JapanesePod101.com Blog

To help you break the monotony of Kanji study, we came up with a fun game using Twitter!

To start, all you need is a Twitter account and to follow our Twitter account @japanesepod101
(What’s Twitter you ask? Read our guide here.)

How to Play Japanese Kanji Scrabble

On the day we play in the morning (Japan time), we’ll select 10 Kanji: 1 Key Kanji and 9 other possible suffix and/or prefix Kanji.
Example Tweet:

Kanji Scrabble #01 [日]　二、本、一、国、人、十、中、三、時 (Learn How to Play http://ow.ly/3xU3)

Here is what you do:

1. Using the Key Kanji (the one in brackets): Make as many compound words using the Key Kanji and Kanji in the list

*Remember each compound you create must included the Key Kanji*

2. Write those compounds in a reply to our tweet or come to Kanji Scrabble blog entry and enter your kanji compound creations in a comment! Others will be commenting.

3. At night we’ll post the answers to our Kanji Scrabble in another tweet.

4. Check our tweet again at @japanesepod101 and compare to your answers.

5. That’s it! It’s that simple to play!

We’ll be tweeting our first Kanji Scrabble on 04/22/2009 at 10:00 p.m. Japanese time so get ready! Answers will be posted 24 hours later.

Here are some examples to show you how to reply to the tweets.

Correct Replies:

@japanesepod101 Kanji Scrabble Answer: 二日

@japanesepod101 Hrm… Are these right? 二日、一日

@japanesepod101 I know only 4 Japanese words and this is one of them 一日

Incorrect Replies:

@japanesepod101 一時, 中三、国、人
These answers don’t contain the key Kanji in brackets.

@japanesepod101 日本の人

These answers contain Hiragana.  No Japanese readings or Hiragana may be used.

@japanesepod101 ichinichi, futsuka, ichinichijuu, nihonjin
Because this is for your Kanji practice, make sure to practice by actuallly typing the Kanji. Let’s graduate from romaji!

@japanesepod101 Today I read a book. Also mowed the lawn. It’s getting hot today! Kanji Scrabble 二日、一日、一日中
Try to tweet about only one topic or thought at a time. Don’t worry, everyone tweets often so turning the above into 4 separate tweets is okay!

Want to Play with your friends? Retweet!

If your friends aren’t following @japanesepod101 on Twitter, share the Kanji Scrabble question! “Retweeting” our tweet lets you work together on the Kanji Scrabble and then you can answer later. You can also share the link to the blog post.

Here’s how to “Retweet”

RT @japanesepod101 Kanji Scrabble #01 [日]　二、本、一、国、人、十、中、三、時 (Learn How to Play  http://ow.ly/3xU3)

RT is short for “Retweet” and saves on character count (remember, 140 characters is the tweet limit).

We’re waiting for your tweets and blog comments!

UPDATE: #kanjiscrabble   Under 3 hours left.  Did anyone get the 4 character compound?

To keep you updated on our lessons and better communicate with you, we created a Twitter account (actually a long time ago) and urge you to do so too! In case you’re confused what in the world Twitter is or don’t know how or why you would use Twitter, we’ve made a simple FAQ & guide just for you.

What is “Twitter”?
Twitter is a “micro-blogging” service. Each post is limited to 140 characters so that each post, called a “tweet”, is short and to the point.
This makes it perfect quickly sharing internet links, messages or ideas with others.
To see automatic updates of others’ tweets, you go to their page and then “follow” them. If they want to see your tweets, they’ll follow you.

1. Start your own account
To start using Twitter, go to the official web page, http://twitter.com/ and register for an account. The sign up process is very easy to do and there is a lot of help on the official Twitter website.

2. Install the Japanese Input pack
Don’t know how to read and write Japanese Kana and Kanji on your Windows PC?

Install the Japanese Language Guide
http://newton.uor.edu/Departments&Programs/AsianStudiesDept/Language/asianlanguageinstallation_XP.html

Writing in Japanese Guide
http://newton.uor.edu/Departments&Programs/AsianStudiesDept/Language/japanese_write.htm

3. Follow us
After starting an account and making sure you can read and write Japanese characters, start following us to see our tweets automatically. Click this link here: http://twitter.com/japanesepod101 and click “Follow”.

See you on Twitter!