nipponkotoba

[nipponkotoba]

えー

450 followers.

嬉しくてびっくりしています。（うれしくてびっくりしています）。

皆さん、どうもありがとう！（みんなさん、～）

[nipponkotoba]

社会・歴史・世界・地理・公民　のディジタル教科書！JP TEXTBOOKS

As promised, there are the Japanese textbooks in my dropbox. I hope they are useful to you! They’re individual links, some are big.  Included is: Society (from 4th to 6th grade), History, World/Geography and Civics. I’m sorry I don’t have the time to fully recheck everything, so I think I put one pdf in more than one folder. Please forgive me for the inconvenience ;~;! If there’s a problem with one of them please tell me so I can replace it. 

社会

４年：X, X, X, X

５年：X, X, X, X, X

６年：X, X, X, X, X

歴史 : X, X, X

地理・世界 : X, X, X, X, X, X, X

公民: X, X, X, X, X

If you want MORE resources for a subject hmu. I can recommend you resources, lectures and videos for the following subjects: politics, international relations, geography, history. I can also help you find jp textbooks on amazon if you want to buy something on these subjects.

喜んで読んでみてください！♥

[nipponkotoba]

First page of week 4.

Sorry it’s all Japanese.But it’s about Trauma.I wrote them down to help myself understand.This is a good way to study,if you really want to understand something.And I managed to find out my conclusion for my presentation.

[nipponkotoba]

Hi I have been studying Japanese for a few years. I have trouble memorizing and learning new and old information. Do you have any references and or books, advice to give? Thank you and I am a big fan of your blog! Keep being awesome!!

☆彡☆彡☆彡☆彡☆彡☆彡☆彡☆彡☆彡☆彡☆

[i would like to apologize for the quality of the language I’m watching a movie while typing this, forgive me ;-;]

Hey @bulbasaur-go-gengar-go ! I hope you’re having a great day!I’ve had the same troubles as you [and sometimes they slightly persist] and what I found was the problem with that is, well, yanno how as learners we’re kind of made to study through normal language textbooks? Well yeah that’s nice for the beginning but I did that for over six years or something, didn’t learn anything [forreal I only remembered greetings] until I [not literally] threw my textbooks away for native material. So please try this, please try to not depend on textual references from your native language D: I just find it that for japanese…its best to not always depend on language books… ok heres my advice, u don’t have to follow, its just how I’ve been learning for a month now and I remember way quicker now in this short month than….from a whole year…

Remembering something: Learning to read it + hearing how its said + reading it out loud + writing it = 🙌 💯

Keep reading

[nipponkotoba]

Le Petit Prince

”わたしは、この本を、あるおとなの人にささげたが、子供たちには、すまないと思う。でも、それには、ちゃんとした言いわけがある。そのおとなの人は、わたしにとって、第一の親友だからである。もう一つ、言いわけがある。そのおとなの人は、子供の本でも、なんでも、わかる人だからである。いや、もう一つ言いわけがある。そのおとなの人は、いまフランスに住んでいて、ひもじい思いや、寒い思いをしている人だからである。どうしてもなぐさめなければならない人だからである。こんな言いわけをしても、まだ、たりないなら、そのおとなの人は、むかし、いちどは子共だったのだから、わたしは、その子供に、この本をささげたいと思う。おとなは、誰も、はじめは子供だった。（しかし、そのことを忘れずにいるおとなは、いくらもいない。）そこで、わたしは、わたしの堅持を、こう書きあららめる。”

-  レオン・ウェルト

[nipponkotoba]

Yay

Sometimes you just need a happy piece of motivational toast to start the day out right!

[nipponkotoba]

Awesome resource!

[nipponkotoba]

I have no plan where to start! (self studying a language with course book edition)

I get this question about 3times in a week: Where do I start? I mean to me it’s clear that such problems exist. If you want to do something in your own, it requires so much planning and knowledge to know how you can get good results. And just starting to learn vocabulary by heart won’t make you a good learner either. Here is my guide on where to start if you want to learn a language. For this example, I’ll take the Japanese language.

