I start college (similar to high school for all you Americans) in September and the college in question is an hour's bus ride away, so that's... quite a lot of time. I thought I may as well use this time to study Japanese somehow. Has anyone got any ideas?

Things I've thought of:
Play games (in Japanese) on my nintendo DS
Think of heisig stories
Listen to things on my MP3 player (but I'm not sure what, I haven't found any learning podcasts I like and the storybooks I've found are quite dull...)

That's all good and well. You could always try pimsleur.

I second alyks's recommendation of Pimsleur, especially if you are a beginner. If you are an intermediate student, then I would say to try something else 'cause it will probably be too easy for you.

Have you tried Japanese Pod 101? Never used it myself until now, but some people like and others can't stand the host. You might give it a chance and see how it goes.

If you have a way to access Anki on the go, you could also use its online interface to do some reviewing. Just some ideas here - hope to have helped.

It all depends on your level of ability. If you're just starting out, it's slim pickings. I never could stand listening to the canned stuff, to be honest. But if you have some ability already, then:

If you like JDramas, you can always download them and strip the audio out of the video. There are many programs out there that will do that. Then just listen on your iPod or whatever.

There's a thread about audio stuff/podcasts somewhere in here as well. It's pretty much hit and miss, though. It depends a lot on your skill/ability in the language, and it's still hit and miss.

Jpod 101 has some useful stuff in it. The intermediate level stuff is mostly in Japanese, too, which I prefer. With a subscription, you can just download the dialogues only, so if you don't like the host, you don't have to listen. I've met him before, so I don't mind. They really do work hard to put something useful out, and I give them full credit for it. I've been listening to it for over a year now, and it totally saved my bacon a few times when I was over there. I usually listen to a few episodes whenever I work out.

You could always download some Japanese podcasts or music for your MP3 player to listen to during the ride. They don't have to necessarily be "learning podcasts" to be helpful, they can just be regular Japanese shows/podcasts and you'll gain some great listening input of the language. Most podcast shows update often and even if they don't, there is usually enough past episodes to keep you busy for awhile until the next one comes out!

I know since I've started downloading Japanese podcasts, I've really come to enjoy listening to them. They can be pretty entertaining, plus it's great to know that I'm learning at the same time. And it's really fun to hear the different speakers and accents...but even more fun when I can actually understand parts of what they are saying! : )

Some of the newer JP101 shows have different hosts, don't they? I've not listened to the new episodes lately but I know there's a female host (Newbie?) and I think a different male host, in addition to Peter.

You could try taking a book? A lot of Japanese novels tend to be small (in my experience, anyway), so they won't take up a lot of space to carry with you.

rich_f Wrote:If you like JDramas, you can always download them and strip the audio out of the video. There are many programs out there that will do that. Then just listen on your iPod or whatever.

To add to that, if you have a video iPod or whatnot..... just put the drama on your mp3 player . I encode my dramas into the iPod video format (there's a number of programs that do this) and then put them on my ipod to watch while I'm on the go.

I find it too hard to listen to talking(podcast/drama/audio book) on the bus. It's just too noisy. I use long bus rides for reading
Maybe you could bring flashcards or some sort of reading material(textbook, printouts, novels, whatever you like).

Quote:That's all good and well. You could always try pimsleur.

That's a good idea, actually. There's bound to be a few things in there I don't know and it'll refresh what I do know. Though I don't think I'll be speaking aloud to myself on a bus.

Quote:I second alyks's recommendation of Pimsleur, especially if you are a beginner. If you are an intermediate student, then I would say to try something else 'cause it will probably be too easy for you.

Have you tried Japanese Pod 101? Never used it myself until now, but some people like and others can't stand the host. You might give it a chance and see how it goes.

If you have a way to access Anki on the go, you could also use its online interface to do some reviewing. Just some ideas here - hope to have helped.

I've tried Jpod101 about 3 times and gave up every time-- I couldn't stand the host and it was annoying/boring. Thanks for the recommendation, however! Unfortunately I have no way to access anki on the go, bar getting my laptop out on the bus-- which I don't think is a smart idea.

Quote:If you like JDramas, you can always download them and strip the audio out of the video. There are many programs out there that will do that. Then just listen on your iPod or whatever.

