So as part of an effort to help you remember words better, we’re going to start using Anki to supplement our lessons. Anki is a unique flashcard program that uses spaced repetition to maximize learning and long-term memorization. It’s pretty cool!

This shouldn’t add too much time to your overall studying, but I’d like you to use the program every day for about 10 minutes. If you do this, I think you’re going to see a lot of improvement. So… let’s get started!
First, you’ll need to download Anki. You can download it from the Anki website here. Get whichever version you need; Windows, Mac OSX, or Ipod Touch.

Once you’ve downloaded and installed it, you should be able to download decks that people have already made to help you study. (You can also feel free to modify/add to these decks or start your own from scratch.) You can download these decks from within the Anki program. To get these decks, in Windows, go to File->Download->Shared Deck. I don’t have the Mac OSX version available (sorry Chewy!), but I suspect it’s similar.

Next, look through you’ll see a bunch of vocabulary lists that people have gone and made for various purposes (Japanese studying, among other things). You can feel free to download them, but actually a few of the Genki decks have errors in them, so I’m going to fix the errors and then pass them onto you. So don’t download the Genki decks from here, but if you see any other decks that look interesting (like a JLPT 4 vocab deck?), give ‘em a download!

Here’s the vocabulary for the first 7 sections of Genki, along with sound files and some corrections by me. Unzip it and load the .anki file in Anki to study the vocab. I would advise studying something like 40 words per day, or more if you can–don’t do so many that you really get bored, though. Doing it once when you wake up/go to work and once before you go to sleep might be the most effective; you could do 40 cards in each session, or something like that. Tweak the settings as much as you want. Also, you can do the “cram” option if you just want to study a specific category of words (such as just verbs) or if you want to study words indefinitely without a set limit to them.

Hopefully that’s easy enough to follow along with. I’ll give you updated cards for each new section, as we get to them. Please please please try to study every day; it will help you immensely!

Good luck, and post here if you have any problems or questions.

(First, I’d like to point out that I’m using the いろは to number the homework bullets in this post. Remember the いろは from last week’s quiz? Despite being a bit archaic, they’re very frequently used for numbering items in Japanese, kind of like how Roman numerals are sometimes used for numbering items in English. When used for numbering, the いろは are usually written in katakana.)

Week One

イ) Finish learning your katakana: that means ヤユヨ、ラリルレロ、ワヲ、and ン.

ロ) Read over the section on katakana in Tae Kim’s Guide to Japanese Grammar, to fill in any holes in your comprehension of katakana use. Pay particular attention to the usage of small characters, as this is very different from ひらがな.

ハ) After you’ve learned/practiced/perfected your カタカナ comprehension, fill out this word search. (The Japanese translation of “word search” is ことばさがし, derived from the words ことば (”word”) and さがす (”to search”).

ニ) Also take some time to review the grammar and vocabulary from previous chapters. This word search should help you review the vocabulary from lessons 1 and 2 in Genki.

ホ) The two word searches are due by the night of June 25th. (I’m giving you extra time because I know you’ll be traveling while I’m traveling.)

Week Two

イ) Read through lesson 3 in Genki. Verbs and verb conjugation are introduced; make sure you read through the chapter and the examples as many times as it takes for everything to sink in. You can find the lesson 3 audio files here, and specifically the vocabulary audio here.

ロ) After you’ve read through the chapter, complete the following worksheet packet: page one, page two, page three, page four, page five, page six, page seven, page eight. You will need the following audio files for pages seven and eight: Disk2-9, Disk2-10, Disk2-11, Disk2-12.

ハ) I’m just going to stop to comment here that it’s hilarious how this book has people listening to cassette tapes. In case you’re curious, the way you say “CD” in Japanese is simply CD (always written in Roman characters), pronounced シーディー.

ニ) You should also complete a crossword puzzle based on the lesson 3 vocabulary. The puzzle is here. Fill out the clues in ひらがな.

ホ) Note that from this lesson onward, Genki does away with ローマじ and relies exclusively on かな. This means that it may take a little bit longer to read at first, but buckle down and work hard. Know that I recognize and appreciate your effort!