The steps

Get an overview of the language

Search for more resources

(Start with the writing system)

Follow your course books

Work with additional material

1. Get an overview of the language

In step 1, you’ll get closer in touch with the language you’ve chosen. That means that you go to google, and type in for example “Japanese introduction”, or “Japanese overview”, or even “Introduction to Japanese”. It will give you a very slight sneak peek into what you’re going to stumble across. This helps you to get rid of the first confusion. Important is that you read EVERYTHING you can get into your hands. Means videos, ebooks, pictures. Here are some examples:

A brief introduction to the Japanese language

Japanese language

Japanese writing system

And also google different techniques to learn Japanese. This will help you to learn from others and to make yourself a picture, how this process may look like

How to learn Japanese

Is Japanese hard to learn

Guide to Japanese

2. Search for more resources

Okay, since this is the course book version, we’ll google for different course book. 

10 Great books for self studying Japanese

The 15 Best Books to Learn Japanese for Any Skill Level

If you’ve found one you might be interested in, search for reviews NOT on Amazon and NOT on the author’s site. You will get honest opinions (probably most of the time) and you won’t find the authors writing good reviews for their own products. If you’ve decided on one book, buy it.

The book I used for Japanese: Japanese from zero

But additionally we will also search for other resources, additional ones which will help us to build on our knowledge and eventually that we can test ourselves. 

How to learn Japanese (online and free)

Japanese resources 

Japanese resources #2

3. Start with the writing system

Then I suggest you to start with the writing system. It will be introduced with a probability of 90% as the first thing in your language course book, but if it’s not the case, start with it already before. If you’ve done your research good, you’ll be able to find a link in your folders to a page which teaches Hiragana and Katakana. Learn it (to write and read).

4. Follow your course book

Okay and here I’ll explain why I suggest 1st time self studiers to start with a course book: Self studying a language is hard, because you don’t have anybody to lead you through the dark forest. And you might go left and right, but perhaps you’ll not end up where you want to be. The basic foundation just needs numbers, presentation, saying where the direction is etc. If you do this on your own, it can happen that you overlook something or don’t do it properly.

 If you have a course book, there are lessons which will provide you with this basic foundation, IF the book is well written. So therefor, try working with a course book for the first time. Your goal is now to finish the book. Don’t work like you’re sitting in class and you’ll have a test about it. That’s the false reason to do it. Study as if you’re going to live there one day and many many people are going to tell you beautiful stories, and of course you want to tell your own too.

There’s one more point I have to include here, which leads us to 5: While you’re working in PHASE 4, you’ll be also working the whole time on point 5

5 Work with additional materials

Books will teach you one way, everything else will teach you another way. Your job is to work on vocab, a bit grammar perhaps, listening, writing and speaking besides working yourself through the book. You will use the material which you’ve found in step 2. I will give you some examples how you might work:

Speaking

Find a native speaker 

Imitation of TV actors and actresses

Sing along song texts

Writing

Write in a journal

Write on Twitter

Create a blog and write in this language there

Search for platforms where you can upload your work to be corrected

Reading

Read children books

Read newspaper

Read on Twitter posts

Google things in this language

Listening

Listen to music

Watch Youtube videos

Watch news

I want to stress the fact that the last 4 things are so important. You can go through a textbook in 1 week, but if you don’t train your tongue and mind to follow you, you’ll not be fluent. 

Those are the steps which I go to self study a language. You can see how important it is to be able to find informations on the internet and use them. I hope you can use this and perhaps, if you’d like to know more about this topic, visit my Self studying languages masterpost.

Many wishes <3

[nipponkotoba]

True in so many respects. Don't blame yourself.

A post about procrastination from a person who actually knows what she’s talking about

I’m sure all of you have seen at least one of those posts where people who cleary aren’t procrastinators tell you to ‘just stop procrastinating’ or ‘to focus on your goals’ or ‘get a grip’. Saying stuff like that to actual procrastinators is like telling someone if they want to fly, all they have to do is to just look at the sky and waggle their arms.

This post, on the other hand, is about helping you to understand what the problem is and what you can do to change it. I was in therapy for procrastination and I’ll share with you what worked for me. Everything I tell and recommend you here is based on my own experience and research.