There's a thread about audio stuff/podcasts somewhere in here as well. It's pretty much hit and miss, though. It depends a lot on your skill/ability in the language, and it's still hit and miss.

Jpod 101 has some useful stuff in it. The intermediate level stuff is mostly in Japanese, too, which I prefer. With a subscription, you can just download the dialogues only, so if you don't like the host, you don't have to listen. I've met him before, so I don't mind. They really do work hard to put something useful out, and I give them full credit for it. I've been listening to it for over a year now, and it totally saved my bacon a few times when I was over there. I usually listen to a few episodes whenever I work out.

I'm not quite sure what my ability is, really. But I can understand a nice chunk of jdrama so I might do that. I think I'll skip out on jpod101, to be honest. No offence intended.

Quote:I know since I've started downloading Japanese podcasts, I've really come to enjoy listening to them. They can be pretty entertaining, plus it's great to know that I'm learning at the same time. And it's really fun to hear the different speakers and accents...but even more fun when I can actually understand parts of what they are saying! : )

That's cool. Could you link me to a few you listen to if it's not too much trouble?

Quote:You could try taking a book? A lot of Japanese novels tend to be small (in my experience, anyway), so they won't take up a lot of space to carry with you.

That's an idea. I might take some manga with me as they take me ages to read anyway and I got a bunch off of bookmooch which I'm v-e-r-y--s-l-o-w-l-y--g-e-t-t-i-n-g--t-h-r-o-u-g-h.

Quote:To add to that, if you have a video iPod or whatnot..... just put the drama on your mp3 player . I encode my dramas into the iPod video format (there's a number of programs that do this) and then put them on my ipod to watch while I'm on the go.

Aw, I wish I did. Thank you anyway.

Quote:I find it too hard to listen to talking(podcast/drama/audio book) on the bus. It's just too noisy. I use long bus rides for reading smile
Maybe you could bring flashcards or some sort of reading material(textbook, printouts, novels, whatever you like).

I might be the same way... I tried walking with listening to stuff and I couldn't do it. I contemplated bringing textbooks but I'm not sure if they'd be too heavy. I guess I could do that when I'm not bringing my laptop with me.

Here are some links to some of my favorite podcasts! I think I found the third one from a link on Khatzumoto's (AJATT) site, but I'll have to check on that.

http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZSto...=278094474

http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZSto...=278305601

http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZSto...d=93639449

http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZSto...=257614734

Oh! Just so you know, most of these podcasts are primarily female speakers--since I'm female and trying to pick up the female way of speaking Japanese. So, if you're a guy you might want to find some Japanese podcasts with primarily male speakers but it's totally up to you! (Although, I do think that the second link is a pretty equal male/female host team if that helps)

Keep up with the manga. It is very slow at first. It took me like 2 weeks of solid reading to get me through the first volume of one of them I was reading, but then everything kind of started falling into place after that. I learned a lot of casual speech patterns while I was doing it, though. I should manga more often.

hey miki76 - thanks for those links!

Thank you for the links miki-- however, I don't have iTunes, nor do I have an iPod or anything. Though I'm sure other people will benefit!

Erlog-- Did you just give a straight read through or did you do anything with the text? Thank you for the words of encouragement.

tuuli Wrote:hey miki76 - thanks for those links!

You're very welcome! I hope they help!

AdamLeliel--I'm sorry, I didn't realize you didn't have itunes. But, I think most podcasts have an online blog or web page where you can download their podcasts as well...but if you don't have an mp3 player to use, it would be kinda difficult to listen to them on the go. The only other thing I can think of is if you download the podcasts as mp3's and burn them to a cd. But if you don't have a portable cd player, that wouldn't help either! Sorry about that...

Oh no, I have an mp3 player-- it just happens to not be an iPod.

For those without iTunes here are links to the web pages for the podcasts that miki76 posted:

http://www.tbsradio.jp/

http://radiotomo.typepad.jp/blog/

http://marimoeo.seesaa.net/

http://www.radionikkei.jp/hitomi/

Even if you can't read the web pages themselves most of them have English like "iTunes" or "podcast" in the links.