Gorgonzola Cheese!

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’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:

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

It’s the end of the week so I thought I’d do a MEGA POST starting with a trailer for a live action Mega Man fan movie made by Eddie Lebron.

Check out the Proto Man cameo at 2:29. The guy playing Dr. Wiley is spot on.  I’m sure the actress playing Roll could be cute without the wig, but it unfortunately makes her look like a dude. This movie looks like a very ambitious project and I can’t wait to see it when it’s finished. Check http://www.megamanfilm.com/ for more details.

To continue this post, here is a really creative fan ad for Mega Man’s most recent appearance in the video game world, Mega Man 9.  Mega Man 9 took the series back to its roots and reintroduced the NES-style graphics and gameplay similar to Mega Man 2.  It is available for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Nintendo Wii as a downloadable game.  The music for this ad is Concrete Man’s theme.


Mega Man (in his Mega Man Legends helmetless form) will also be appearing in the upcoming Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Cross Generation Heroes, which is a spiritual successor to the the Marvel vs. Capcom series. It will be released on December 11th for Nintendo Wii but be ready to import it because it looks like the game will not be leaving Japanese shores due to the licensing nightmare that would ensue due to Tatsunoko’s distribution rights being owned by various companies in the US.


I’d like to end it all with an oldie but a goodie.  Okkusenman is a song about our childhood memories, which may include Mega Man or Ultraman and it is done to the theme music to Dr. Wiley’s Castle from Mega Man 2. The song became hugely popular a year or two ago and has spawned many covers and even flash animated music videos.

I was reminded of this song the other day and thought I’d share it since it’s a big part of my childhood and probably why I enjoy trippy cartoons, pinball, and have problems counting above 12.  The Pinball Number Count made its debut on Sesame Street in 1977 and was recorded by Oakland’s The Pointer Sisters.

There is an excellent remix by DJ Food on Ninjatune’s Solid Steel Presents Sesame Street.

Japanese owners of the Nintendo DS have been using it for all sorts of uses outside of games, like learning how to cook with Shaberu! Dīesu Oryōri Nabi or using it as a sweet synthesizer with the Korg DS-10.  It looks like this trend is finally coming to the U.S. as people begin to discover how versatile the hardware can be for education.

A recent example of this is the new game called My Chinese Coach, published by Ubisoft.  This game falls under a whole series of titles that teach language with the Nintendo DS.  Previous titles include My French Coach, My Spanish Coach, My Word Coach, and My Japanese Coach is expected to be released in October.

I am ethnically Chinese but I have grown up speaking a dialect of Chinese known as Fukienese or Fujianese, which is so different from Mandarin that it is almost like learning a completely new language.  So I went in without much prior knowledge other than the basic fortune-cookie Chinese of Ni hao (Hello) and Xie Xie (Thank you).

I was expecting My Chinese Coach to be a rather shallow program but boy was I wrong.  The first lesson introduced me to Pinyin, which is the romanized version of Chinese.  It does this by playing a sample of each sound through the speakers and then allows you to record your own voice with the DS’s built-in microphone.  You can then play it back and view the waveforms of the recording and compare and retry until you have the correct pronunciation.

The next lesson introduced the 5 different tones and how to read them in Pinyin.  A word like ma can be said differently with rising or lowering intonation to mean different things.  For example, ma said with a low tone to a higher tone like a question can mean “hemp,” while ma with a high to low tone means “scold.”

These lessons were followed by mini games where you rack up points and “level up” each word.  The first minigame is a multiple choice quiz where you have to match the Pinyin or Chinese characters with the English word and vice versa.  The next game is a whack-a-mole style game where you are told to only whack the mole that pops up with a specific Chinese character.  I found that this greatly forced me to recognize a Chinese character in a short period of time.  Another game makes you write the Chinese character with the correct stroke order on top of an example in the background.   Each time you write it, the character that you are tracing begins to disappear faster until you are forced to write the character without any guidance.  As someone who has had to write Japanese characters over and over in the past, this is an excellent way of learning how to write properly.

As you “level up” each word with each one you get right, you eventually master the word after you get enough right.  After you master all the words, it will unlock the new lesson.  There is a addictively rewarding satisfaction in unlocking new lessons similar to leveling up your character in World of Warcraft or Final Fantasy.  This is also good because it really does require you to master everything and prevents you from skipping through all the lessons. One thing I was worried about was that the game would not be robust enough for people who were experienced with the language.  So I asked my Mom, who’s fluent in Chinese, to try it out.  She was able to skip through the really basic lessons by taking a proficiency test at the beginning.  She really liked how it taught her the proper tones and pronunciation and she told me that she had actually learned a lot of things wrong when she learned it in the Philippines.  I was shocked to find that it teaches you over 12,000 words!

Here’s a little vid of the placement test:

My Chinese Coach may not be a complete substitute for a college level language course, but for people who can’t afford classes or don’t have time for them, it’s a great way to get your feet wet and familiarize yourself with a language so you will be primed and ready if you do decide to take some classes.  I liken it to having a portable Rosetta Stone with you when you’re waiting in line or taking the bus or train.  These games are also great for people who have learned a language in the past and need a refresher.  My Chinese Coach is $29.99 and available wherever Nintendo DS games are sold.

As someone who is also studying Japanese, I also can’t wait for My Japanese Coach, which uses the same format to teach Japanese and arrives later this month on October 15.  I will be sure to post my impressions.

There are a bunch of instant messaging programs that allow you to log into different instant messaging networks out there such as Pidgin (formerly known as Trillian) and Adium for Macs.

I’ve had no problem with any of them but I’ve found one program that trumps them all. It manages to incorporate your social networking and obsessive email checking compulsions and roll them into one.

Digsby is a PC-only program that allows you to send instant messages across all the instant messaging networks (Yahoo! Messenger, AOL Instant Messenger, Windows Live Messenger, Google Talk, Facebook Chat) but it does not stop there.

Digsby also logs you into Facebook and Myspace and keeps you updated with status messages and new comments or wall posts as they happen faster than Facebook’s own newsfeed.  Messages pop up with a Growl-like interface on the bottom left of the screen.  You can also add any POP or IMAP email account so that you can be notified of any new emails as you receive them.  Digsby developers have recently included Facebook chat so you can don’t need to keep a Facebook window in order to chat with someone.

Unfortunately Digsby is currently only available for PCs but a Mac and Linux version is in development.

You can download Digsby here: link.

Here’s an excellent cover of Daft Punk’s “Something About Us.” It’s done by Randy George via Reddit.

He’s using a Nintendo DS with Jam Sessions (known as Hiite Utaeru DS Guitar M-06 originally in Japan), a Moog theremin (I had no idea that Moog even made theremins!), and vocoder and keyboard powered by Ableton Live.

Randy George Cover:

Original “Something About Us” Music Video: