Gorgonzola Cheese!

I love music gizmos and don’t blog enough about them.  This is what I’d like for Christmas please:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hELTtsBRie4

Buy it here

If you’ve ever wondered what it’d be like if one of the world’s best video game developers worked together with one of the best animation studios to create a video game, take a look below.  This is the trailer for Level 5 (Dragon Quest 8 and 9, Professor Layton series) and Studio Ghibli’s (My Neighbor Totoro, Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, Ponyo) collaborative Nintendo DS game, Ninokuni or “The Another World.”

alternate link

The best feature of the iPhone is having the ability to download applications from the App Store.  But you don’t have to get locked into a 2 year contract with AT&T and pay ridiculous $90+ a month phone bills to take advantage of these applications.

Go and find yourself an iPod Touch, which can run the same App Store applications as the iPhone without the monthly phone bill.  An iPod Touch can run you from $215 for the 8 gig model to $370 for the 32 gig model.  It may seem like a bit much, but the investment is well worth it for what I’m about to show you.  For those with iPhones already, all you need to do is download these apps and you have a whole portable Japanese studying machine with you at all times!

The best thing about these Applications is having the ability to have a Japanese/English dictionary with you at all times.  A standard Japanese electronic dictionary like the Canon Wordtank G55 will already run you about $236 and is made for native Japanese speakers learning English, which isn’t exactly what I was looking for.  So for something that does everything a Canon Wordtank can do for less (in addition to playing music and videos, surfing the web and checking email, and a form factor of half a deck of playing cards), it’s not too shabby.  So let’s get started on the applications.

Kotoba!

The dictionary that I use the most on the iPod Touch is called “Kotoba!,” which you can download for free on the App Store.  This application will let you search in English as well as Japanese and is a very robust dictionary based off of Jim Breen’s EDICT project.  So it will be searching through the same databases as your standard online Japanese dictionaries but since it is completely downloaded onto the iPod Touch, it does not require an internet connection.

Here’s a direct link to Kotoba! (this will automatically launch iTunes on your computer)

ShinKanji

Okay so now you’re saying “Yeah that’s great and all, but what about kanji (Chinese characters)?  How can I make sense of these infernal moon runes?!”  That’s where a kanji dictionary called ShinKanji comes in.  The coolest thing about the touch screen on the iPod Touch is that you can actually write kanji characters out on the screen with your finger.  Even if you write the character a little off, a list of possible characters will show up for you to find the correct one.  Then it will show you the on and kun readings of the character, English meaning, an animation showing the correct stroke order, and as of the most recent beta version, common kanji compounds.

Here is the developer of ShinKanji, Benoit Cerrina, showing some of its features:

There are two free lite versions of ShinKanji available on the App Store.  The full version seems to be unavailable at the moment but I recommend helping out the author and buying it when it’s back up on the App Store later.  Here are the direct links to ShinKanji:

Shinkanji-lite (this link will automatically launch iTunes)

Shinkanji-search-free (this link will automatically launch iTunes)

When I started learning Japanese, there were so many times I would see a kanji character and have no idea how to find its meaning.  The only way would be to either write it down and bother a Japanese person to tell you what it meant or to count the number of strokes to write it and input that into an electronic dictionary or online dictionary to narrow down a list of possible kanji characters.  This was one of the most frustrating aspects of the language and made the whole writing system seem completely inaccessible to me.

But now with these advancements in technology, I can just pull out the iPod Touch and look up a word or kanji character with no hesitation.  No more “Oh I’ll look it up later” or “Ah it’s too much of a pain to try to look it up.”  It’s pure instant gratification.

Besides serving as an all purpose kanji dictionary, the iPod Touch is also useful for listening to language learning podcasts, Japanese flashcard training apps to prepare for the JLPT (Japanese Learning Proficiency Test), reading manga on the go, reading Japanese newspapers, and watching Nico Nico Douga videos (the Japanese equivalent to Youtube).  I’ll get into some of these other things in the future but I hope this serves as a good intoduction into taking advantage of the iPod Touch/iPhone as a valuable language learning tool.

I’m still working on getting the next big post up. In the meantime, enjoy this music video by Capsule. Their style used to be very Shibuya-kei (think Pizzicato 5 and early Fantastic Plastic Machine).  But like Fantastic Plastic Machine, they have evolved into more electro-house in recent years.  The song is called “Retro Memory” and available on their 2004 album, Sound Furniture.

external link to video for facebook users

Ever since discovering Smart.fm (formerly known as iKnow.co.jp - see below), I’ve decided to spend more of my time and energy into the pursuit of learning Japanese. I’ve always been interested in combining technology to help facilitate learning and have taken this approach towards acquiring the Japanese language.