First of all, let me tell you one thing. Procrastination is not laziness. It’s as simple as that. Being lazy is a bad habit, procrastinating is a serious mental problem.

WHAT IS PROCRASTINATION

In my own words: procrastination is the inability to do stuff. Stuff you don’t want to do as well as stuff you do want to do. And not because you’re lazy, not because you don’t have enough time, but because you simply cannot bring yourself to do it. It’s not fun, it’s not relaxing - it’s terrible. 

Besides the huge pile of unrealistic shit, there are some good articles out there that actually explain what procrastination is. Tim Urban wrote a series of blog posts about this [x x x] on wait but why in which he does a really good job of describing and explaining what procrastination is all about. 

In another really good article by David Cain I found a quote that struck me to the core because it was so true.

You see, procrastinators tend to be people who have, for whatever reason, developed to perceive an unusually strong association between their performance and their value as a person. This makes failure or criticism disproportionately painful, which leads naturally to hesitancy when it comes to the prospect of doing anything that reflects their ability — which is pretty much everything.

I urge you to read that article. It’s a very sensible approach to what procrastination is and how it develops as a behavioral pattern.

HOW TO BEAT PROCRASTINATION

The first thing you need to understand is to face this issue, is that it’s not going to go away. It is something that you’ll have to face every day. But it will also get easier every time you face it.

start small - The task my therapist gave my was to do 45 minutes of studying a day. Not even one hour. And believe me, I struggled a lot with this. Doing something (i.e. stuying) every day is hard, so don’t sabotage yourself with taking on too much to soon. Some sense of achievement is essential for your motivation to keep fighting.

plan ahead (but not too far) - like you probably all know, planing and breaking down tasks is, like, the most important thing if you want to achieve something. But the thing is, if you plan for two weeks in advance, the amount of tasks waiting for you will overwhelm you. For me personally, planing two or three days in advence works best. You can always experiment a bit to find out what works best for you.

starting ritual - this one of the most important things my therapist taught me. Develop a ritual to get you started. Starting is the hardest part and to help yourself with it, do a few tasks to get you in the right mindset for studying. Shut off your phone, make some tea, tell your bestie you’re studying now, wipe your desk clean, light a candle, prepare some snacks. Do whatever works for you. Be consistent with it and do it every time before you start studying. But! These rituals are not aloud take more than 10-15 minutes because if they’re longer, they will turn into a procrastination habit.

talk to yourself - I’m serious. You need to understand that only you decide what you’re doing. And sometimes, you need to tell yourself that. Out loud. It sounds strange, but it works wonders. (My personal mantra is ‘Only I decide what I do with my time. I am the one who decides what I do.’)

forgive yourself - you’re not always going to win. there will be days where you fight and fight yourself but you still loose. Those days feel terrible, but please try to remember that it’s okay. Don’t beat yourself up about it. Just tell yourself that you will:

start again - maybe you lost a day, maybe a week, maybe a month. The point is: it doesn’t matter. All that matters is starting again. It might be harder than you remember, but getting up again is the most importat part.

I didn’t include tipps on how to actually study in this post because there are so many people out there who can tell you about this a lot better than I ever could. I’ll link you to some of my favorites here, here and here. 

I really hope this post was helpful for some of you. If you are battling procrastination, please know that you’re not alone. It will get easier, but I still struggle, too. If you want someone to talk to, my inbox is always open.

[nipponkotoba]

KIK Chats For Language Learners

These are the language groups started by @linguisticnerd. They are KIK chat groups where polyglots and lovers of language can come together and speak foreign languages with other like-minded students and native speakers. Download the KIK app, type in any of these hashtags into the search bar and feel free to join them to study your language of choice! (If one of the chats is full, simply add a 2 3 or 4 to the end; there should be a slightly less full chat waiting for you! (Also, please refrain from making your own chat. If you want to create a chat for a language that is not yet supported, please contact me explicitly-me or Liv linguisticnerd and we’ll be sure to add it for you!)

