Genki Japan Blog はじめまして。

I told you I wasn’t gone for good! Today I’m going to be mostly bashing Rosetta Stone’s language learning software. This review goes for Rosetta Stone whether you’re learning Japanese or any other language that this software purports to teach. It purports to teach because Rosetta Stone is particularly bad at teaching anything, except how to look at pictures and repeat words. It’s aimed mostly for travelers, but doesn’t really get you conversing, and it’s expensive to boot. Really, there’s only a couple things it does well, but this isn’t enough to make up for all the failing this software does. If anyone from Rosetta Stone actually reads this, please use the criticism to improve your software! You probably already know that Rosetta Stone teaches you language easily, right? I mean, that’s what the advertisements always tell us! What Rosetta Stone tells us and what it actually does are like night and day, but if you really don’t know much about Rosetta Stone, here’s what allegedl...

It was the showdown of a century, but not really. Everyone made a big deal out of Joey Chestnut as usual, which I don't quite understand. I have a hard time watching Joey eat, as he looks like he's about to puke with ever bite he takes. Anyway, they gave him the whole "American Hero" treatment, mentioned that everybody, save for me, was counting Kobayashi out of this contest since he lost last year, etc. Anyway, when the eating started, it was pretty obvious that Kobayashi wasn't doing well. I read earlier that he has TMJ, which makes chewing extremely painful, and earlier in the program, he mentioned that his new stradegy was to inhale the bread to eliminate chewing. This plan obviously didn't work. Skipping forward, Kobayashi never really took the lead this match. He was always two or three hotdogs behind, but it doesn't matter, as Kobayashi kicked Chestnut's butt in pizza eating earlier this year!

It's that time again! No, not time to spin the Wheel of Morality, but time to watch the Hot Dog Eating Contest! Full coverage coming soon! Hopefully, it'll be a win for Takeru Kobayashi. Jeez, what a short post. I should probably apologize for a lack of updates as well. I've been suffering from major computer difficulties in the form of vurtumonde virus, and I may have to do a repair install to get my system up and running good again. It was a pain in the but to remove, so thanks to out to Malwarebytes for helping me in that regard, although I'm pretty sure there are still a few traces of it left, seeing as how system restore is still disabled. As such, updating these blogs has been difficult, but hopefully things will pick up soon. Check back often!

This is another free tool to get you started with the basics of Japanese grammar. This is actually how I first started learning, you know, when I was 14 and had no earthly idea how I was going to actually be able to find great resources for learning and there actually wasn't a whole lot on the Internet at the time. That tool is Japanese-Online . Japanese-Online has changed a lot since I was on there last. The basic drill goes like this: read a conversation in both Japanese (written in romajii for the first few lessons) and English. Go through the vocabulary list, work through the grammar lesson, then answer the questions at the end. It's very easy to understand, the biggest difference between the site now and 9 years ago is that the vocabulary list has shrunken considerably. Other than that, it's a great way to get the feel for the language before you dedicate yourself to it. Oh yeah, you have to register on there to get the lessons, but it's absolutely free. The...

Plot Overview: I’m afraid of giving too much away. Vash is a man who’s wanted for 6 billion dollars for the destruction of July city. Even though people say he destroyed July, no one was killed. There’s a lot of philosophy and morals. Plus, this is one anime that has strong Christian beliefs. If you like to have to really work to figure out a character’s psychology in order to learn why a character behaves the way he or she does, then this is for you! However, it doesn’t do it in a tricky way, like, say Paranoia Agent or Serial Experiments Lain . It’s an action-packed show that doesn’t rely solely on watching our protagonist invent new fighting moves to win the day. Artwork: The artwork is okay. There’s a lot better in other anime, but that shouldn’t discourage you from watching this. The character designs are great; especially Legato’s. The only problem is that sometimes it doesn't look as great as it could. Vash's design is great, and it's easy to pick him out amongst ...

I decided to do something random today and post some of the dances from anime, video games, etc. Why? Because I feel like it. Don't ask that question. Okay, if you really must know, I was going to write a semi-political critique of Japan's crappy education system, but then I went on Youtube and felt my braincells die one by one. As such, I'll wait until the ramen I just age reinvigorates them! The first video (above, obviously) is from The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya , and the song is called "Hare Hare Yukai". Everybody knows this one. They perform it at conventions, random public places (I'm glad I live in a small town!), and just wherever they want to. If you don't know this dance, you probably live in a hole. Just kidding. You just haven't seen the anime, don't go to conventions, and don't use Youtube. This is the opening to the crappy game, Final Fantasy X-2 . I've never seen it in English and I don't really want to. Final Fantas...

Today, I'll be looking at two video tapes designed to teach beginner's Japanese. I actually prefer to learn with books, select software, websites, and Pimsleur, leaving video lessons out of the picture, but I have to admit that there are some really good ones. There's also some really bad ones. What I'm doing today is looking at one of the best I've come across and one of the worst. The contestants: Yan-San and the Japanese People aka Let's Learn Japanese and NHK Japanese Lessons . Both of these videos are made by the NHK, but Yan-San and the Japanese People (pictured above) is the better of the two videos, and for obvious reasons. It's used in classrooms that teach Japanese and does a good job of explaining Japanese conversation. I think it's primary focus is for living in Japan, and it does a really good job of teaching basic spoken Japanese, unlike another video I'll be talking about. So, what's so great about Yan-san? First of all, the ski...