Throughout our lives, most of us have had the values of postponing what we like drilled into us. Dinner, then dessert. For religious people, good deeds then heaven. One of my favorite teachers at college, tells a story in his student development class about how toddlers who forced themselves to not eat a single marshmallow…
How To Use a Japanese Textbook
by khatzumoto
Textbooks for learning Japanese suck. All of them. We could end it right there, but then we would be whiners, and whiners we are not. Whining my feel good at the time, but it’s ultimately just self-destructive. In my humble opinion, it’s far better to be a naive teacher’s pet, doing what you are told…
Sentence Starter Pack 5
by khatzumoto
Here are yet more sentences from/inspired by buying clothes. Also, here are pictures of the tags. Sorry about the resolution, I know these are about as clear as Loch Ness monster photos. Anyway, we’ll take care of it in a later sentence pack. Q: (税込) ￥1000 A: ぜい・こみ せん えん (Tax included) thousend yen ■If you put…
Sentence Starter Pack 4
by khatzumoto
Japan, as you might guess, is a bit of a hotbed of the Japanese language. The natural environment is ripe for sentence-mining. With that in mind, I’ve been taking pictures and collecting random everyday objects (advertisements, cereal boxes), with Japanese in them, to use for sentence-learning. You can do this outside of Japan, too, if…
Dick and Jane, Episode 11
by khatzumoto
Wow! Laziness is hard work! As you know, I’ve been tweaking with ways both to create and display Dick and Jane more efficiently…mostly creation really. Anyway, here’s Dick and Jane in the new, shorter format. And now the text is vertical, for added Japanese realness! The excitement is killer, so try to keep your knickers…
Sentence Starter Pack 3
by khatzumoto
Sorry for the 1-day delay! Here’s another list of sentences based on the second word in the Yale Anime Society List: 愛 (あい, love). Let me know whether or not you like this arrangement. If you do, I’ll just go through and make sentences for all 100 words in the list, that way you’ll get…