General Language Chat - #tumblrlanguages(2)(3) (Chats designed to talk about language, language learning, and all things polyglot)

Conlanging Chat - #tumblrconlanging (A place to talk about conlanging, and to discuss ideas and creations)

Programming - #tumblrprogramming (A place to talk about programming languages, and to discuss ideas and creations)

ROMANCE LANGUAGES

Spanish - #tumblrespanol(2)(3)(4)

French - #tumblrfrancais(2)(3)(4)

Portuguese - #tumblrportugues(2)

Italian - #tumblritaliano(2)

Romansh - #tumblrromantsche

Romanian - #tumblrromana

Catalan - #tumblrcatala

Latin - #tumblrlatina

GERMANIC LANGUAGES

German - #tumblrdeutsch(2)(3)(4)

English - #tumblrenglish

Swedish - #tumblrsvenska(2)

Dutch - #tumblrnederlands

Icelandic - #tumblrislenska

Norwegian - #tumblrnorsk

Danish - #tumblrdansk

Swiss German - #tumblrschwizerdutsch

NATIVE AMERICAN LANGUAGES

Ojibwe - #tumblrojibwe

Lakota - #tumblrlakota

Cherokee - #tumblrtsalagi

SLAVIC LANGUAGES

Serbo-Croat - #tumblrsrpskohrvatski

Russian - #tumblrrusskiy(2)

Polish - #tumblrpolski

Czech - #tumblrcestina

Bulgarian - #tumblrbulgarski

EAST ASIAN LANGUAGES

Mandarin Chinese - #tumblrzhongwen(2)

Korean - #tumblrhangugin

Japanese - #tumblrnihongo(2)(3)

Thai - #tumblrthai

Vietnamese - #tumblrtiengviet

Cantonese Chinese - #tumblrgwongdongwa

INDIAN LANGUAGES

Hindi - #tumblrhindi

Malayalam - #tumblrmalayalam

Punjabi - #tumblrpanjabi

Sanskrit - #tumblrsamskrtam

MIDDLE EASTERN LANGUAGES

Arabic - #tumblrarabiyah

Persian - #tumblrfarsi

Pashto - #tumblrpashto

Hebrew - #tumblrivrit

CELTIC LANGUAGES

Irish - #tumblrgaeilge

Welsh - #tumblrcymraeg

Scottish Gaelic - #tumblrgaidhlig

WEST ASIAN LANGUAGES 

Turkish - #tumblrturkce

Georgian - #tumblrqartuli

Armenian - #tumblrhayeren

AUSTRONESIAN LANGUAGES

Indonesian - #tumblrbahasaindonesia

Hawaiian - #tumblrolelohawaii

Tagalog - #tumblrtagalog

CONLANGS

Esperanto - #tumblresperanto

Toki Pona - #tumblrtokipona

OTHER ETC.

Basque - #tumblreuskara

Greek - #tumblrellinika

African American Vernacular English - #tumblraave

Finnish - #tumblrsuomi

Hungarian - #tumblrmagyar

Lithuanian - #tumblrlietuviu

Haitian Creole - #tumblrkreyolayisyen

Swahili - #tumblrkiswahili

American Sign Language - #tumblrasl

The basic chats are for new language learners. They are filled with other beginners, and are a perfect place to ask questions and have more basic conversations. Also, each one of them has a native speaker to answer your questions.

NOVICE CHATS

#tumblrbasicspanish

#tumblrbasicfrench

#tumblrbasicrussian

#tumblrbasicswedish

#tumblrbasicchinese

#tumblrbasicjapanese

#tumblrbasicirish

[nipponkotoba]

Let the language acquisition begin!

Linguistic approaches to language learning: link roundup

I suppose it’s okay to admit after three years of linguistics blogging that I actually am one of those linguists who speaks quite a few languages, and I’ve studied even more at various levels. Here are some of my favourite posts about language learning:

Tips for learning another language

7 ways to fake-pronounce any foreign language

How to learn vocabulary in 12 steps (using science!)

Up-goer five, Taboo and language learning

How to learn a third language (while keeping your second one)

12 ways to stop freezing up when you try to speak a second language

How second language acquisition works

Why can’t adults learn languages like children? (video with Tom Scott)

Finding “lost” languages in the brain

Learning languages without conscious effort

How to teach old ears new tricks

Speaking to babies, pets, and language learners

Learning Indigenous languages

Should linguists or non-Aboriginal people learn Aboriginal languages?

