Summary

It's difficult to "summarize" the booming expansion that has occurred with the Kaufmann crew since "The Linguist" appeared on Free Language over a year ago. That is why Free Language has numerous articles on the various websites and resources available through multilinguist Steve Kaufmann's web entelechy, including the many LinqQ [liŋk] podcasts, the LingQ method, revisiting The Linguist on Language and why not throw in a little thelinguist.com love, too. :)

This particular podcast is JapaneseLingQ, a roughly weekly podcast with mp3 audio content for Japanese language learners. Transcripts of the podcasts are available through LingQ.

From Website

What is JapaneseLingQ?

First of all, the name itself (which is pronounced Japanese Link) needs a little explaining. The first part, “Japanese”, is fairly obvious since we teach Japanese. LingQ is the name of our online learning system which you can find at LingQ.com. At LingQ you’ll study many different languages in a fun, community atmosphere. The “Ling” in LingQ comes from TheLinguist.com the people behind LingQ. Lastly, the “Q” is important because it forms the speech bubble in our logo and throughout our site and because it makes “lingq” sound like “link” (we think!) which is what our system does for you.

At JapaneseLingQ...

. we LingQ you to a world of real Japanese content
. we LingQ you to our revolutionary learning tools
. we LingQ you to a community of fellow Japanese learners

Our podcasts may contain interviews, articles, or audiobook excerpts but are most often just general conversations in Japanese. We will usually talk about topics of general interest. Please do send us feedback and topic requests. We’re always happy to hear from you.

After you listen to the podcast, sign up for a free account at LingQ (l-i-n-g-q.com) and study the full transcript using LingQ's revolutionary learning tools.

At LingQ, you may also want to submit writing for correction or join live 1 on 1 and group discussions with our tutors. Plus you will find thousands more podcasts with transcript. Come and find out what LingQ is all about!

Of course, even if you don’t decide to become a member, you can continue listening to the podcasts as long as you like.

Visit JapaneseLingQ.com

Subscribe

Subscribe to JapaneseLingQ Podcast.
Subscribe to JapaneseLingQ Podcast via iTunes.

LingQ Podcast Network

EnglishLingQ
FrenchLingQ
GermanLingQ
JapaneseLingQ
PortugueseLingQ
RussianLingQ
SpanishLingQ
SwedishLingQ

Summary

MIT has joined a growing list of universities worldwide in the OCW (OpenCourseWare) Consortium. An OpenCourseWare is "a free and open digital publication of high quality educational materials, organized as courses".

Of interest to language learners is MIT's Foreign Languages and Literatures Department on the MIT OpenCourseWare website. While courses in this department range from "Communicating Across Cultures" and "Japanese Literature and Cinema" to "Topics in South Asian Literature and Culture" and "Expository Writing for Bilingual Students", they do also include specific language education courses. Currently at ocw.mit.edu, OpenCourseWares are available for learning the French, German, Japanese, Mandarin Chinese and Spanish languages.

What makes these truly "free and open" to the general public is the Creative Commons license under which these OpenCourseWares are licensed: The Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Sharealike 3.0 License. In a nutshell, this license gives the public freedom to share, copy, distribute, display and make derivative works of the courses as long as they give proper attribution, do not use it for commercial purposes and "share alike" (under the same license) any new changes or improvements.

This is an exciting project to see! In time, free and "OpenCourseWares" should be available for learning all the world's major languages and, I hope, at least some of the minority languages as well. Bravo MIT and the OCW Consortium!

From Website

MIT OpenCourseWare is an idea—and an ideal—developed, supported, and embraced by the MIT faculty, who share the Institute's mission to advance knowledge and educate students in science, technology, and other areas of scholarship to best serve the nation and the world. In 1999 the Faculty considered how to take best advantage of the Internet to advance education, and in 2000 proposed OCW. The rest is our history...

Link

Visit the MIT OpenCourseWare Foreign Languages and Literatures Department.

