Gakuranman.com – illuminating Japan

Philip from Nihongoup recently asked me for an interview as part of his growing collection of knowledge on learning Japanese. I’ve never really written a post about how I got to where I am today with my Japanese, so if you’re interested, head on over to read all about my younger days.

Here are the winners to the review and contest I held recently. Philip has supplied me with two copies of his nifty little flash game that helps you learn Japanese to give away, so without further ado, let me announce the lucky people to win!

NihongoUp is a neat little game that installs quickly and cleanly and offers great benefits to you learning Japanese. With Kana and Kanji practice and even vocabulary drills for up to the highest level of the JLPT, it’s certainly getting itself noticed in the language-learning arena. You can also win a free copy!

Free Japanese resources are plentiful on the internet, but have you ever wondered if you are getting the most out of them? While studying Japanese and working as a translator I’ve found a lot of great tools. So here’s Gakuranman’s top 5 picks for the best online dictionaries for Japanese-English translation!

A recent teaming-up with Wonky Tofugu saw Koichi and I giving a special Edufire Superpass class on bizarre Katakana words in Japanese! It was such a success that we felt it wrong to deprive everyone who missed out, so here it is, in a special 2-part blog post split across Tofugu.com and Gakuranman.com!

Have you ever wondered how to read the headlines in Japanese newspapers? They’re so chock-a-block full of kanji that it seems like an insurmountable wall to scale. And that’s not to mention the split sentences. What do all those mysterious sentences that end on a particle mean?! I take you through some examples.

A recent interview saw me exploring some of the wonders of Kansai-ben with a native speaker. If you’re like me, you might have an interest in this wacky dialect from Southern Japan, so come and learn a few phrases with us!

Finally! They’re here! MY JLPT level 1 results! (Actually, they were a week ago, but Love Dolls took the limelight). Three months of trepidation. Of nervously waiting by the letterbox and checking every JLPT website for some semblance of news. I kid, right..? And they arrived, in an unceremoniously bent envelope last Friday…

Moshi-whatnow? “Moshi Moshi” da yo! This is the expression Japanese people use when answering the phone. But why on earth say it twice? Isn’t once enough for you?? Today I explain the reason for that giving oft-uttered phrase in a double dose. Moshi-Moshi, are you listening?

“I’m disinclined to acquiesce your request, dear Sir.” We all have times when we need to politely refuse requests. But how to turn someone down without upsetting the balance or damaging the trust in the relationship? Here are some useful expressions to help you turn someone down, Japanese style.

Introducing…Me! Michael as the Gakuranman. This is my new teaching persona for the Live Video Learning platform eduFire.com. I have registered on eduFire to start offering beginner and intermediate classes in Japanese! If you’ve ever wanted to dip your feet into the language pool and try some, here is your chance!

After several months of preparation, the 2008 JLPT level 1 finally went down on Sunday. Even after my serious bouts of cramming, creating numerous Anki decks, audio files and learning over 1200 words in just two short months, I feel that I have fallen short of the 70% pass mark.