of charities with ratings if you want to do some more research: http://www.charitynavigator.org/

2. Buy stuff

If you don't want to just give money away, there are a lot of ways for you to buy things with the proceeds being donated to Japan. You may see this kind of thing all over the place, but I’ll be giving you two different resources over at Livejournal. If you don’t have an account there, the site is normally used for blogging but also has some great communities.

Help_Japan

At this community, people are auctioning off a ton of different stuff - anything from food, to jewelry, to books, to clothes, to art… There is SO much stuff over there. Bid for something that interests you in the next few days, and at the end of this month, if you win, you pay for it by making a donation to Japan (I believe you can make it to the charity of your choice as long as you provide proof).

Arashi_On:

This community is usually all about the boy band Arashi, and a lot of the fundraising going on there is fan-related. The "Garage Sale" part of the fundraising is very similar to what Help_Japan is doing: people are offering things such as CDs, magazines, pamphlets. However, this time it's no an auction, so it’s basically first-come, first-serve. Also, instead of having to donate the money yourself to a charity, you simply have to send it to the Paypal of the Arashi_On community and they will take care of it for you. They had a poll to decide which organization they would send the money too, and the charity for this month is Direct Relief International, but I think the charity will change each month (and you have a voice in deciding this.)

Aside from the Garage Sale, what people are also offering are things like fanart, fanfiction, graphics, icons, little hand-made goods, etc. While a lot of these fan-made things are centered around Arashi, this is not a requirement. Many people are offering to make stuff from different fandoms, original characters, etc., and it’s all mostly on a request basis.

I myself have made a post to this community and am offering art. I'm taking requests on any kind of fanart or original characters, I'm pretty flexible. No nudity or anything though, please :) These will be pencil drawings that I will scan and send to you digitally, but nothing colored and no digital art, since that is definitely not my forte.

Aside from simple drawings, I could also do short comics or something, and this leads to another idea. If you’re using Heisig’s method to remember kanji, you might have trouble coming up with little stories for some of them and maybe some visuals would help you. Let me know which kanji is giving you trouble and I can draw out a little comic for you to illustrate that kanji and help you to remember it.

This can extend beyond kanji. If you want any kind of lesson, I could help you with your English, Japanese, and French... (let me know if there's anything else I could help you with). I can type up a lesson for you, or maybe make some kind of illustration to help you learn. I'm considering setting something up on Edufire and teach something there, probably in one-on-one tutoring form. Let me know if that would interest you as well.

Finally, if you watch my Youtube channel and would like to see me make a video on a particular language or culture topic, let me know, and you could "sponsor" that video. I could do a lesson-type video, a review of something, etc. So request the video, sponsor it through a donation, and I would give you credit for sponsoring that video.

While all of this extends way past Arashi I'll stick to doing it through the Arashi_on Livejournal community for now. This will keep things simpler, especially since I don't know whether anyone will be interested in any of this. If you don’t have a Livejournal account but are still interested in this, do let me know, and I'll see about making other arrangements through my own Paypal account.

Go check out my LJ post for more specific information on the artwork, and take a look at my DeviantArt account as well - I haven't posted anything there in forever, but if gives you a good idea of what my art looks like. Pricing will range depending on what you’d like, from about $1~$10, or whatever you're willing to give. Send me an email at culturequirkfundraising@gmail.com for requests or any questions.

3. Sell stuff

Aside from spending money through donations or buying things, you can also sell your own stuff on the above websites (or through any other fashion). So if you’re really strapped for money, why not donate your stuff or your talents? Let me know if you’re doing anything like that – I might be interested, and I could help spread the word.

4. Support

Finally, there are plenty of ways to help without giving anything up at all in the form of support. Here a few shoutouts to other Youtubers who are doing their part and letting you know of other ways to help.

One thing that’s huge is a new channel, partners4japan. Youtube granted this partner channel specifically for the relief fund, and you’ll see videos from all of your favorite j-vloggers over there and other guests. All of the money that is raised through that Youtube partnership will be sent to the relief fund, and the more subscribers, views, favorites, likes, etc. they have, the more money they will make. It doesn’t cost you anything and there’s a lot of interesting content, so go support them!

Other Youtubers have been really great as well. Nigahiga posted a video in which he donated $600, Michelle Phan made a makeup tutorial, and if it gets a million views, she’ll donate $1000, and plenty of other Youtubers have been doing similar drives. It's awesome to see the Youtube community being so great in supporting this cause, so please go support those kinds of efforts yourself. Keep your eyes open and spread the word about that kind of stuff; there are plenty of ways to help out with very little effort.

