Some of you may know I started on the Dumb Otaku blog. I originally started the blog as a way to write about anime, manga, and general Otaku culture. However, along the way my interest in Japan and the language grew, and as a result so did the number of posts over language and Japan. There in lies the problem.

As the language posts increased the otakuness posts decreased thus defeating the point of the blog. Another interesting thing happened along the way; there were several things I didn’t want to post language wise as it was too languagy. As a solution I have decided to pull the language and Japan posts to this blog here.

JapanGaku essentially means Japan Learning or Japanese studies. Which means on this blog almost anything goes when it comes to language and culture. However, we are going to mostly discuss language for now as I do more and more research into history and culture of Japan.

For the most part history and culture wise I am going to try to gear it towards language. However, just learning history will help you understand things which are said. If you think about it in English when you refer to something in history the words are the same as normal language, but unless you understand the history it may as well be French or Italian.

So in essence this is language and culture blog and we are going to have a lot of fun discussing both.

p.s. On another note I know this site is ugly right now, but it is going to change for the better as time goes on. In the mean time please subscribe to the rss feed.

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It is JLPT season and emotions are running high as people cram at the last minute and trolls come out in droves to tell JLPT takers how pointless it is. I have seen no less than 15 tweets on how pointless the JLPT is to measure Japanese ability.

As noted in the comments of “What is the JLPT” post there is the j.test that does test actual proficiency of a persons knowledge of Japanese for day to day use. However, it is only available to take in Japan and China. So that leaves the rest of the world with the JLPT.

So then it comes down to how can a test that has tons of books over passing strategies actually test proficiency?

That is easy. Its all about the approach.

There are 3 keys to approach the JLPT to test your proficiency in Japanese.

1. Don’t look at the test go in as cold as possible. Maybe look up what will be on the test, but avoid doing example test.
2. Learn Japanese organically and not specifically for the JLPT.
3. Work hard for an A on it following the 2 key points above.

The key to all this is if you don’t look at the test then you don’t know what is on it or how it is worded so you can’t get any preconceived strategy tips on how to pass. In fact don’t look them up at all. Use the knowledge you have to take the test. The test should be there for you to test ability to to test if you can pass a test.

If you avoid studying the test and instead focus on your regular learning habits of japanese, which should not include just JLPT stuff, you will be amazed at how much of the JLPT stuff you have actually learned. For, example in club we printed off a bunch of example JLPT questions and handed them out to the club members. Most are 3rd semster students and have no desire int he world to take the JLPT. However, by doing normal study things since the first Semester I would say everyone would have passed the test based on how quickly we moved through it. This shows actual knowledge and that club members do have some proficiency in Japanese even if only a little compared to fluent speakers.

Just remember to work hard studying Japanese with the JLPT only in your mind about when test day is. After all learning Japanese is more important than passing the JLPT. The JLPT is just a gauge for you to measure where you are at and where you need to improve.

Remember it is all in the approach. If you are taking it to pass it then why take it? If you are taking it to challenge yourself to learn Japanese and to know where you stand then you are testing knowledge to testing ability.

Related Posts:

• Why my JLPT Fail was Still a Win
• What is the JLPT

If you know of a dying language and you know people that speak it who are trying to save that language. You should point them to the Rosetta Stone Endangered Language Program. I was poking around their site and noticed they have a program available to help save dying languages. This piqued my interest more since I recently did the post on “Who are the Ainu?” so a dying language was more on top of my mind. Here is the main chunk of the overview.

Rosetta Stone Endangered Language Program

Pass on a Living Language to Future Generations

Around the world, indigenous communities are working to preserve and revitalize their languages. Rosetta Stone is a valuable resource for these efforts. We can help indigenous communities develop editions in their language for their exclusive use.

Throughout North America—from the Mohawk community of Kahnawake in the northeast to the Seminole Tribe in the deep south to NANA Corporation’s Inupiat shareholders in the Arctic. Rosetta Stone has been selected as the technology of choice for language revitalization.

Here are the bullet points of what they offer with their program.

• Community-Owned
• Culturally Relevant
• Keeps Language Integrity
• Supports Existing Efforts
• Offers Real Interactivity

To find out more visit: Rosetta Stone Endangered Language Program

I think this is really cool because it helps them and they get to help the world, and it shows they do have a passion for languages, which is cool. I hope a lot of people can find out about this program so we can save as many languages as possible, if for nothing else archival purposes.

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There are still a lot of people that have no idea what RSS is or why this little orange box image keeps showing up on most blogs.

This image: (or some variation of it)

What is RSS?

Essentially what most people really need to know is it is a “page” for people add to some reader so the reader can automatically get the latest updates to a site or pieces of information. In the case of a blog you would add the URL of an rss feed (for example: http://www.dumbotaku.com/feed/) to a reader. The reader will check every 30 minutes or once a day for the latest updates on the feed that the site generates and gives the updates to you.

In other words it helps you get content brought to you instead of you going to get content on websites. It is very convenient if you have a lot of websites you read everyday, but would save time if you didn’t have to actually visit the site. So now you have the “what” lets look at how to use RSS.

How to use RSS

There are many applications that you can use to subscribe to RSS feeds. Probably the most used from talking to people is Google Reader. So, lets go through quickly how to use it. (With pictures)

Step 1) Visit http://google.com/reader if you have an account sign in. If you don’t click on create account. It is simple and takes very little time.

Step 2) Be sure to sign-in. Once you are signed in you should see something like the image below.

Step 3) Now lets get the url of the RSS Feed. Normally you will want to do like the image below. Find the RSS Icon right-click and hit “copy link location” button. In your case just select and copy this url

http://www.dumbotaku.com/feed/

Step 4) Now we need to add that url (http://www.dumbotaku.com/feed/) to Google Reader. Go back to it and at the top left should be a subscribe button.

Step 5) When you click that a little box will open up right under it just paste the url in there and click on add

Step 6) Now you are subscribed to the rss feed. Just login once a day or every couple of days. To see what all feeds you are subscribed to look at the left side of the page.

Step 7) To see what the content is in that feed look at the right side of the page.

Now What?

Now you are using an RSS feed reader. No you can just open that up to read DumbOtaku.com content. Now try going and adding other sites/blogs that have RSS feeds on them to your feed reader. Also play with Google Reader a bit. Add several feeds and play around with using it and ready the content. To get you on your way here are some blogs you might want to add. Check them out.

• Yonasu
• Jamaipanese
• Kiss-Sui(Her button is at the very bottom)
• Danny Choo
• The Nihon Sun

I hope this has helped some of you that might not have known what an RSS feed is or how to use it. Once you get a better handle on use them they become addictive. So have fun consuming content faster with RSS.

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