Quote:I don't think it would need this as a regular book though because I haven't bought a book that has done what you've said. I expect it to be the case in college, and that's fine. But, as for the general marketplace, I don't think people are going to even think about it, especially the average person.

This is why I don't think you should bother putting in citations. If you wanted it to be academic -- yes you should. But for what you have, no.

Quote:As far as the population of Japan, I've heard that number thrown around years by years. Wikipedia just has citation for everything, whether the writer actually put it there or not. I could go in there and add citations and so could you.

Yeah, wikipedia is a bad example, but I couldn't be bothered to go download an actual academic paper. Read those, and you'll see the same thing.

I wouldn't bother adding sources to what you have now. But I also wouldn't try to leverage this when trying to do something academic.

Yeah, just be sure to understand what I'm saying here... as Asriel clarified. If you want use this for academic purposes, it needs to be written and referenced academically. If you want to publish the whole lot as a book and make profit from it, failure to reference it 'might' make you liable to a lawsuit if someone thought you'd plagiarised their work. If it's just gonna stay as an internet resource for people to learn Japanese for free, then the only thing you have to gain from referencing is that your giving more credibility to the claims you are making.
A very good go-between here would be to expand your resources page into a bibliography where you simply publish the details of all the significant books and resources you've used to draw all your stuff together. This is much faster than doing a reference as each book/author only needs one mention, and theres no need to link to the parts of your work and their work where you used that info.
What might be really helpful for learners though, is a section at the end of each chapter where you direct them to books where they can go for further info, in the style of "if you want to go deeper into this topic, you might wanna read Book X, Book Y etc"

Whether or not this is necessary or useful depends entirely on what you intend to do with your resource once it is finished.

Well that is a very interesting idea, but it is not practical at the moment for me to do. So, more detail in the resources? Ok, but I really don't want to get into it now.

Now for more interesting suggestions.

I want to include more examples of proper nouns in Japanese, but I don't want them to be extremely hard. Maybe the name of a famous place or person or two?

The most important part of any grammar book (that's what essentially your site is) are example sentences.
The learner MUST BE SURE they are correct, both in Japanese and in English.

When my granny started to learn Japanese she used this book, among some ohters:

Stefan Kaiser, Yasuko Ichikawa, Noriko Kobayashi, Hilofumi Yamamoto
JAPANESE: A COMPREHENSIVE GRAMMAR
ISBN 0-415-09920-X
Routledge

Features include:
many original examples, taken from a range of Japanese media

I do need more examples. As I go through it with my newest student, I will be sure to add a lot more as we go along.

I added more insight about myself.

http://www.imabijapaneselearningcenter.com/aboutme.htm

It may help some of you understand where I am coming from. If you would like to ask some personal questions on why I started this, please go ahead. If you would like to know how I made a certain lesson, I'll tell you if I can remember.

I think all of you will understand the inspiration that created the website. I have been working hard all day editing the site to meet the requests presented here in the past few days. Please send in more suggestions if you have them.

If you're going to go public on your website you might want to scratch off the borderline whiny emo stuff about not getting support from people.

IMO

The reason I say that is because you're going to be applying for university soon and you really want to include your website in your application materials and you don't want them to get the impression that you might have some emotional issues with other people.

I've already applied for college. lol

hey imabi,
[edit: removed once imabi had seen]
I hope this feedback isn't too personal. (I'll happily remove this post after.) :-)

The whole privacy thing aside, it probably isn't even a good idea to advertise things like "politics" or "religion." Whether it's justified or not, people tend to react strongly to assertions of opinion. It's fine to tell us your favorite song; stay away from the more controversial stuff.

Also, isn't "knowledge" a little redundant?

Race is also a rather pointless thing to list. It's a blog, not a government census.

You wouldn't believe how many people ask for this crap though. Seriously, someone a week from now will ask my race. I honestly don't know what to put.

It has been getting busier. But, that's why I want a moderator!

I took down the stuff y'all mentioned. Thanks.

Actually, my family isn't that hip about any Asians or other races for that matter. I'm just a social liberal in the closet. (You never heard a thing)

Thanks Thora. Your insight was very nice. I actually did what you wanted after you posted without even looking at your post. Hehe..

Oh, and if it appears that I've talked down to people on the forums, it's because I already knew them personally. And, there's this one member where we didn't get along and I did want him to leave.

This site has been the main reason why it's been getting busier. I like the extra flow of hits. I hope people keep coming from here. It makes my day.

The forums have debates that happen and sometimes it does get ugly. I've learned that you can't please everyone or win all the battles. It's really time consuming to try to convince others of something. It's better to get take constructive criticism and inspire people, that's how you make a difference (in my opinion)

haha social liberal in the closet. Reminds me of when I started highscoool, I wasn't a social person at all (too shy). Only after taking a co-op class in my school is when I started to become really social. Now I don't have trouble talking to random people if needed.

I was referring to the liberal idealogy. lol, but if I was able to I would be a crazy party animal. People say I'm quiet, but when I talk I'm ***** hilarious.

Well, I have made the site better throughout this long thread here. So, you are most certainly right.

imabi Wrote:I was referring to the liberal idealogy. lol, but if I was able to I would be a crazy party animal. People say I'm quite, but when I talk I'm ***** hilarious.

Well, I have made the site better throughout this long thread here. So, you are most certainly right.

ahh you were referring to liberal ideology.

No matters though. Let's not go down political avenue though. That street's nasty as it is. I'm in the middle of the political spectrum. I love the idea of freedom for all and the liberal attitude towards social issues, but I think the liberal solution to economics is the dumbest thing since stupidity itself.

I digress. I would like some ideas on examples for proper nouns. I have a few, but I want to include a few more famous people and places. But, I don't want them to be too long.

Yea I don't want to get into the a nasty debate about political spectrum. Those debates are never-ending. I have to agree that I'm also in the middle towards political spectrum but to be safe, I'll stop there as I don't want to get into that stuff.

Fine with me.

So, anything you would like me to amend on my site? I'm all ears.

Well I see how you are using Facebook as a way of marketing. There is also twitter,youtube and google plus but for all purposes, it's better to stick with a few than all of them. Here is a good site for using twitter as a marketing tool: http://socialmediatoday.com/debraellis/3...eting-tool

You should start using the other social media sites, once your site is ready to go full force.

I still need a cam, so videos are off the table for now. Any ideas for which one I should get when I do buy one?

Thanks for the link for using twitter. I need that.

For your information, I now have a webpage about Japanese pitch accent:
http://learnlangs.com/japanesepitch

It's not perfect, but it gets updated as I find the time.

imabi Wrote:I still need a cam, so videos are off the table for now. Any ideas for which one I should get when I do buy one?

Thanks for the link for using twitter. I need that.

Well there are a lot of digital cameras for less than 200 that are solid. They have full 1080p HD video+picture quality. Although I'm not the best person to ask for what camera you should get, as I just research around and see what I like. I do remember a thread were people were discussing cameras, I'll search around for that one.

Alexander, my section is merely brief. What you have written is nothing different from what I have posted. You just go more in depth with more situations to demonstrate the rules of pitch. I am unable to do that because of its location in the curriculum. For those starting out, they would not be able to understand. There is a lot more qualification to that section on my site than what there was. The examples I give are rendered correctly with the right pitch marks, and the rules mentioned, again, are almost word for word what you can find on wikipedia because there really isn't that many ways to sugarcoat any given thing. I thank you for trying to be of an assistance though. Happy thanksgiving.

I simply thought you might add my link for those who want more detailed information.