Learning Japanese

POSTED BY DANNY CHOO On Thu 2009/07/30 08:55 JST in Living in Japan Guide
Update:- Discount coupons for DC readers as follows - thanks to the CEO of White Rabbit Press:-
Add our 'WRP Kanji Wall Poster' to your cart and use this coupon for a 25% discount:
DANNYCHOO_KP25
Add 'Japanese Kanji Flashcards, Volume 1 (Third Edition)' to your cart and use this coupon for a 25% discount:
DANNYCHOO_KF25
Add the CD version (not the download version) of our 'TOKYO REALTIME: Kabukicho audio guided tour' to your cart, and use this coupon for a 25% discount:
DANNYCHOO_TRT
http://www.whiterabbitpress.com/
During my very first days of learning Japanese without the Internets, I looked up words in a paper dictionary - nothing wrong with that - it just took time. It wasn't until I was about to leave uni where I was able to get an electronic dictionary like one of these Canon Wordtank that enabled me to look up and learn words quicker.
Before I joined Amazon, I had a short stint at a recruitment company called Job Dragon where I worked as a web developer. I worked with somebody called Max who then went on to start his own company White Rabbit Press where he sells and manufacturers Japanese learning materials.
Caught up with Max recently and nabbed some stuff from him that I thought you'd be interested in - I want to keep the Wordtank for myself though ^^;
First up is an Audio guided tour of Kabukicho. If you are in to bright lights, boisterous crowds, less-dressed girls, loud touts and discretely guarded doors then this is the book for you.
Next up is this Kanji Wall Poster that contains all of the Joyo Kanji - the most common 1926 kanji that you need to get around comfortably in Japan.
Didnt have anything like this in my days learning Japanese so I made my own.
Whoever wins this should stick it in the toilet like I did when I was a wee lad. You get to absorb and learn kanji while taking a pee or poo - kill two or three birds with one stone - or in this case a clump of poo?
Next up are Kanji Flash Cards. The best way to learn is to take a few random cards with you on the way to work or school and read them out aloud when on the train. Humans learn quick through humiliation.
So up for grabs today is the Kabukicho book, Kanji wall chart and the Flash cards. I've always wanted to thank my Twitter followers and want to do so today by offering this giveaway exclusively to them.
If you are not following my Twitter then you can still just signup/follow and you will be able to participate too. I'ts difficult to offer to only current Twitter followers because I cant see when people started to follow me - so the only thing I can do is open this to anybody who follows me.
All you have to do to win the goodies is to guess what time the below photo was taken.
All the clues you need are in the photo but I'm feeling generous so here is a clue:-
The mango pudding that I ate was very puni puniMuwahaha.
Rules:-
-You must have a Twitter account and be following me.
-You must tweet your answer and not leave it in the comments of this post as they will be ignored.
-Tag your answer with "#DC0730Giveaway" and bookmark the status url like
http://twitter.com/dannychoo/status/2925527117
You need to tag it which enables me to see all answers so far.
-So for example, if you think that this photo was taken at 5pm in the evening then your tweet would be like:-
#DC0730Giveaway 17:00 @dannychoo
You need to bookmark your twitter status url to claim your prize.
-You do not need to tweet the url of this giveaway unless you want to. This giveaway is to thank my Twitter followers and not about spamming for new followers.
-You got until Monday 3rd JST to answer.
-You can only answer once.
-I will announce the winner only on my Twitter.
-Winners should message me through Twitter with their URL. I will forward your mail onto White Rabbit Press and they will send you your goodies directly.
-Whoever answers correctly gets the lot. If 3 people answer correctly then they split it. If no body gets it right then the nearest person wins.
-Arms installation is complete - good luck!