ヘ) The worksheet packet and crossword puzzle will be due by the night of July 2nd.

Week Three

イ) At this point I’d like you to begin to consult other resources to solidify your understanding of verbs, and to get a better idea of how their conjugations work in plain form. I’d like you to read the first two parts from the section on verbs from Tae Kim’s Guide to Japanese Grammar: part one and part two. It’s a little kanji-heavy, but just hover over any words you don’t know and the かな and meaning should pop up.

ロ) Your homework for this week is to work together to make a video skit based primarily on the grammar and situations introduced in lesson 3. Feel free to use props like I did in my video, or to act in it yourself if you so desire (though the first choice often allows for much better audio quality due to the option of post-production voiceover). Be as creative as you can and feel free to look up (or ask) words or phrases that you don’t know.

ハ) Your video should be uploaded to YouTube by the time of our next class (tentatively planned for Thursday, July 9th). Put the video’s Japanese script in the comments in the video sidebar. The video should be at least two minutes in length and should be an equal collaboration between the two of you.

Watch the following video, then transcript the Japanese script. Finally, translate the script into English. Send me the text for both languages via e-mail. Enjoy:

Hopefully you should know all of the vocabulary in this dialogue, though the word もちろん might be new for you: it means “of course.”

Also, continue to review your カタカナ, practice all of your ひらがな, and also learn the next row of カタカナ：　マミムメモ.

がんばってね！ Let me know if you have any questions.

We kicked off the lesson with a quiz on all the ひらがな and a lot of the vocabulary from Genki lessons 1 and 2. You can see the quiz here.

We then went over the homework that I assigned last time (various worksheets). Your answers were very creative; I’m so happy. I’m also happy with your sentences for the ～は～です、～も～です constructions!

Chewy: チェルシーさんはわたしのともだちです。ナットさんもわたしのともだちです。
Chelsea: ナットさんはかっこいいです。チューイーさんもかっこいいです。

Very sweet (and kind!) sentences, guys…

We then read through the Genki 2 dialogues (good acting; sorry you had to sell your pens, Chelsea). And then we reviewed our カタカナ with a markerboard game- nice swordplay. And then we practiced a bit more by reading various カタカナ animal names. I got rid of the sheet of paper but here are the ones I can recall:

タコ (octopus)
イカ (squid)
キツネ (fox)
タヌキ (raccoon-dog)
イヌ (dog)
ネコ (cat)
ウシ (cow)
ヘビ (snake)

Memorize these!

Finally, we went over grammar points–it seems like you guys are pretty solid on this stuff. Remember that in casual form, ～じゃありません can be replaced by ～じゃない, ～ですか can be replaced by ～なの, and plain ol’ ～です can be replaced by ～だ. If ～ですか or plain ol’ ～です follow an adjective, they can be dropped entirely, as the adjective can stand alone at the end of the sentence and cannot be followed by ～だ. We’ll learn more about adjectives later.

Hence:
－にほんじんなの？
－いいえ、にほんじんじゃない。かんこくじんだ。
－ああ、そうなの？すごいね。

The same conversation in formal speech:

－にほんじんですか？
－いいえ、にほんじんじゃありません。かんこくじんです。
－ああ、そうですか？すごいですね。

You probably already know this, but すごい is a multipurpose adjective meaning “fantastic,” “impressive,” and “amazing,” among other things.

Finally, we learned the expression ラブラブ (mushy, lovey-docey) to describe チューイーさん　and her かれし, ニックさん.

♥　ラブラブだね～　♥

There are five sheets of homework. I’d prefer that you not type them. Fill them out on your computer using a stylus or mouse, or print them out and do them by hand, or just number a piece of paper and write your answers on that paper. At this stage in your learning I think it’s good to get lots of practice writing by hand, even though typing is easier.