While monetary benefits are the most important way to help right now, general support to those victims in Japan is still wonderful. Messages of support can give hope and lift peoples' spirits, so stay positive and keep Japan in your well-wishes. Victor at the Gimmeabreakman channel called out for us to make paper cranes and send pictures or video responses as messages of hope, which he will eventually compile. Here is my submission - go make your own crane to spread a message of hope and encouragement.



日本、がんばれ〜！

Hardships in Japan

The past week has been difficult. It's been hard simply hearing and watching what's been going on in Japan, trying to reach friends and constantly reading tweets and watching the news. I've been lucky - I've heard back from virtually everyone that I know in Japan, and they and there families are safe. I can't even imagine how scary and devastating it must be for those who are living there and are affected by the hardships.

I've taken some time to worry, to mourn, to pray. And while I won't stop thinking about Japan, it's also time to take action. Like I've mentioned in the video, I've donated money and can only continue to help with the relief fund and reestablish a level of normalcy.

One thing I want to keep doing is continue to create content. If you check my Youtube channels, I've been updating those, and I plan to really catch up with my blog over the next several days. I feel it is our responsibility to press on with our daily lives, and if I can keep helping to entertain and even educate people, then I feel I'm doing my job.

In addition to that, I do plan on putting forth more efforts towards the relief fund. If you follow my QuirkyLife channel you'll have a preview of that, but my main channel update for the coming week will be all about that :) So stay tuned!

Lang-8

Here's a video I made in Japanese (with English subs) about the awesome language-learning resource, Lang-8. Enjoy!



By the way, a huuuge thank you to Lang-8 for putting this vid on their Facebook fanpage!!

Using SRS to Learn Japanese

I've mentioned applications like Anki before, but I actually made a video explaining what an SRS is and how you can apply it to your Japanese study (and anything else you're studying!) Check it out~

Facebook Fanpage

Quick update! I've just started up a Facebook fanpage for this blog, so if you're interested on having access to updates through Facebook please check it out! Just click the "Like" button at the top of the page and you're set :)

While I plan to just use it to post updates to blog entries and videos for now, I do plan to have more Facebook-exclusive content in the future. I already posted a welcome video, for example, and will probably post pictures, links, etc.

Here's the corresponding Youtube video to this blog post.



Like I mentioned in the video, I really want to thank you guys for the support! Even though this is just a small blog and I'm so new to Youtube and whatnot, I'm so happy with the feedback I have been getting - I really appreciate it!!

Heisig's Method in a Nutshell

Earlier this week I posted a video explaining how Heisig works:



This was a lot of fun to make! I haven't been drawing anything in a while, so I enjoyed making those sketches. I'm perhaps considering making more of these, teaching a kanji in a short video with my own stories and pictures. It's pretty time-consuming though, so we'll see. Anyone interested in seeing more of this kind of content? Let me know in a comment here or on Youtube :)

Basics of Reading Japanese

So here's my first little Japanese-centered lesson! This is just a very basic look at how the writing system works in Japan. While many of you are probably aware of most of this stuff, I wanted to go over the basics before moving on to some more intermediate materials and actual study methods.

By the way, here's a video version of this lesson :)



Many people I know who are just starting to learn Japanese aren't too worried about reading or writing - I was like that too, at first. I loved listening to the language and what excited me was the idea of understanding and speaking it, while reading and writing did not appeal to me very much. There are several reasons for this...

1. Too hard.
If I didn't know any Japanese and I looked at a block of text, it would be overwhelming. All those foreign symbols are pretty scary - how can anyone read this stuff?? There's way too much to learn, the way it all works together is way too confusing, and even if it is technically possible to learn it, the sheer amount of work you need to put into it would just not be worth the effort.

2. Boring.
Not only would learning all those symbols be incredibly difficult, the idea of memorizing character after character with no end in sight does not sound very exciting. Sure, they might be pretty to look at, but learning them by writing them over and over again? Boooring...

3. Unnecessary.
Who says I need to read or write in Japanese anyway? My goal is just learning how to understand what people are saying and know how to answer back. That's sounds like a lot more fun anyway. Why should I go through the trouble of learning a whole new syllabary? I don't need to be literate in order to learn how to speak right?

Wrong. Sometimes you may not realize just how important reading or writing can be when learning a language. Not only is being literate very useful in its own right, it's also incredibly useful in learning how to speak as well. And I'm here to convince you that it's not only necessary, there are ways to make is easy and fun too!

