Japanese Learning Online! Kon Kon!

I have been really, really, really overwhelmed since Week 4 of my Japanese learning adventure. *smile* When I say overwhelmed though, I mean in a good way. Learning Japanese was something that I always wanted to do … dreamed of doing in fact. I always felt that it would be impossible at my age to train my mind to accept a new language, let alone to find the time (and money) to dedicate to a serious pursuit. Thanks to getting my feet wet (and my wallet RAPED) through my 8 week Berlitz course, I have been able to begin realizing my dream as well as be able to find direction in searching for answers on the Internet. Finding answers or Japanese learning resources online without a point of reference for what exactly I needed to start with was a huge stumbling block for me in the beginning. Now that I know what I want to learn, how I want to learn, and what kinds of questions to ask, I am able to pinpoint exactly where to go and what to look for online versus just randomly typing in things without a sense of direction.

Having a structured class like Berlitz has given me a foundation that is actually very significant. At the end of the 8 weeks I will be at easily at Level 1 of Japanese language proficiency which, for me, means that I will be able to hold pretty basic conversations, ask questions, and even write short paragraphs about what I am doing, how I am doing, observations about others, and even some detailed descriptions about things. I have been able to test this theory lately using various amazing and insanely helpful online resources which I will get to in a moment.

I mentioned several times before that one thing I have trouble with at Berlitz is their method of teaching an introduction to a language. I understand that Berlitz is supposed to be immersive and I knew at the beginning I would have trouble with this kind of “in your face” and raw style of learning. I am someone who needs to ask a lot of questions. I signed up for Berlitz because it was the ONLY AVAILABLE STRUCTURED COURSE in my area but a strictly immersive style of learning is not the best for me because if I don’t understand how something works it’s hard for me to apply things to other areas.  For example, in most language learning early levels – especially Japanese – there is a lot of just simple memorizing. Memorize, memorize, memorize, shutup and just memorize. That’s fine for when I am in class but when I get home all I can say is what I learned in class. If I want to branch out and try to create my own sentence structure based on nouns and verbs that I learned in class, I have trouble because we didn’t learn anything detailed about the different particles, different verb conjugation, or sentence structure. My teacher at Berlitz is awesome about answering questions but the reality of Level 1 of Berlitz is that they want you to sign up for all 10 levels so they aren’t really going to explain everything to you at first. Unfortunately, I really need explanations for the way I learn and comprehend things. Once I understand things I can apply them to anything else I want to do. This is where the Internet has really helped me not only to understand more details but also to apply what I am learning.

I am going to discuss two resources that have been INCREDIBLY HELPFUL to me over the past few weeks, so much so that I have been completely neglecting WATCHING ASIAN DRAMA to focus on learning Japanese! These past two weeks have been very exciting for me and I wanted to talk about these two resources here because, for me, these two sites have really come through for me as far as helping me to address ALL OF MY main problems with learning Japanese.

Those problems are:

Ok, first there is Lang-8 …

The incredibly amazing and addictive social website that is taking over my life is NOT FACEBOOK. It’s called Lang-8.com. Lang-8 is like a simple version of Facebook but far more useful and educational. The concept is simple and incredible at the same time.

Here is my profile on Lang-8: http://lang-8.com/60368

On my profile I list my native language as English and the language I am learning is Japanese. Lang-8 provides you with an area that is like a simple blog or diary of sorts where you can post whatever you would like. The twist is that every line of your entry can be corrected by any of the users of Lang-8. So when I write posts in Japanese, or rather, attempt to write in Japanese *grin*, users of Lang-8 can correct my hiragana and also include notes about the corrections. In kind, I can correct the English of any users on Lang-8 who are trying to improve their English. The correction system is super simple. You can use strikeout, red, blue, and bold, to indicate corrections and write your personal notes.

There is a friends list that you can add people to and a section where you can follow the diaries of your friends as well as new Lang-8 users. There is of course a messaging system and many, many, many forums available on multiple topics. You can also create your own forum if you want.

The first thing I did after setting up my profile was post an introduction about myself on the main introduction thread. Following that I looked through my dashboard and found a diary post by a young woman who was trying to improve her English. It happened that this was her first diary entry ever in English and I read it and offered my corrections. Almost immediately she sent me a message thanking me and adding me to her friends list. I have been consistently reading her English entries since and correcting them. Her name is Ayumi and her native language is Cantonese. She also speaks Japanese and is studying English. She currently lives in Hong Kong.