Homework sheets are below (click for big):

In addition to these sheets, by our next lesson you should know all of the following katakana characters:

アイウエオ
カキクケコ　（ガギグゲゴ）
サシスセソ　（ザジズゼゾ）
タチツテト　（ダヂヅデド）
ナニヌネノ
ハヒフヘホ　（バビブベボ、パピプペポ）

Also, review all of your ひらがな, because I’ll be giving you a comprehensive test on them the next time we meet. And make sure you’ve studied the vocabulary from Lesson 2 and reviewed the Lesson 1 vocab as well! It’s a lot to do, but I know you can do it! The Lesson 2 vocab is up on the sidebar now.

Bonus info: This is a really good website for reviewing hiragana and katakana which I just recently stumbled upon. You can select which rows of the kana you want to practice, and you can even select different fonts so you can practice recognizing characters written in different ways! I highly encourage you to use it.

じゃあ、がんばって, and I’ll see you on Thursday!

みぎて：　right hand (みぎ is “right” and て is “hand”)
ひだりて：　left hand (ひだり is “left” and て is “hand”)
あたま：　head
からだ：　body
うで：　arm(s)
あんこく：　darkness
あんこくのつるぎ：　sword of darkness
あんこくのたて：　shield of darkness
あんこくのかぶと：　helmet of darkness
あんこくのよろい：　armor of darkness
あんこくのこて：　forearm of darkness
みぎきき：　right-handed
セシル：　The name “Cecil”

Since “Dark Forearm” or “Forearm of Darkness” sounds a little unnatural, you could go with something else, like “gauntlet” or “vambrace.” I think the original English translation for the SNES went with “Shadow Gauntlet.” Kind of loose translation there with “shadow,” but oh well. The GBA translation of the game called them “Dark Gloves.”

So that makes “Town of Baron.” Not too tough.

ぼうけん：　adventure
する：　to do (very general and versatile verb)
せってい：　settings
かえる：　to change
しょ：　book (this is an old/fantasy-type word for book; the modern and common word is ほん)
つくる：　to create
うつす：　to copy
けす：　to erase, to delete

So I would probably translate these five lines as something like this:

Set Forth on Adventure
Change Settings
Create Adventure Book
Copy Adventure Book
Erase Adventure Book

Remember that を is a particle that always indicates that what comes before it is the direct object of the verb. And in these examples, the verb itself is coming right after を (although it doesn’t have to). So in the phrase ぼうけんをする, 「ぼうけん」 (”adventure”) is the direct object, because it comes before を. する (”to do”) is taking ぼうけん as its direct object. So literally translated it’s “to do adventure,” but する is more than just “to do;” it really means to actively engage in any sort of process. So in this case we might say “to set out on an adventure,” “to set forth on an adventure,” “to go on an adventure,” “to start an adventure,” or any number of other things. But that’s how you grammatically break down the clauses with を in them.

This “adventure book” （ぼうけんのしょ）　is basically a classy way of saying “save file.” Dragon Quest V wasn’t officially translated until the DS remake was released in North America in 2009. However, the hacker translation group DeJap released a pretty decent translation of the game in 2000, and the screen you saw was translated as such:

So you see, you really have a lot of flexibility as to how you can translate things. So long as you get the right idea from the Japanese, you can then go on to write an English translation that conveys the right sense without being too literal or awkward.

No grammar here, just lots of words.

はなす：　to talk
つよさ：　strength
そうび：　equipment
とびら：　door
じゅもん：　spells
どうぐ：　tools, items
さくせん：　strategy, tactics
しらべる：　to examine
まつもと：　Matsumoto (just some name I made up; “Matsumoto” is a last name btw)

DeJap translated the above text like so, in case you’re interested:

Anyway, great job on this work, and again, おつかれさまでした！ I hope to do plenty more fun activities like this in the future. If you have any questions about this assignment, please leave them in the comments.

First, we read a poem about たいこ, a type of Japanese drum. Here is a really badass video of people drumming on their たいこ:

And here’s the text of the poem:

たいこ
(written by たにかわしゅんたろう)

どんどんどん
どんどこどん
どこどんどん
どどんこどん

どどどんどん
どこどんどん
どどんこどん
どこどこどん
どこどこどこどこ
たいこたたいて

どんどんどんどん
どこへいく

This poem is full of delicious たいこ onomatopoeia. (Onomatopoeia is called ぎおんご in Japanese, just so you know.)

