Mina-san, Earlier this week we announced the launch of the Dialog and Review premium clips, which I hope everyone is enjoying. Today, we are glad to announce the much anticipated release of two more essential premium features which are sure to take your writing and speaking skills to new heights. Kana Stroke Order Videos The Kana Stroke Order Videos show you the proper stroke order for all basic Hiragana and Katakana characters. The videos, which include the sound of each character, show you exactly how to write each character stroke by stroke. They are available for all active Premium subscribers on the Hiragana Chart and Katakana Chart pages in the Reference Material section of our Learning Center. Below is a sample of one of... Show more

Mina-san, Marky here! As you can probably tell, JapanesePod101.com is truly a labor of love for us! We love learning and teaching Japanese and honestly, we’re having a lot of fun. But we’re always trying to think of ways to improve what we’re doing or thinking “how can we do something different?” And often the best ideas come from you all! Introducing 2 new Tracks added to the Premium Feed! The Review Track A lot of people have asked us to leave some blank space when introducing vocab so they could have some time to repeat and practice. Well, if you’ve been with us a while, you know we tried a while back. We had some good feedback about that, but it dragged the podcasts on with silence and ate up time for going through... Show more

Today our friend Yukako Tajima, AKA Tajee, has informed us of another useful website that can be used as a tool for Japanese language acquisition. The website World Podcasting News, still in beta, provides short audio clips in Japanese about podcasting and related topics. The audio clips are based on articles from Podcasting News, and a link to the article is available in the post. Therefore, if you read the article and then listen to the short audio clip, this may prove to be a useful tool in your quest towards mastering Japanese. We would be very interested to hear what you think of this site.

Mina-sama, here at JPod World Headquarters we're always trying to think of more and more ways to help you learn Japanese! And now we have something very special for you! In April, we will have a very special guest with us. His name is 矢野先生 (Yano sensei) and he has nearly 20 years of experience teaching Japanese! His resume includes not only university classroom instruction, but also private and corporate instruction. He also founded the 矢野アカデミー which specializes in training Japanese teachers how to teach Japanese. It goes without saying; Mr. Yano will bring to us a wealth of expertise and wisdom about the process of learning this amazing language! But it gets better! Rather than merely introduce him to our staff, we thought it... Show more

Recently, listener Todd Mizomi visited us in the Tokyo Office! Todd was visiting Tokyo with his wife, celebrating his 8th wedding anniversary. He brought in some delicious Hawaiian chocolate as well as some heavy camera equipment! We know our listeners are very interested in seeing the faces behind the JapanesePod101.com team, and we took advantage of Todd's professionalism! We had a lot of fun with our mini-photoshoot! There will be lots more pictures in the coming days! Thanks Todd-san! Starting from the left: Brian, Oe, Jon, Marky, Kishimoto-sensei, Jeff, Yuki, and Peter in the center. (Missing: Sachiko, Naomi, Jun, Miki, Sakura, Natsuko, Yoshikai, Take, and Ushijima) We hope you enjoy this. Yoroshiku o-negai... Show more

Today we would like to introduce you to our new friend videocaster Yukako Tajima, AKA Tajee. Tajee is a video podcaster from Tokyo, who currently splits her time between the US and Japan podcast/videocast scene. She produces videocasts to help people who are interested in Japanese culture, and the language, and currently, she maintains the following blogs: What's Hot in Tokyo - Tajee, a podcaster from Japan, introduces hot culture and useful Japanese words! Check out the latest one on Suica! She also produces another blog on what is hot on the podcasting scene! This is really nice, as it is bilingual. あみのタジーのポッドキャスト冒険ブログ Tajee's Podcast Adventure! - A bilingual blog on what is hot on the podcasting scene! Mina-san, be sure... Show more

Hey everyone! My name is Jonathan. While a lot of the crew has been busy creating lessons and content, I’ve been working on a few initiatives for JapanesePod101.com. Here are some of fantastic things we’ve done in the past few weeks to share JapanesePod101.com with the world: 1) Solutions Page – We’ve added a section for those interested in using our podcasts and content for schools, companies, and government agencies. Check it out! 2) Wikipedia – We recently created a wiki entry on Wikipedia! Now, you can read all about your favorite Japanese language podcast here. 3) Facebook – In addition to our MySpace and Frapper pages, we now have a Facebook group! Find us by searching us under Group Pages, and add us... Show more

Golden Week is here and what better way to celebrate than with an Instant 25% Savings on ANY Basic or Premium JapanesePod101.com subscription. With the country closing down for almost a week, everyone in Japan will surely enjoy something good. At JapanesePod101.com we don’t want you to miss out! Make this year's Golden Week a memorable one by taking advantage of this limited time offer! Simply enter coupon code GOLDENWEEK in the coupon field provided during the registration process to take advantage of this incredible opportunity. New to JapanesePod101.com? * Click here to SAVE 25% and Sign Up for a New Subscription * Coupon Code: GOLDENWEEK * Expiration Date: Saturday, May 5th, 2007 at 11:59pm EST Previously a JapanesePod101.com... Show more

So... This is my first blog entry here on JapanesePod101.com. And I'll be honest, I ain't the bloggin' type. I can hardly find enough free time to keep up my joke of a Mixi 日記, let alone consistently do it here too. (My Japanese teacher recommended I keep a Japanese diary to practice, so that's the motivation behind the Mixi page.) Because I do read the blogs here, I will try to make my myself heard around here from time to time. But primarily I'm a lurker. lol. Anyhoo, as promised, this is a shameless plug. FIRST, IT'S J-POP TIME! I did some guest vox on the next BOA single. Her next single features a remix by my boy Army Slick and is ready to be released in May! I'd love to post a clip for you to hear in advance,... Show more

Mina-san, Blogging at JapanesePod101.com has just reached a whole new level. And if saying so isn't enough, we even gave our blog its own new website. That's right, JapanesePod101.com Blogs has arrived. The new blog features a fresh, clutter-free design, an infrastructure that can support several independent blogs, and a completely new category structure. We have a number of individual contributors who will be writing about various topics related to Japan and the Japanese language from their own unique vantage points. Max in Shanghai features Max, a student of Chinese and a JapanesePod101.com listener, discussing his Japanese learning adventures while living in China. Megumi's Matters features the thoughts and musings of... Show more