Nihongojouzu

Metropolis Directory of Tokyo Language Schools

I just took a look at Metropolis magazine and discovered that they have compiled a list of Japanese language schools in Tokyo. I can't vouch for any of these places, but the URLs are provided and for Tokyo based people looking for some formal learning, this could save you some Googling. There is also a short article on successful bilingual foreigners, but it's light on details and could be summed up in the words "knowing Japanese will increase your opportunities for success."

Salaryman Neo

Courtesy of Harvey at JapanNewbie I watched my first clip of NHK comedy series Salaryman Neo via YouTube, where user Lungfish has kindly uploaded a bunch of episodes - the show is worth watching for the Sexy Bucho character alone. If you are procrastinating by watching YouTube you might as well use the structured procrastination technique and learn some office Japanese. But don't blame me if the Sexy Bucho lines don't work when you try them yourself.

Reading on the toilet

Another hint from the "a little bit every day adds up" school of language learning. In the same way as I have a book for the train, I have a book for the toilet. It shares the top of the cistern with a fern called Shida-kun and only gets read when I go to the toilet, or more specifically, when I go 大きい方.  Now some people frown on the idea of reading material in the toilet area - the Seinfeldian concept of contamination springs to mind - but I adopt a more pragmatic approach: being a biological entity with a large appetite I am obliged to evacuate my bowels on a daily basis, and in the 5, 10 or 15 minutes this takes I read a few pages of my toilet book. For those few minutes my eyes and brain are prisoners of my alimentary canal and otherwise unoccupied, so I might as well give them something to do. Five minutes a day = 35 minutes a week = 1820 minutes a year = 30 hours of reading. Eat a lot of curry and you could be looking at 60 or 90 hours a year. (You could also be in danger of varicose veins so make sure the book isn't a cliffhanger)

My toilet book is easy to read - deliberately so. I want to be able to get through at least a page a sitting (がじゃん！） I am currently reading いじわるペニス by 内藤　みか. I have only just started, but I can tell you it is kind-of-love story centering on a rent-boy and the woman who buys him. Not exactly Harry Potter, but the lovers' dialogue and earthy expressions were precisely the reasons I selected it - there are some expressions even good friends may feel shy about teaching you. A bit of research reveals that you can download the book onto your mobile phone, or at the very least read the first 5 chapters. Here's a sample from the opening chapter:

由紀哉は今夜も、イかなかった。

（ちょっと、またなの!?　カラダ売ってんだから、ちゃんと最後までセックスするのが、当たり前でしょ!?）

ぽろんとヴァギナから外れてしまった、情けないくらいに縮んだペニスが、どうしようもなく悔しかった。

（なんで勃たないの？　私ってそんなに魅力ない？

Easy to read? Tick.
Everyday expressions I can use? Tick. (Well maybe not everyday)
Interesting subject matter? Tick.

Right - I'm off to the bog.

Remembering the Kanji Flashcards

On Polarcloud, the site behind the wonderful rikaichan plugin, you can download printable kanji flashcards for use with James Heisig's Remembering the Kanji (Books 1, 2 and 3). The cards come in two zip files and are in PDF format. Cross off "can't afford flashcards" and "don't have time to make flashcards" from your list of excuses for not studying.

When do people learn languages?

I am being a completely lazy bastard today and just posting a link to an old but quality article from Zompist.com. Mark Rosenfelder, in his piece When do people learn languages?, busts several myths and provides a number of thought-provoking examples of situations in which people do and do not learn languages. And yes, there isn't a lick of Japanese here, but the principles are very applicable and I think you'll get a motivational kick out of it. My favourite part:

Why do children learn languages well, when even adults who want to learn them have trouble with them?  Innate abilities aside, children have a number of powerful advantages:

• They can devote almost their full time to it.  Adults consider half an hour's study a day to be onerous.
• Their motivation is intense.  Adults rarely have to spend much of their time in the company of people they need to talk to but can't; children can get very little of what they want without learning language(s).
• Their peers are nastier.  Embarrassment is a prime motivating factor for human beings (I owe this insight to Marvin Minsky's The Society of Mind, but it was most memorably expressed by David Berlinski (in Black Mischief, p. 129), who noted that of all emotions, from rage to depression to first love, only embarrassment can recur, decades later, with its full original intensity).  Dealing with a French waiter is nothing compared with the vicious reception in store for a child who speaks funny.

I don't think the fact that language learning takes time, or that motivation is important are  novel to anyone reading this blog but the point about external motivation is very powerful - you learn a language when the alternative is humiliation and embarassment. If you are learning Japanese in a manner in which your pride is never in danger you probably should be.

Check out the full article here.

Nippon VoiceBlog

Nippon VoiceBlog is a simple blog of Japan-related audio files, each accompanied by a script. It is actually a dead blog, or rather, a comatose one - the last entry is dated March 2006 - but the 10 or so entries it does have make a good source for an intermediate learner of Japanese. The narrator's voice is clear and easy to follow, and having the script makes it a simple matter to identify words your ears fail to recognise. Here's an example of the text from the entry GEISHA and MAIKO :

日本には、芸者や舞妓と呼ばれる女性がいます。
最近では、映画「GEISHA SAYURI」などでも取り上げられる程、注目されていますよね。
今回は、芸者と舞妓についてお話いたしましょう。

Like I said - not a huge amount of material, but a decent few hours of learning joy. Other topics include:

• Business card

• Tohu

• Setsubun

This blog is built on the back of the Voiceblog.jp platform which has a wide variety of excellent audio material which I will review in the coming weeks.

And BTW "tohu" is the spelling as per the blog - it is of course tofu in disguise.

Speaking Girly Japanese

Courtesy of JapanProbe, an article in the Christian Science Monitor about the perils of Western men sounding like a girl when they speak Japanese. The article suffers from an Amy Chavez style of writing - throwing in Japanese words at random and then offering translations - and some of the examples are simply common sense (yes, referring to yourself in the third person is not a good idea), but at least the issue is flagged and the warning given: guys - when learning how to speak Japanese don't confine yourself to imitating 20-something Japanese women.