Almost a month after the move, and I'm still without internet in the new apartment. NTT guys came, landlord said they can't install fiber optic in the walls, so we're bringing it in through the window. You would think that because they don't have to do much installation compared to bringing it up through the walls, that we could get internet quickly. Nope. We don't get the line installed until the 21st. And that will be a fun day as I possibly have classes that afternoon (trial classes that if no one signs up for I don't have to go to!) and the installers might have to deal with my English-only husband. This shall be interesting if I have to go to class and leave him to the insstallers.


And a quick self-promotion (because I just can't help myself), I signed up for a "Dream Photo Shoot" contest. I got the link from The Daily Coyote earlier today and had to sign up. I love photography and would really like to hone my skills one day instead of just taking wannabe photos with a floor model point-and-shoot I picked up cheap at Sears last summer.
Click the badge below and read my dream. And if you are inclined to do so, a vote would be very much appreciated!






Okay, back to work.

Last week I was scheduled to put up a blog on Tuesday, but due to a teacher coming down sick suddenly, I had to take over classes and couldn't get into the office. So you guys get a blog today instead! I was hoping to have more time this month to get in some blogging time, but with the end of the school year, prep for the new school year, TONS of trial lessons, trial students, and starting private lessons for two students on top of my regular classes, I'm pretty much pushed to the limit.

Still, in the hour and a half I have to type right now, I'll try to get in some info about Learn Japanese Free.
While I would say this is a good resource for learning Japanese, I would not make this your main source of information.
It is very simply set up, and easy to navigate. Each topic having it's own link to it's own page. This is the main reason why I say it's a good resource to find information easily.
However, on the very first lesson, Hiragana, there is a major mistake.

Obviously, as there is no explanation of stroke order, this site is designed to help you learn to read and speak Japanese, not write. While the charts of hiragana themselves have no mistakes, and actually cover all of the combinations and diacritical marks making it a wonderful chart to study from, one of their explanations halfway down the page is wrong.
Under the first hiragana chart they list two exceptions to the pronuncation rules they mentioned on the top of the page: one for the subject marker は(ha) and one for the directional marker へ(he). The page has the explanation of " は[ha] is pronounced "wa" when it is immediately follows the subject. It is usually only pronounced "ha" when it is a part of a word" which is correct, but the explantion of へ(he) carries the wrong hiragana.
The website has " [he] is pronounced "e" when it immediately follows a place or direction. Both of these are very simple to detect" as the explanation, but the character listed is ひ(hi) not へ(he). Mixing up ひ and へ is a very common mistake, mainly because how they are pronounced compared to the common romaji reading of both. ひ is pronounced as the English pronoun "he" but is written as "hi" in romaji. へ is prounounced very closely to "hay" but is written as "he" in romaji. Confusing, eh?

The first few lessons of introductions, greetings and intro vocabulary are very, very sparse without much explanation of usage other than definition. While not bad, the last of example sentances or situations to use the vocabulary may be confusing at first. Lesson 4 (vocabulary) includes a link to a second vocabulary lesson. Once again, a lot of useful vocabulary but no explanation, despite having two different words for "this". They also leave out some related vocabulary that is usually taught all at once in most classrooms.

Lesson 5, grammar, is the first page with any real explanations. The page introduced the word order for Japanese sentences, but concentrates more on sentence particles. The main page states that this is a page of minimal grammar points, and boy were they not kidding. While the explanations are easy to understand, there's not a lot said. It's about as minimalistic of an explanation as you can get for the subject markers. If you don't know much about English grammar terminology (like what direct and indirect objects are), you'll be pretty confused.

After this lesson, the order that the beginner lessons continue in doesn't make much sense to me. Instead of trying to tie the learned vocabulary and grammar together with useful phrases (lesson 7), they introduce 16 kanji characters first. Personally, I would have put this AFTER basic grammar, sentence structure, and example sentences have been thoroughly covered and explained. Lessons 8, 9 and 10 give pretty good practice dialogues, except that much of the vocabulary used in the dialogues have not been covered anywhere in the previous lessons. If you have a dictionary on hand this won't be a problem, but for those without, you're on your own for figuring out which word in the Japanese sentence corresponds with the English translation.


Past lesson 10 starts the "intermediate" Japanese lessons, which strangely start with "Basic Japanese Sounds". I don't know about you, but if the title of the lesson contains "basic" it should be under the "basic lessons" section, not intermediate. However, this is by far the best lesson yet. This should have been Lesson 3 right after hiragana and katakana. How you can get this far into teaching Japanese online WITHOUT explaning pronuncation thoroughly is beyond me. If you chose to use this website as a Japanese resource, PLEASE look at Lesson 1 under "Intermediate" before you go to any of the grammar or vocabulary pages. Otherwise you'll get into bad habits of pronouncing things with English pronuncation rather than Japanese. Please, do yourself a favor and learn pronuncation rules before you learn vocabulary. It'll make it so much easier and make you look less like an idiot when you actually try to converse in Japanese for the first time. And just so you know, EVERYONE looks like an idiot the first time they speak Japanese. Learn to laugh at yourself and your mistakes, and move on. I can't begin to tell you how embarrassing it was to get to Japan my first time and realize how horribly my pronuncation was when I first tried to converse.


The rest of the lessons in "intermediate" are things I would consider basic as a teacher. Lesson 2
FINALLY gives detailed explanations of particles, along with examples! It also includes several links to pages detailing Japanese adjectives, pronouns, basic verb conjucations (though this could be more detailed), differences between the verbs "aru" and "iru", the copula "desu", and tenses/politeness forms. The numbers lesson has a few instances where they have the reading for "10" as "jo/joo/jooo" instead of "ju", but is a good start to learning numbers.
Other lessons finally introduce ways to address others, find out names, and also have several links to related topics that may come in handy if dining/shopping in Japan or in Japan on business. Many of the lessons include handy phrases and words you hear often in everyday Japanese conversations.

Overall, a pretty decent basic page. However, there are several mistakes in both the English and in the Japanese throughout the page, so be careful. Out of all the lessons, those in the "intermediate" section are by far the most useful. They offer more detailed information, examples, and cover much more grammar and vocabulary than the "basic" lessons. I wouldn't even consider the basic lessons a "toe in the water" for those wanting to learn Japanese. Other than the hiragana and katakana charts, one could possibly skip over them all and move right into the intermediate lessons, granted they have other sources to learn from as well.

The best pages, by far, of the whole site are the last three links on the page to sites for Japanese songs, downloads (Japanese word processing software and games), and Japanese newspaper sites. If you are really interested in learning more about Japan and Japanese, I totally and completely suggest the four links found here for Japanese newspapers in both English and Japanese. Best way to get an eye into Japan's world from inside Japan from your own home. Many of the newspapers' English sites offer articles written by foreigners in Japan, usually detailing little odd bits of Japanese culture and life that many Japanese themselves don't think twice about.



And while I'd love to write more, especially in detail for the later "intermediate" lessons, I need to run to the grocery store to get dinner stuff before heading to my afternoon classes.
Look for a new blog sometime during the middle of next week!