First, let's go over the basic elements of the Japanese writing system. There are actually three (four?) different alphabets.

1. Hiragana （ひらがな）
These are the basic building blocks of sound in Japanese. They can be used to write general Japanese words or parts of words. There are 46 of them in a set, encompassing sounds like a, i, u , e, o, ka, ki, ku, ke, ko, sa, shi, su, se, so... etc. What's nice in Japanese is that there are only 5 different vowels and thus a limited number of different sounds you can make, so pronunciation is pretty straightforward. Hiragana are generally pretty round and curvy.

I would start learning the hiragana first. There aren't too many of them and I find them easier to learn, probably because they all look so different from each other. This way you'll start to get used to how the phonetic alphabet works. I learned them in small groups, write each of them out individually a few times, and cemented that knowledge through flaschcards or memory games.

2. Katakana （カタカナ）
Katakana are also simple phonetic sounds, just like hiragana, and it's the same set of 46. The difference in usage is that katakana is used for foreign words (things like "coohii" and "hambaagaa" are derived from the English words "coffee" and "hamburger"and would thus be written in katakana). There are a few other exceptions where you can use these, such as for sound effects, certain names, or sometimes for emphasis. While they sound the same as hiragana, they are generally more angular and boxy.

Learning katakana is the next step, since I find them slightly more difficult to learn, mainly due to the fact that several of them look very similar (such as ソ and ン... I swear there's a difference there...) I learned them just like I did hiragana, in small groups and with flashcards, and they're really not bad either.

Together, Hiragana and Katakana are referred to as simply "Kana" and make up the phonetic characters of Japanese. Now, once you've learned them, take a moment to pat yourself on the back and go look at a text of Japanese. You'll start recognizing some symbols! Sure, you might not know what anything means, but instead of looking like a bunch of gibberish, you'll start to see sounds instead. Let yourself feel super excited, it's such a huge step, and use that excitement to get that confidence you need to know you can learn this. The next part's a little tougher, but it's just as doable as the kana.

3. Kanji　(漢字）
This is the big, scary element of the writing system. Most kanji look much more complicated than any of the kana, and there are literally thousands of them. They're actually based off of Chinese characters, which were brought over to Japan long ago. Instead of signifying a sound, each kanji has a certain meaning. For example, the rather simple symbol "人" can be pronounced in several different ways (such as "hito" or "jin") but the meaning stays the same: person (or people). So not only are there tons of kanji that can be combined to make words, there are usually a couple of different pronunciations for each kanji, depending on the context. This is generally what overwhelms people (although I'm here to say don't be discouraged!)

Kanji can take months, even years to learn. But I think that learning them bit by bit is totally acceptable - you'll start recognizing more and more as you learn new words. Plus, you don't have to learn every single kanji to be literate. So it really is more doable than it sounds. More concrete lessons to come!

4. Romaji?
I just wanted to briefly mention what is sometimes considered to be a fourth alphabet: romaji. This is just spelling Japanese words out with roman letters. Instead of 日本 (Japan), you would write "nihon." Sure, using romaji is useful at the very beginning when you don't know how to pronounce anything yet, but the faster you stop using romaji the better. It's just not used in Japan, and if you use it for too long, it gets difficult to transfer into kana and kanji. Trust, me, once you get used to how things traditionally work, seeing things written in romaji will start to feel very painful to look at...(that's a good sign!)

So there you have it! A look at all the different syllabaries in the Japanese writing system. It can seem scary as first, but once you start pulling in the part you'll realize it's really not that bad. There are plenty of ways to make reading and writing easy and fun to learn, not to mention lots of methods to keep yourself motivated along the way. I'm hoping to help with that a little bit in my blogs! Hope this helps~

Youtube!

So this week has been my Youtube debut!

I've been enjoying the process and hope I can continue to maintain the channel successfully. Filming myself is nerve-wracking and awkward, but I think I can get used to it :P The main thing I'm worried about is just taking the time to edit the vids together, coming up with enough ideas to keep it going, etc. I knew this would be the case, but the reality is that making videos is very time consuming, so we'll see if I can keep this up!

Anyway, here are my three intro vids I made in English, Japanese, and French...

Introduction



Introduction (Japanese) 自己紹介 (日本語)



Introduction (French/Francais)



So this way you get a little preview of my plans, and hear what I sound like in different languages. I've just launched this thing a couple of days ago, so it's still a little empty over there - please drop by and leave a comment, I'd really appreciate it! :D