I have met many native Japanese speakers who are learning English on Lang-8 and I write them daily as well as help them with their English entries. I cannot tell you how much I have learned in just the past few weeks. For many years I have had so many cultural questions and never a source to ask about them. On Lang-8, the native Japanese speakers have been so very forthcoming with answers and are encouraging me to ask many questions.  I also recently have been enjoying corresponding with Si Nae, my new friend from Korea, who is also working on improving her English. I have an interest in learning Korean so she has been kind enough to teach me some phrases regularly. We have been writing daily and while her English is still improving, it does take me a while to both respond with corrections and respond with new content. I find I have to wake up very early to account for the 13 hour time difference *smile* because I want her to get my messages before the evening. Corresponding with her has been a great experience and we have a lot in common. She was very surprised to know I was watching so many Korean dramas *smile* She said I am watching more than she is even.

Spending time on Lang-8 I am learning more and more that English is completely stupid *laugh* as a language and it has rules that are just nonsensical *laugh* I’m learning why I enjoy Japanese so much better in a lot of respects. I’m also finding that I don’t really know English very well HAHAHAHA! As I am trying to explain things I find I have to look up a lot of words from my youth that I don’t even really think about anymore like GERUNDS. I haven’t used that word in … hell … I don’t think I ever used that word. I never really THINK about English, I just USE English, and I know I don’t use it that well. I use very creative English to get my points across and most of the time it’s not even close to being grammatically correct *laugh* I am finding that through this process of helping others I am also learning about English … or maybe I should say I am being reminded more about English rules that I use without thinking about why. I would love for my Japanese to become so second nature as well.

I spent easily 9 to 10 hours over the weekend on Lang-8 going through diary entries, correcting English, writing notes, writing my own diary in Japanese, responding to messages from my new friends, and translating pure hiragana messages from some of my Japanese friends. Since I cannot read kanji at all I have asked them to please write me in hiragana so I can practice reading and comprehending. They are all very happy to be teaching me and I find that my reading AND writing of hiragana has improved almost 90% just in the past few days. In my Berlitz class my sensei was surprised at my rapid progress. I told her that for the past week or so I have been reading and writing almost completely in hiragana to 5+ people. (In case any of you reading this want to know, I use NJStar Communicator to switch between English and Japanese writing in Firefox.)

I love Lang-8 and I find it more addicting than watching Asian drama. For me I am learning so much from people all over the world, not just Japan and Korea but also Germany, Australia, and India. I am not only making new friends, but also improving my comprehension of Japanese language and culture. Learning, making friends, sharing knowledge, and helping others … all of this is what Lang-8 is all about and to me there is no better grouping of activities in all the world.

Check out Lang-8! Woot!

Next is Edufire.com …

OMG! Let’s just talk about edufire.com ok? Edufire.com has been an incredible experience for me from MINUTE 2 that I signed up for the site. It took me 1 MINUTE to sign up for the website and at MINUTE 2 I was finding, and signing up for, several FREE Japanese learning lectures.

Edufire.com uses video conferencing technology – namely Adobe Acrobat Connect – to allow teachers and students to interact with one another in real time. Teachers can teach to a room of several students (one of the classes I was in had at least 20) and students, if they have microphones, can respond to the teacher and ask questions. Some of the teachers are just people who have a ton of knowledge about a particular area, some of the teachers ARE PROFESSIONAL TEACHERS, some of the teachers are very strict, some of the teachers are more laid back. Each teacher has a profile where you can read about them, see what classes they are teaching, how many students they are privately tutoring, read testimonials, read their credentials, and more.

When I first went to edufire.com and signed up, I registered for 4 FREE Japanese lecture classes and just for fun I wanted to check out some of the other learning courses including Egyptian. (Yes, Egyptian!) The first Japanese course was happening just about an hour from the time I signed up. It was a Japanese lecture taught by Korey Keen. Korey is a student majoring in Japanese at the University of Kansas.  He often tutors freshmen on campus and he wanted to try tutoring on edufire also. Makes sense to me! On his profile he lists his credentials and experience and also has a video posted that showcases his knowledge, humor, and Japanese language ability.

Here is how that first experience went for me …

Edufire sent me an email reminder that my class would start soon and I went to my dashboard and clicked on the Acrobat Connect link. I have used Acrobat Connect for my own personal video conferencing before so I was already familiar with the interface. When I signed in there were a couple of students already there. They typed into the chat window hello and good evening etc. We chatted casually for a few minutes before Korey arrived. Everyone was friendly and also at different levels. Some people wrote in hiragana, others in romaji, and some just in English. When Korey arrived his face popped up in video and he spoke over the microphone in Japanese. He was very laid back, he kind of has this perpetually tired tone which I find very charming *smile* You could see his dorm room behind him also and I was observing as much as I could about it. He posted a survey in the video conferencing window asking people to select what they wanted to learn and after the poll was complete he began. For the lecture he did not give us “open mic” capabilities because there were so many people and it was just a lecture. He did, however, follow the chat going on and responded to questions posted there.

