JapanesePod101.com Blog

After weeks of development, we're happy to announce the launch of the much anticipated My Feed. This fully customizable RSS feed lets Premium members decide exactly what lesson content they want on their Premium feed. Setting up My Feed is a a simple 3 step process. Choose the lesson types you want (e.g. Beginner, Newbie, Audio Blog, etc.) Choose the type of content you want (e.g. Main Audio, Dialog Clip, Review Clip, PDF, Video Vocab, etc.) Add My Feed to iTunes or other iTunes compatible feed readers like Juice, and just watch the content you want come rolling in. To learn more about My Feed check out the video below or if you're a Premium member, click here to get started now. Thank you all for your continued... Show more

Quick Links Welcome to Kanji Curiosity | The Basics | Glossary For kanji lovers, the word 果実 (kajitsu: fruit, fruit + fruit) is so ripe with possibilities that it's ready to explode. As we saw last week, 果 and 実 each mean "fruit," both literally and metaphorically. We investigated the juicy, literal sense last time. Now we'll see how these terms can refer abstractly to the fruits of one's labor—the rewards for hard work. Let's take these kanji one at a time.   The Rewards of 実 The following word captures both the literal and metaphorical aspects of 実: 実入り (miiri: (1) crop, harvest; ripeness; (2) earnings, profits, gains)     fruit + to enter The breakdown brings to mind James and the Giant Peach.... Show more

Back in November, Dr. Matt Wachsman contacted us about his mnemonic system for learning Kanji using captivating and enjoyable flash movies. These movies involve multiple parts of the brain simultaneously, reinforcing memory linkage with visual associations, sequence associations, humor and rhymes. We hope these will appeal to people with a variety of learning styles and that you enjoy them. We plan to introduce about 6-12 new Kanji per week to cover the Kanji taught in the first 6 years of school in Japan and the JLPT levels 4 and 3. This week's animation is titled Pole!

Quick Links Welcome to Kanji Curiosity | The Basics | Glossary If someone said, Konomi wa konomi desu, would you know what they meant? Maybe it would help to see the kanji and kana: 好みは木の実です。 Konomi wa konomi desu. Or perhaps things remain unclear. If so, a translation should help: My preference is nuts. If you still feel a little confused, thrown off, discombobulated, or miffed without quite knowing why, it's probably because the yomi didn't shake out as you expected. The kanji here have atypical yomi, compared with what one usually sees for these characters. Here's the breakdown: 好み (konomi: preference) This kanji often appears as 好き (suki: liking, taste, choice). 木の実 (konomi or kinomi: nuts, fruits,... Show more

Back in November, Dr. Matt Wachsman contacted us about his mnemonic system for learning Kanji using captivating and enjoyable flash movies. Unlike any other system out there, Dr. Wachsman's uses advanced mnemonics features that involve multiple parts of the brain simultaneously, reinforcing memory linkage while at the same time appealing to people with a variety of learning styles. Mnemonics is the way of tying information together in a way the the brain likes to receive it. There are a large number of ways to do this. The most basic one is putting information into a story. Dr. Wachsman's system uses short Flash movies that tell a story using visual associations, humor and rhymes. His system covers all the Kanji taught in the first... Show more

Quick Links Welcome to Kanji Curiosity | The Basics | Glossary Last week we looked at ways in which 実 and body parts combine in compounds. My investigation of one such word took me in an entirely unexpected direction, and as I went farther and farther down that path, I decided to present my findings as a separate blog. So this week we'll detour from the 実 examination (an examination of the facts!) to take a look at melons. (Seems appropriate to jump out of sequence on Leap Day!) Here's the word that took me so far off track: 瓜実顔 (urizanegao: oval or classic face (e.g., of a beautiful woman))     melon + seed + face Pronouncing Urizanegao ... This word combines the characters for facts (実) and face... Show more

Back in November, Dr. Matt Wachsman contacted us about his mnemonic system for learning Kanji using captivating and enjoyable flash movies. Unlike any other system out there, Dr. Wachsman's uses advanced mnemonics features that involve multiple parts of the brain simultaneously, reinforcing memory linkage while at the same time appealing to people with a variety of learning styles. Mnemonics is the way of tying information together in a way the the brain likes to receive it. There are a large number of ways to do this. The most basic one is putting information into a story. Dr. Wachsman's system uses short Flash movies that tell a story using visual associations, humor and rhymes. His system covers all the Kanji taught in the first... Show more

Quick Links Welcome to Kanji Curiosity | The Basics | Glossary In the movie Atonement, there's a scene between a detective and a girl who claims to have witnessed a man's crime. The detective asks her pointedly, "Did you see him with your own eyes?" She replies deliberately, "Yes, I saw him with my own eyes." Whose eyes might she have used instead? I was so distracted by the weird phrasing that I missed much of the ensuing conversation. I must have heard this expression before, but it's as if I heard it with new ears (my own, by the way). Have English speakers really made use of this redundant expression? Do we still say it regularly, or was this more a quaint turn of phrase from the British World War II period (the setting... Show more

Back in November, Dr. Matt Wachsman contacted us about his mnemonic system for learning Kanji using captivating and enjoyable flash movies. Unlike any other system out there, Dr. Wachsman's uses advanced mnemonics features that involve multiple parts of the brain simultaneously, reinforcing memory linkage while at the same time appealing to people with a variety of learning styles. Mnemonics is the way of tying information together in a way the the brain likes to receive it. There are a large number of ways to do this. The most basic one is putting information into a story. Dr. Wachsman's system uses short Flash movies that tell a story using visual associations, humor and rhymes. His system covers all the Kanji taught in the first... Show more

Quick Links Welcome to Kanji Curiosity | The Basics | Glossary My cousin Lois has a useful motto: Start with the truth. No matter how difficult a situation is, you won't get anywhere by lying to yourself about the facts. My husband has also taught me something about the truth: Whenever someone says "Frankly, ..." you should be on guard. The person might as well have said, "What I'm about to say will be tactless and cruel." In Japanese, starting with the truth means starting with 実, the kanji we investigated last week. This character works its way into all manner of expressions related to truth and reality, including this sampling: 実は (jitsu wa: in fact, as a matter of fact, by the way) Merely combining the kanji with the... Show more