Summary

This is a cute and funny podcast where a father and son have a dialog in which they translate funny phrases into English and Japanese.

I have added this in the Learn English as well as the Learn Japanese sections since it can be entertaining to students of both languages.

From Website

I’m an American who has been living in Japan since 1990. My other podcast, Herro Flom Japan, is listened to by hundreds of very nice people around the world. I work in Tokyo but live in Koga, Ibaraki Prefecture.

Tony is my 10 year old son. He likes video games, playing with his friends and his little brother Andy, dodge ball, card-based games and saying anything with the word “poop” in it.

Tony and I like to play a game where one of us says something totally insane and ridiculous in our own native language, and the other has to translate it. This is us, having fun with silly phrases. Caution: Podcasts may contain any of the following words in Japanese and/or English: booger, fart, dingleberry, poop, buttface or wee-wee. (Well, probably not wee-wee.)

Visit the Japlish Podcast.

Subscribe

Subscribe to the Japlish Podcast.
Subscribe to the Japlish Podcast via iTunes.

From Website

Want to learn how to use Sura-Sura Kanji Quizzer? It's easy!

Step 1: Select Kanji

Sura-Sura Kanji Quizzer has hundreds of kanji to display, but usually you'll only want to see a few at a time. Use the Select Kanji section to activate the kanji you'd like to quiz from. If you haven't yet created an account and logged in, you will be given an opportunity to do so.

Several different selection methods are available to help you find the ones you want. You can select by chapter, by difficulty, or by active status. (An active kanji is one that the quizzer might display.) Selecting by active status is useful if you want to activate or deactivate all kanji.

Javascript should be enabled on your web browser for the selection page to work properly. The first time you visit the page, it may take awhile to download all the images, but it will be faster on subsequent visits.

Step 2: Use the Quizzer

The Quizzer section displays kanji from your active list in a random order. Only the information you want to see is displayed. You can move your mouse over the hidden information to reveal it.

If you think you've mastered the displayed kanji, click the "Success" button to deactivate it. (You can always reactivate it later.) If you weren't able to easily remember the hidden information, keep the kanji active by clicking the "Keep Trying" button.

Step 3: Repeat!

Once you've deactivated all your active kanji using the quizzer, pat yourself on the back for a job well done. You'll probably want to try again later to make sure that you really know them all.

Comments

An excellent site for all of your online Kanji practicing needs, this resource is clean, well-designed and incredibly useful.

Visit KanjiQuizzer.com

From Website

This site's purpose:

This site was made to help anyone who is studying Japanese, specifically studying for the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT). if you don't know anything about the test, a good place to start is the Japan foundation of LA (though it is mainly overview and where to apply information). We have more information about the test on this site at about the JLPT.

What this site can do:

The main point of this site is to act as a day-by-day calendar with a new kanji from the level of the test you are studying for. So, registering makes this site much more useful (it is free, painless, and we'll never send it to anyone). When you register the site remembers what level you are studying for, and automatically loads the kanji that will appear on the test you are studying for. Also, any vocab on the vocab list for that level will be displayed below the kanji. If you click on one of the kanji in the vocab list (anywhere on the site) a pop up with the kanji and all of its compounds in the dictionary will appear.

Additionally, you can download the kanji or vocab lists for any level in a html formatted file (you can view them with word or some other word processor program). These will be customizable to the extent of you can choose what you want on your list (ie: kanji, kana, definition or kanji, romaji, part of speech, definition). There is also a Japanese -> English and English->Japanese dictionary and a Kanji dictionary on the right toolbar. Anytime you look up a word or view "Today's Kanji" you can choose to add the vocab/kanji to your personal list. This is usefull when word comes up that you want to remember, you can have quick access to it with your vocab/kanji list.

Comments

An excellent site for learning Japanese kanji, as well as hiragana and katakana.

This is an excellent resource for Japanese learners of all levels.

Visit Kanji-a-Day.com