Benefits of Indigenous language learning

Roadblocks to effective Indigenous language development

OLA - Oral Language Acquisition

CoLang and Breath of Life

Learning less popular and minority languages when resources are hard to find

How to teach when the teacher isn’t fluent

How to make learning materials for conversation and document at the same time

Sk̲wx̱wú7mesh language revitalization house

Languages and linguistics

Why linguists get annoyed when you ask how many languages they speak

Will learning a second language help me learn linguistics?

Will learning linguistics help with learning a second language?

Bonus fun link: Now You’re Just A Language That I Used To Know (parody of that Gotye song).

[nipponkotoba]

Yayyy

Japanese language is a unique language in its way of writing. It is divided into three main sections: Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji. The first one is used write words made in Japan or the reading of Kanjis. The second one is used to write specially loan words from other countries. Kanji, what this blog is dedicated on, is used to write most of the words in Japanese for nouns, parts of adjectives and verbs.

While hiragana and kanji words can be pretty easy to pronounce, Katakana may give you a hard time. In fact, it’s like learning a totally different language than Japanese. Katakana will be hard especially for people who don’t have a basic understanding of English words since most of the words are taken from that language.

However, even for an English speaker it may be challenging to catch some Katakana words. Sometimes they are English words and not at the same time. As a person who loves etymology, Katakana words is like a new ocean to explore for me. Since it exactly tells you what words are not originally Japanese, I’m always curious to see where they come from and its history behind them. So let’s sail on the etymology boat and learn about some strange katakana words that lies behind this ocean.

パソコン: personal computer. It is an abbreviation from the two words　パーソナルコンピューター

アルバイト: part time job. From the german word Arbeit meaning “working”

カラオケ: karaoke. From the japanese Word から for “empty” and the beginning of the japanese Word for orquestra オーケス��ラ

ホチキス: stapler. From the company that introduced staplers to Japan called “Hotchkiss”

ピエロ: clown. From the French word “pierrot”

サイン: signature. Abbreviation of the same word.

ドライバー: screwdriver. The same word without the “screw”

パン: bread. From Portuguese “pao”

ウイルス: virus. From the latin word

アンケート: questionnaire. From the French word “enquête”

ノルマ: quota. From the Russian word “norma”

フロント: front desk. From the word “front”

レンジ: microwave. From the word “cooking range”

レントゲン: x-rays. From the person who created X-rays Wilhelm Conrad ‘Röntgen’

ジョッキ: beer-mug. From the English word “jug”

オーエル: office lady. From the abbreviation of the word “OL”

クレーム : claim. (when I saw it the first time, I thought it meant cream lol)

シール : sticker. From the English “seal” 

マント : cloak. From the French word “manteau”

マンション: upper-market apartment. Nope, it’s not mansion. 

パンク : flat tire. From “puncture”

This is just the tip of the iceberg. But I hope this helps to introduce you to the world of katakana and some of the strange words you may find. 

Sources:

http://www.tofugu.com/2009/06/25/strange-katakana-words/

http://gakuu.com/curious-katakana-words-1/

[nipponkotoba]

List of Adjectives on Japanese

Red: あかい（赤い）Akai

New: あたらしい（新しい）Atarashi

Hot: あつい（暑い）Atsui

Thick: あつい（���い）Atsui

Sweet:あまい（甘い） Amai

Good:いい Ii

Thin: うすい　Usui

Noisy: うるさい　Urusai

Many: おおい（多い）Ooi

Large: おおきい（大きい）Ookii

Heavy: おもい（重い）Omoi

Interesting: おもしろい　Omoshiroi

Light: かるい（軽い）Karui

Dirty:　きたない（汚い）Kitanai

Strict: きびしい　Kibishii

Attractive: きれい（な）Kirei(na)

Healthy: げんき（な）（元気な）Genki(na)

Quiet: しずか（な）（静か（な））Shizuka(na)

White:　しろい（白い）Shiroi

Kind:　しんせつ（な）（親切（な））Shinsetsu(na)