Next, we learned the first three rows of katakana: アイウエオカキクケコサシスセソ. Make sure you practice these and don’t forget them before our next class! Here are a few awesome words that use only these characters:

ウサギ： rabbit
スズキ： sea bass
イカ： squid
シーソー： see-saw
アーサー： Arthur
アイス： ice cream
アジア： Asia

Finally, we worked on grammar exercises, questions, and casual speech. Remember that, なの can be a good casual replacement for ですか, and だ (or nothing at all, if a girl is talking) can replace です, as in the following pair of conversations:

Formal:
－チェルシーさん、がくせいですか？
－はい、がくせいですよ！

Casual:
－チェルシーさん、がくせいなの？
－うん、がくせいよ！

Also, a minor note: in casual speech, if a sentence ends in an adjective ending in ーい, like おいしい (yummy), you can’t use なの or だ. You can use a final の or nothing at all to ask a question (おいしいの？おいしい？), and to make a statement, just use the adjective itself, though feel free to add a sentence-ending particle like よ or ね (おいしい。おいしいよ！おいしいね。).

Great job today. In the next post, I’ll go over the homework I assigned last time.

Have I got the best couple of gaming magazine editors or what? Listen up girls, I have a new assignment for you, fresh from our team in the field. Seems our boys at E3 have managed, through some extended wining and dining, to get Square-Enix to leak some screenshots of a few upcoming releases they’re going to do. And get this: they’re going retro. Looks like Square-Enix is going to release a Final Fantasy/Dragon Quest anthology (platform TBA), and we’ve got the scoop on it! All right!

Only thing is, the screenshots are in Japanese, and you two are our only staffers who understand a lick of the moonspeak. Think you could help us out and translate these screenshots? It looks like we have two shots from FFIV (a status screen and the name of a town, I think?) and two shots from DQV (looks like a title menu and an action menu).

I think these shouldn’t be too tough- our guy in the field said there’s not any kanji in there and there’s hardly any katakana, but what do I know? Do your best to translate what’s there, and consult any charts you might have or whatever. If you can translate them in text format, that’s fine; if you actually want to edit the screenshots and put ‘em into English, it might be nice to have that kind of mock-up for our June issue, but it’s not necessary. Do what you can!

Here’re the shots (click for big):

Don’t post your translations here; I’d like to see how you both do individually. E-mail them to me, but feel free to comment on this post if you have any questions. Thanks a lot!

–The Boss

For now, the sidebar has “Hiragana Quiz!” and “Hiragana Words.” The first one contains all of the hiragana you’ve learned or are learning so far (which is あいうえおかきくけこさしすせそ at the moment). Use it to quiz yourself! Remember that all you have to do is click on the box in order to get a new, randomly selected character. (P.S. I added names of some people you might know/have heard of, two real and two fictional, in there. See if you can read their names!)

The second box, “Hiragana Words,” will contain useful words and expressions that are made up entirely of hiragana you’ve learned or are learning. I’d ask that you cycle through this and try to read all of the words you see aloud- it will help you remember the characters. Challenge yourself to read the words quickly!

As before, if you want to see the full list of characters from each category, you can see them on the Vocabulary page.

I’ve put the vocabulary for the first chapter of our textbook, Genki, in there, which hopefully we’ll be able to get started on learning this week. Have you picked up your copy of the textbook yet? I’ve also put a different category of assorted words I think you’ll find interesting, which I’ll continue to add to as I think of things. (The third box is words I’ve recently encountered and am memorizing. It’s a little self-indulgent; forgive me.)

Hover your mouse cursor over the green text to reveal the translation. Because you have to do this to see the English, they’re like flash cards! Clicking on any box will refresh it with another randomly selected word. If you wish to see all of the words at once, check out the Vocabulary page.

Add a comment to this post and let me know what you think, if you have any questions/find any bugs, etc.!