I have been going though my file of "things to post to Nihongojouzu" and I had a moment of nostalgia when I hit Easy-peasey, Japanesey, a page of advice on learning Japanese written by Edmund Edgar, the man behind the Three Wise Monkeys language resource page. I had the pleasure of meeting Ed way back in 2000 when he was kind enough to put me up for the night when I was passing through Saitama (you can read about that meeting in the Genki English Tour Diary). Not only a lovely chap, Ed makes good use of his grey cells and he has put together a vocabulary learner tool called Japanese Wordinator ("...because you're too lazy to write vocabulary down in a little notebook...") which you can even use from your mobile phone. However, the best part of Ed's site is his collection of mnemonics, and his advice on how to use them:
....the more bizarre and twisted the better. And under no circumstances should you throw them away. (I made this mistake.) Or file them, which comes to the same thing. (I made this one too.) Pin them up on your walls. Sellotape them to your friends. Get drunk and hide them from yourself. (That way you will be reminded of them every time you open a book, move a cushion or try to figure out why your cornflakes aren't pouring out of the box in the usual way.)
He even has a page on Tochigi-ben.
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