Few:　すくない（少ない） Sukunai

Small in area: せまい（狭い）Semai

Hated: だいきらい（な）（大嫌い（な））Daikirai(na)

Favorite: だいすき（な）（大好き（な））Daisuki(na)

Expensive: たかい　(高い）Takai

Small:　ちさい（小さい）Chisai

Near: ちかい（近い）　Chikai

Boring:つまらない Tsumaranai

Far: とおい（遠い）Tooi

Long:ながい（長い） Nagai

Lively:にぎやか（な）Nigiyaka(na)

Low: きくい（低い）Hikui

Spacious:ひろい（広い） Hiroi

Inconvenient:ふべん（な）（不便（な）） Fuben(na)

Old:ふるい（古い） Furui

Convenient:べんり（な）（便利（な）） Benri(na)

Short:みじかい（短い） Mijikai

Bad tasting:まずい Mazui

Serious:まじめ Majime

Difficult:むずかしい（難しい） Muzukashii

Easy:やさしい（優しい） Yasashii

Inexpensive:やすい（安い） Yasui

Famous:ゆうめい（な）（有名（な）） Yumei(na)

Young:わかい（若い） Wakai

Bad:わるい（悪い） Warui

[nipponkotoba]

egg

[nipponkotoba]

Textbooks:

A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar

A Dictionary of Intermediate Japanese Grammar

A Dictionary of Advanced Japanese Grammar

Read Real Japanese Fiction

GENKI: Integrated Elementary Japanese I and II [beginners]

An Integrated Approach to Intermediate Japanese

Basic Connections: Making Your Japanese Flow

Tobira (Gateway to advanced Japanese)

TextFugu [an online textbook]

Heisig’s Remembering Kanji

Basic Kanji Book Vol.1

Kanji in Context

Shadowing: Let’s Speak Japanese! (Beginner to Intermediate Level)

Japanese The Manga Way

Making Out in Japanese [for informal/vulgar language]

Minimum Essential Politeness: Japanese Honorific

Online and Phone Dictionaries:

ALC (I use this everyday) →Expression encyclopaedia

Goo dictionary

Weblio

WWWJDIC (with audio clips) + for Android phones (incl. handwriting)

JWPce (downloadable dictionary for Windows)

JEDict (downloadable for Mac users)

Idiomatic Expressions

Idioms dictionary [Japanese only]

Counters dictionary

Hovering dictionaries:  →Rikaikun for Chrome →Rikaichan for Firefox →Floating Dictionary for Mac

Current Affairs dictionary

Tangorin

Imiwa? (a dictionary for the iPhone)

Tagaini Jisho (downloadable for Windows, Mac and Linux)

Nihongodict (also an app. for iPhone and Android phones)

For kanji.

Jisho (I use this for spelling kanji for if I can’t read it)

Yamasa (I use this for learning to write)

A Guide to Remembering Japanese Characters

Associative Kanji Learning (stroke orders)

Handwritten kanji search

WaniKani (reviewed and explained here)

Online reading:

Hukumusume Fairytales

竹取（Bamboo-Cutting） (vertical writing)

吉田秀幸の日記（Hideyuki Yoshida’s Diary） (recipes)

Chokochoko’s reading texts to help with JLPT

TED Talks (with Japanese subtitles and transcripts)

Learning through Films [Japanese subtitles/scripts]

Blue Sky Library (public domain books, explained here)

Manga.

Free online manga

Vomic (free online manga with voice actors)

Sound Effects (in manga, etc)

Improving your speaking:

Japanese pronunciation guide

Interactive Hiragana Pronounciation table

Topics for Language Exchanges.