Listening to Korey was like talking with a friend or just chatting. He was so casual about it and his explanations were clear and creative. Even though I already knew what he was discussing, I learned some new ways of thinking about concepts. I sat in the lecture while sitting at my desk eating dinner and also studying my Japanese homework from class. You know I LOVES ME SOME MULTITASKING! *grin* After the lecture, which lasted 30 minutes, Korey mentioned there was a lab immediately following. It was $5 and I had already signed up for it so after we finished the lecture, I clicked on the new link, and it opened into Acrobat Connect again and there was Korey. This time there were only 4 of us in the class. I’d say maybe 20+ people came to the free lecture and only 4 to the $5 lab. It was fine because we had microphones available and we practiced talking to each other. Korey was helpful with correcting us and answering questions and I was able to learn more about the other students while we communicated in Japanese. The main topic of the lab was “Learning how to order (in a restaurant)” and Korey explained the question and answers and we did some “waiter/customer” roleplay to practice pronunciation and comprehension. It was a lot of fun and it was the first time I had spoken to another person IN Japanese outside of my Berlitz class. Korey was fun and he addressed all of my questions patiently and included everyone equally. Because it was such a small group he was just chatting with us normally.

Korey is a college student and he tutors like one. If you expect some kind of hardcore kind of professional structure then he may not be a good tutor for you. I loved Korey’s lecture and lab. As I said, it was like talking to a friend, very casual but also orderly and detailed as well. I can see many freshmen learning from Korey and having a good time doing it. I love that edufire gives people like Korey a chance to offer their skills and time to people who want to learn. I love the Internet for this reason. It brings Korey, a Japanese major in Kansas, all the way to my computer in Manchester and I can learn from him for $5 and also meet other students. It helps put a little money in his college pocket and also it helps others learn. There is nothing better than that. Korey also offers one-on-one tutoring for $10 an hour. $10 an HOUR!!! Yes I said that. How can you beat that? For practice and learning and getting questions answered …

At Berlitz I pay $40 an hour. So … yeah … HELLO!

I also attended a different class over the weekend taught by Brett Fyfield called “Japanese For Absolute Beginners”. Brett is a professional in Australia. He has a Cambridge Certificate of Teaching English to Adults from the Australian TESOL Training Centre. Also he has passed Japanese Language Proficiency Test Level 2 and lived for 5 years in Japan. On top of teaching at edufire, Brett has a blog which I follow and he writes these AMAZING workbooks for beginning Japanese. I printed the entire workbook and I have been using it actually ALOT. Brett’s class was $5 and 40 minutes long. It was open mic so everyone could speak freely and we practiced greetings and asking questions like where are you from, where were you born, etc. There were many “absolute beginners” in the course from all over the world and it was great to be able to talk with them and practice. Brett was so super friendly and he has a great smile and online presence that was very welcoming. I love his Australian accent also *smile* Brett also offers private tutoring and also exam prep for JLPT, TOEFL, and TOEIC.

Now many of you are probably going … what about the native Japanese teachers? Yes, yes, I know. There are MANY OF THEM, I just happened to choose Korey and Brett because they had classes happening at times I could attend. I have been in touch with several of the native Japanese teachers on edufire also. I am trying to arrange private tutoring which will be AWESOMELY AFFORDABLE for me. I am planning, hopefully, to work with Na Na. Na Na has been recommended to me by several people at edufire.com for Japanese. She is very strict and very structured. Visit her profile at edufire.com and you will be pretty impressed with her credentials, humor, and take on language learning. I hope to be working with her directly very soon once I work out the best time based on the time difference. I am looking for very structured learning as well as casual learning, so a combination of tutors will probably work out best for me.

Oh and let me not forget about SUPERPASS! Superpass is basically that for $30 a month you can sign up for UNLIMITED CLASSES AT EDUFIRE. So if you consider that most classes, aside from the free ones, are $5 or $10, you can easily justify that monthly cost if you are serious about learning. I have signed up for … well … A LOT of classes with many different teachers to see which ones I like the style and quality of. This way I can narrow my classes to one or two particular teachers WEEKLY once I get a feel for everyone. I also have signed up for classes in other areas, not just Japanese, all under the $30 a month pass. I ABSOLUTELY 100% recommend this site to anyone and everyone.

I say GO LOOK AT EDUFIRE! GO NOW NOW NOW if you are serious about learning Japanese or anything else for that matter. Edufire doesn’t just cover languages. It covers many other topics. Anything that people want to teach, you can find there and it is so affordable even college students can use it! I recommended it for my classmate Monika. She has very little time and very little money between school and working. I think this site will be perfect for her. I hope she takes my recommendation. I hope all of my readers do also. And just so you know, I don’t get anything like referal points or something for sending you. I’m telling you my honest experience with edufire.com because it is AWESOME and AFFORDABLE and RELIABLE which is exactly what I need for continuing my Japanese studies seriously.

That’s all for this post!

This weekend I have to really catch up on my drama! *grin*

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