Over the past 6 months, I’ve scoured the internet and completely geeked out on every single aspect of the language and I’ve found a plethora or helpful tools and techniques to share.

Here are some things to forward to in the next few posts:

-The best iPhone/iPod Touch applications for studying vocabulary and Kanji on the go or looking up Kanji simply by writing the character with your fingertip.

-Japanese podcasts to listen to/watch on the go either when you’re waiting in line or driving to and from work or school.

-An amazing manga (Japanese comic) for beginners and I’ve even made vocabulary lists for a bunch of chapters to share on Smart.fm.

-A great book of short stories to introduce you to real contemporary Japanese literature.

-Great Japanese video games on Nintendo DS, Wii, and PS3 that offer a great starting point for reading and listening comprehension.

-New tech developments to look out for like translating Kanji text on the fly by taking a photo of the text using a certain portable gaming console.

I’ve constantly been searching for technology that can facilitate learning and recently stumbled upon one of the best free tools for learning Japanese. iKnow.co.jp is a web site where English speakers can learn Japanese vocabulary and Kanji (there’s also a ton of Japanese users on there that are learning English). You start by creating a log in or use an existing Google or Yahoo account and then enroll in some classes. Beginners are quizzed on Hiragana and Katakana characters while intermediate learners can start out with the first 2000 words, which is split up into 10 lessons. For those that already speak Japanese at home but want to learn Kanji, there is an option to do the lessons with a Kanji focus. For the upper intermediate to advanced folks, there’s the 6000 class, which adds 4000 on top of the basic 2000, where you’ll eventually end up reading Japanese newspapers without batting an eye. In addition to the default 6000 words, there are hundreds of user generated lists like Japanese RPG vocabulary, vocab words from Hiragana Times articles, and even vocab lists from the Minna no Nihongo text book I used in Japan.

A calendar tracks your progress, ala Brain Age or Wii Fit, and suggests that you study at least 30 items a day. It isn’t hard at all to find some time during a commercial break or lunch break since each 10 word quiz can take as little as 5 minutes.

Following the trend of Google apps of storing everything in the data cloud, iKnow! keeps your progress stored with your profile so you can continue where you left off from any computer instead of having to install a program like Rosetta Stone on one computer.

iKnow! offers many Web 2.0 features such as blogging your progress in journal entries, a friends list, and broadcasting your progress like the Facebook newsfeed, which can keep you motivated or even competitive like Trophies on the PSN or Achievements on Xbox Live.

I’ve been using the site for about a week so far and can’t get enough of it. It makes learning Japanese so fun that it feels like it should be illegal for being so addictive. It also feels good to be using the time otherwise wasted on Facebook or online games and putting it into something similar but useful.

Here is a video of what iKnow! looks like:

I’ve been painstakingly trying to learn how to play piano for the past year anticipating the moment where I’m sitting at some old timey eating establishment minding my own business when an old crooner from the live band suddenly announces that the keyboardist has been injured and they will have to cancel the show unless there’s anyone in the audience who can fill in.  Like physicians on airplanes, the 2 keyboardists next to me will suddenly get very quiet and avoid any eye contact and then I will rise up to the occasion, a la Marty McFly, and meticulously plink out the keys to the theme of Dr. Wiley’s Castle stage from Mega Man 2 while the band jams along with me and we ROCK OUT.  Until that happens, here’s a guy with actual talent named Ronald Jenkees. There’s no telling if this guy is some Rain Man-esque savant or a classically trained musician fooling the world. Either way, I love how he can play so fluidly and freely and genuinely looks like he’s having the greatest time doing it.

Merry Christmas everyone!  It’s not too late to buy me a Christmas present yet!  Casio has revamped their Databank DBC32 series watches.  I’m partial to the yellow and blue one.  These will set you back $59 for the colored ones and $69 for the black model.  Order them here.

via casio.com

A dog and a bust of Napoleon discuss Street Fighter II in this Portuguese TV show.

via GameTrailers.com

I’d like to start off the wonderful GORGONZOLA CHEESE HOLIDAY GIFT GUIDE with something that won’t possibly ship in time for Christmas, which makes it even more desirable. I MUST HAVE these throwing star magnets (or shuriken magnets for you ninja purists). With these magnets, you will look like you were so hard-to-the-ninja-core that you threw ninja stars into your white board or refrigerator to hold up a photo of your dog, who just happens to be next on your ninja assassination list.

So please, dear reader, do the right thing and order me a set (or sets) of ninja star magnets and I will continue to entertain you with wonderful lists of things to buy for me. Thank you. They are currently back ordered until 1/5/09 and will set you back $19 here


via Core77