しあわせ

I first came across this idea in a thread by Mikuji-san on JapanesePod101′s forums.
The idea is to use kanji instead of numbers and therefore become used to reading the kanji shapes and distinguishing between them. At a basic level you could print out sudoku grids and copy the puzzles from the daily newspaper substituting kanji for the numbers. You’d also get good writing practice this way.
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This is amazing. Paste or type some Japanese text into the box above. It will take you to Smartlink, a company that makes translation software, and will speak your text in a very natural voice.

Amazing.

Here is a pre-loaded text if you can’t think of anything to write.
But notice that it can’t read 二羽［にわ］in this tongue twister. It reads it as にはね instead.

I think this might even be good enough for listening practice, and shadowing.

Compare the voice to these older voices using MacInTalk.

I’m guessing that this voice is Miyu – 16khz Japanese Female from NeoSpeech. Unfortunately not available on the Macintosh but it will work on Windows.

Adanami Shobo Brewer Street

There’s no signage, in fact it still has the signs from the dry cleaners who once owned the shop. And it’s not a temporary thing as they’ve been there well over 2 years now. This small shop is crammed with Japanese books and manga.
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I was asked this question by a classmate a while ago.

It’s something I’ve wondered about myself. There are essentially two main strands to any language; Vocabulary and Grammar. Grammar is the structure and Vocabulary the specifics. You need both. You can only get so far by knowing the words and pointing. Or trying to slot the Japanese words into English grammar structures (which would lead to very weird and unintelligible sentences.) But knowing the grammar structures but not having the right words to slot in is equally frustrating. So let’s assume you can learn grammar structures, how can you learn words to express what you want.
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I’ve been wondering lately if I should allow comments here. This is actually the second time I’ve posted this piece. I pulled it the last time.

At first I used WordPress more as a content management tool. しあわせ started as a static website. I can’t remember why I decided to shift to WordPress actually.

This is just hobby stuff really. I spend rather than make any money on it. I’m not even sure why I’m shouting into the void of the web about these various topics. Something to do I guess. The 21st century equivalent of writing manifestos on a wall.

But I saw a video of a presentation by Liz Strauss at WordCamp Dallas and I think her call of “C’mon Let’s Talk!” inspired me a bit.
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漢字練習ノート・小学２年生　author: 下村昇 published by: 偕成社

Inspired by the upcoming Kanken test in June I went looking for some Kanji texts in JP Books yesterday. This workbook is one of the two books I bought. It is a companion volume to a more comprehensive yet small book 漢字の本2年生

As I wanted to use it more for revision I decided to skip the main book and just use the workbook. Also the main text being entirely in Japanese (as is the workbook by the way) needed more concentration than I really wanted to give to it. However I think once you reach a certain level it’s very useful and satisfying to work in an all Japanese environment.

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