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Quick Links Welcome to Kanji Curiosity | The Basics | Glossary Winter is a time of harshness. In spring, as trees explode with fragrant blossoms, we're full of hope. In summer, we can delude ourselves that peaches will always be in season and that sunny, warm days will keep coming for a good six months. In fall, colorful leaves and crisp air fill us with optimism. And then it's winter, and we can't fool ourselves any longer. Haiku About Harsh Realities ... But facing reality isn't all bad. Check out this cool compound: 実験 (jikken: experiment)     reality + to test As the breakdown indicates, an experiment allows one to test reality. That is, an experiment is a reality check! Well, here's one... 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

Mina-san, As always, thank you for your support; we could never have come this far without you. We recently received an e-mail from JapanPodcasters.com informing us that we, our language learning community, were awarded the 2008 Japan Podcaster Award Winner in the category of Language Study Excellence Award. We would like to thank our new friends at JapanPodcasters.com, a Japan podcast directory, for recoginizing our language learning community, and thank you, the listeners, for making this possible. Yoroshiku onegai shimasu! Team JapanesePod101.com

Quick Links Welcome to Kanji Curiosity | The Basics | Glossary Kanji-induced dementia (KID) strikes again! Although I believed I'd never seen 追 until the fateful encounters mentioned two weeks ago, I was quite wrong. No surprise there; even when one has stumbled across certain characters thirty-five times before, KID makes them seem fresh and new. One of my Japanese language partners had used 追 twice before in emails, referring both times to my never-ending workload: 締め切りに追われていませんか？ Shimekiri ni owarete imasen ka? Aren’t you chased by deadlines? きっと最後の追い込みをしているのでしょうね。 Kitto saigo no oikomi o shite iru no deshō ne. By now you must surely be in the final stages. Kanji Breakdown #1... The second sentence contains 追い込み... Show more

Quick Links Welcome to Kanji Curiosity | The Basics | Glossary Last week, you may have felt increasingly certain that 追 (TSUI, o(u)) is all about the chase. But the kanji gods tend to read confidence as hubris, and they respond by throwing curve balls. This character has two other main meanings.   Additionally, 追 Means "Additional" The kanji 追 also means "to add" or "additional." That helps us make more sense of 追加, which appeared in the first paragraph of last week's entry: 追加 (tsuika: addition)     addition + addition The kanji 加 can stand for Canada. So if you didn't know the appropriate breakdowns here, you might think 追加 referred to driving someone into Canada ... or chasing away Canadians... 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 The other day, I encountered 追 (TSUI, o(u)) in three different contexts: during a Skype-chat with a Japanese friend, on a random visit to a website, and in a dictionary as I searched for something else. In all cases, this kanji appeared in words I didn't know: 追加 (tsuika: addition), 追う (ou: to chase), and 貝殻追放 (kaigara tsuihō: ostracism). What's Going on with 貝殻追放?! ... I took it as a sign that the kanji gods wanted me to fall in love with 追—or at least investigate it. I have done their bidding and will look at this character in the next three blogs. I'm not sure I'm in love with 追. After all, it breaks down as "moving buttocks"—not the most charming of... 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 Happy 2008! It feels as if we're still straddling the new year's hump. The old year lingers in memory and in effects, while the new one has barely stretched out before us to reveal its form. On the Effects of the Old Year ... The kanji 出 captures this feeling of having a foot in both worlds, because with the kun-yomi of de(ru), 出 has the following meanings: (1) to appear; to come forth (2) to leave, to go away Together, these meanings produce an intolerable schizophrenic feeling in me. But at this moment in time—and perhaps only in this moment—they can coexist without contradiction; we're leaving the old year as the new one appears. With scads of... Show more

Mina-san, I hope you enjoyed the holidays! Since we started doing the intros at the beginning of the lessons, we got tons of questions about them. To address these, we did 2 Japanese Culture Classes and explained a few of them. We'll definitely be doing more Culture Classes on the intros (as well as other cultural topics). But we went ahead and added a new section to the Lesson Notes. Now you can find the Japanese transcript and corresponding English translation after the Grammar Point. We hope this helps make a little sense out of the madness （笑）. I think this will be particularly helpful for the 2008 intros which all involve a mini-drama running from Monday to Friday. Enjoy! マーキー