Bubbly (a Twitter-like app where you can record yourself)

Audioboo (similar to Bubbly, but also a website)

My Language Exchange [to find a language partner]

Japanese Kana (Chrome app)

Listening:

“Real World” Japanese

My Kikitori

Reading & Writing practice:

Lang-8

Japan-Guide [for getting Japanese penpals]

Read, Write, Learn: Macaronics

原稿用紙の使い方 (How to write an essay with Japanese writing paper)

Shiritori (Japanese word-chain game)

iTalki [similar to Lang-8]

手書きブログ (Blogging by hand)

ChatPad (Japanese chatroom site)

Real Kana practice

News:

NewsWeb Easy

NHK News (audio news with speed controls)

Mainichi Primary School student Newspaper

Podcasts and radio:

JOQR (Cultural Broadcasting)

TBS Radio’s Junk

TOKYO FM

CSRA fm(+ App for Android)

JIN Radio (bilingual)

Radio dramas

Medicine in Times of Tears

My Home, My Life

The Infirmary for 17-year-olds

YouTube:

Afternoon Hirusagari

Jet Daisuke

バイリンガール英会話

Analog TV Forever (collections of adverts)

Real Japanese Studio

Japancast

Tofugu

Japanese Let’s Play gamers

サイエンスチャネル

TheWannabeBC

Gaijin Goombah

Genki Lessons

Japanese sign language.

Heartful Power Hideo

Shuwa Island

TV:

Japanese subtitles for anime

KeyHole TV (to stream Japanese TV and radio)

風雲LIVE日本語（Feng Yun LIVE Japanese） (to stream TV)

映画で学ぶ実践英会話

Tumblr:

Kanji-a-Day

Holy crap Japanese

Nihongo ga Suki

Jumpstart Japanese

Nihongolog

Japanese Idioms

Nadine Nihongo

That Japan Addict

ChilliMuffin

Japanese through Fandom

F-Yeah Native Japanese

J-Vocab of the Day

ぶらりめし [Japanese only]

Peaceful Chef [Japanese only]

Kumako365jp

Japanese Revision (my blog for intermediates)

Those who are studying in Japan

My Japan Travels (Yokohama National University)

Mechakuchajan (Osaka University)

Hola-Itza (Meiji Gakuin)

The Disaster Chronicles (Toyo University) [wordpress]

Welcome to Moonside (University of Kitakyushu)

2012 - 2013 exchange students

Japanicking in Yamanashi (at Yamanashi University)

Samxuel (at Kyushu Sangyo)

Katy in Japan Town (at NUFS)

Chocotastie (at Seinan Gakuin)

Kim in Sapporo (at Hokkaido University)

Yeonhwa Japan (Chuo University)

Mago Mago (Ritsumeikan University)

Marta in Japan (Waseda University)

Working as part of the JET Programme

A Girl in Japan

Ramandab in Sapporo-shi

Ikemasu

Boukendan desu

Blogging:

Yaplog

Ameba

Learning websites:

JapaneseClass.jp

The Japanese Page

JapanesePod101

Tae Kim’s Guide to Learning Japanese

Erin’s Challenge (with listening and reading practice)

Maggie Sensei

Tofugu

All Japanese All The Time

Japanese Level Up

Learning Japanese with Lingualift

JPLang

Yes Japan!

Marugoto: Japanese Language & Culture

Other resources:

Lots of threads with a variety of resources for Japanese learning

JLPT Resources

Top 100 learning resources via Lingualift

Anki (flashcards for your computer, phone and online) →Yomichan (plug-in for Anki)

Common things said by cashiers

Quizlet (flashcards)

DJT and Okra’s pastebins (lots of resources and textbooks for download, etc)

Japanese.Livejournal (including tips on using IME)

Human Japanese (for PC and phones, excl. Linux)

Study Groups

Help with Japanese via StackExchange

[nipponkotoba]

Is there a difference between から and ので other than how formal they are? I just don't see the latter used nearly as much.

The main difference is から tends to be used subjectively and ので objectively, and から can be followed immediately by だ・です but ので cannot. japanese.about.com has a nice explanation of から vs ので with lots of examples sentences. There’s another brief explanation by a Japanese teacher in Japanese here.

However, it’s important to take note of how native speakers use it as well. For example, here you can see there are native speakers disagreeing over the usage of から vs ので described in the “A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar” book which is “node cannot be used and kara must be used [… when …] the main clause is a command, request, suggestion or invitation”. 

Personally I disagree with this as well. In a polite request I prefer to use ので as it has a more detached feel and so it doesn’t feel like you’re pushing your opinion strongly onto the other person.

I hope this has helped!

[nipponkotoba]

Basic Katakana syllabary.  Feel free to print, save, and use for study.