Hey everyone!
I am new to this whole eduFire deal and have yet to start my 1st lesson in Japanese. But in doing some research I did find Koichi (one of the Japanese tutors) has a guide to the top 10 free resources to learning Japanese. I wanted to talk specifically about one called iKnow!. I have been using it for about three days and even though I have no concept of Japanese sentence structure or frankly… anything! It has allowed me to put to memory about 20 commonly used Japanese words using a system containing pictures, typed characters, and oral demonstrations. I just wanted to see if anyone had any thoughts on this website, advantages, disadvantages you know the drill im sure.
Well hope everyone is having a good day!
Alex
p.s. the web address is www.iknow.co.jp

I like Iknow too, However I’ve found that in my first 20 words it’s jumped into kanji and couldn’t understand it. I like the website however I have other things that I prefer to Iknow =)

Haha yea I have a fairly good memory for Foreign languages as I was raised with a nanny who only spoke Spanish, I am a music student, and I own at guitar hero. All of which involve the same side of your brain as retaining and learning a foreign language. I write down all the vocab on note cards which may help you in learning the kanji or at least relating them to phonetics. What are some things you use?

I’ve played Guitar Hero too but I think that’s a different slice of the pie being that Guitar Hero is more reaction based than memory based. In an earlier topic I asked for decent way of learning and remembering languages and I got many interesting responses.

For Hiragana and Katakana (this also helps with handwriting and stroke order), I take a line in my scrap notebook and just write the same character again and again. Eventually I’ll have a page full of a’s, i’s, u’s, e’s and o’s. Sometimes I listen to Japanese music (very catchy stuff) and I watch Jdorama which is fairly enjoyable. I highly reccomend GTO and Gokusen =)

Writing in different sizes was something that also cropped up once and I’ve found that o be quite effective especially for handwriting and learning the characters. Good Luck =)

Arky,
Did you go through each A sounding character for example… A, Ka, Sa, Ta, Na, Ha, Ma, Ya, Ra, Wa?
I could see how that would help you…. Also is GTO and Gokusen music or is it Jdorama (which I am assuming is Japanese Drama?)
Thanks for your advice bro I hope one day we can talk to each other completely in Japanese!
Be excited for that is in the near future!!!!!

thats weird i been using iknow for about 3 weeks but it never jumped to kanji, you can actually use what type you can use, is on the setting.
i like memorizing the picture with the word, so like i would understand and remember the context or how the word is used and then i memorize its most used translations. I dont liek learning exactly what it is, because as far as i see, in japanese is more about context then a straight definition. also try having a jap diary, and trying to make sentences with the words, then checking the grammar.
good luck to all of us, right?

Hey Alex,
Yeah Gokusen and GTO are both JDorama and two of my favourite ones ;)
I look forward to the day when we can all have a conversation that will last more than 10 seconds in Japanese also =)

Also, I would write a line primarily of the ‘A’ character and then a line primarily of the ‘I’ character and so on until I had an entire page devoted to the vowels so to speak. My next page would then consisty of ka, ki, ku etc. until I memorised that. I’ve found this way to be very effective =)

Betzabeth, I wish I could write in enough Japanese to make sentances…. right now what I got memorized could make a sentence saying….
“I start that new job this lots of homes!” haha….
Arky,
Where can I get JDorama? Thanks a bunch for your help I will begin writing down all the character shortly. I all ready made flashcards for each symbol but that didn’t really help.
Good luck to all of us indeed!

http://www.dramacrazy.net/
Theres a very handy site for all asian drama ^^ (including JDorama)
And as for learning the alphabets i just write them down in my spare time as much as possible, i’m not looking forward to starting on kanji! xD

Thanks Luke, hilarious video on youtube btw (thats by the way.)

I use iKNOW as well and its awesome (thanks Koichi). I’ve learned about 130 words so far and the iKNOW learning system makes them really easy to retain. It also helps with speech recognition (iDictation). Its been a great help for Japanese learning experience and I fully recommend it :) I’m actually shocked its free O_O

I also LOVE Jdorama’s. I find them to be a perfect way to surround myself with the language without being in Japan. But I have to check out Gokusen and GTO as recommended by Arky. My fav’s so far have been Hana Yori Dango (1 and 2), Liar Game and Hana Kimi.