I heard from users on lang-8 through their diary entries that a debate-like show on NHK dedicated a section to lang-8 (resulting in many new Japanese users apparently).

First off, the video with its subtitles is a wonderful learning source and I found some good sentences here and there for my deck. Great, non-boring mining source.

Lang-8 really is lacking in English-speaking users though (in comparison to Japanese users), so there are many entries by Japanese users who don't get attention for sometimes days. Hopefully lang-8 will also be featured on programs in English-speaking countries as well.

For those who have considered joining lang-8 before and just didn't quite jump on the bandwagon, take this opportunity to learn more about it and do so!! It's doing wonders for my Japanese.

Sweet! It is a shame so many Japanese journals go uncorrected. I have mostly been away for a few months with work and a new study project that takes most of my time. I do recommend Lang-8 as one of my top 5 learning sites.

Funny, just saw this a couple of days ago over at freshverse.com. Thanks for sharing !

Interesting video. Does anyone know if there is a way to download the Japanese captions?

My two cents:
I just joined Lang-8 yesterday. I'd heard of it before, but back then I didn't feel like I had the language ability to do it right. Although as it turns out, that doesn't really matter. Any level of language skill is okay.

If you're at all interested, I'd recommend it, and now is a really good time to join. There was a massive influx of Japanese-speakers after that television program aired, and it seems like English-speaking learners of Japanese are in high demand.

I've seen a lot of entries recently as well where Japanese mentioned that they joined due to hearing about lang-8 on this program.

I think it's great, but seeing as how I don't watch any TV period, and how 99% of American TV is utter garbage, I highly doubt we'll be seeing anything of the like on TV anytime soon.

I've got lang-8 burn out. There are more people learning English than natives to correct them.

Only correct journals if they include the original Japanese before attempting to translate it into your native language. That way, you are also studying Japanese while correcting their journals.
It's win/win.

How come lang-8 got rid of that section they use to have on your home page of entries written in your native language that you can correct.

That made it easy to just select some random thing and correct it.

Ryuujin27 Wrote:How come lang-8 got rid of that section they use to have on your home page of entries written in your native language that you can correct.

That made it easy to just select some random thing and correct it.

I think the staff posted a message recently that it's a temporary thing due to the increase in users or something. I dunno, I just skimmed their message because I was actually wondering the same thing. It was the easiest way to correct some random entry that wasn't from one of my friends.

Ahh alrighty then, thanks for the quick answer haha. I didn't even see that message. Hopefully that'll be up and working again soon so I can help out some more.

Seems the normal "entries waiting your correction" thing is available again on lang-8 now in case anyone cares. Though they say maintenance still isn't fully completed yet so it may go down again in the near future.

bodhisamaya Wrote:Only correct journals if they include the original Japanese before attempting to translate it into your native language. That way, you are also studying Japanese while correcting their journals.
It's win/win.

I prefer that not because of studying Japanese (though I can see how it can help), but because it makes it easier to understand the point they're trying to get across.

By the way, is it recommended by Lang-8 to include your entry in both languages?

Nukemarine Wrote:

bodhisamaya Wrote:Only correct journals if they include the original Japanese before attempting to translate it into your native language. That way, you are also studying Japanese while correcting their journals.
It's win/win.

I prefer that not because of studying Japanese (though I can see how it can help), but because it makes it easier to understand the point they're trying to get across.

By the way, is it recommended by Lang-8 to include your entry in both languages?

Yes. That is the main reason I don't read journals written only in English. I feel like I am only guessing at the intended meaning of a sentence without the original Japanese. Most non-Japanese on Lang-8 are not at the level they can read Japanese well enough for it to help with corrections though.

Thought I'd give this a shot seeing as Bodhisamaya has quite a few videos posted. What I did was do a YouTube video reading of the Lang-8 entry I corrected.

http://lang-8.com/147343/journals/461234

That is actually a great idea! It needs tweaking a little but should be a great teaching tool once you smooth things out. I think I will do something similar with my private students I will have to check how the private settings work on Youtube though.

Wow, I didn't realize it was so easy to add subtitles to the videos and time them. I think I'll try that from now on.

http://lang-8.com/145549/journals/463144...k-holidays

Now I just need to get the courage up to do all this in Japanese.

I just realized that if you read "Lang-8" in Japanese it becomes 「ランゲート」, which sounds like "Lang gate".

I don't know if it's just a coincidence, but it sounds rather appropriate.