JapanesePod101.com Blog

We have just added the AddThis button to our blog. Now you can share your favorite blogs posts with your friends and colleagues via social bookmarking sites or by email. You can find the “Share” button at the bottom of each post.

We hope that you enjoy this convenient way to share our content and encourage you to do so.

Did you know that the lowest-scoring section of the JLPT Exam is the listening section?

Luckily, PlaySay’s JLPT 1-4 Vcabulary and Kanji Audio Downloads, now available in the JapanesePod101.com online store, are here to save the day!

New Version 1.2 Released!

PlaySay’s convenient audio download system will simply and practically enable you to achieve oral vocabulary competency - on the go, one word at a time, one minute at a time. Supplement your JapanesePod101.com studies, and turn your iPod or favorite mp3 player into a walking, talking, dynamic, and intelligent vocabulary flashcards study tool.

Shuffle and study all individual JLPT Core Vocabulary and Kanji with audio on your iPod or other mp3 Player!

• A Combined 16,104 Studio-Quality core vocabulary mp3 audio files for your iPod or any mp3 player
  [7,992 English to Japanese; 7,992 Japanese to English from PlaySay’s Professionally Translated JLPT 1 - 4 Vocabulary Lists]
• Shuffle vocabulary, create vocab/kanji playlists (move memorized vocab/kanji to a “memorized” playlist), and more!
• Mini vocab study playlists grouped by genre!
• Study JLPT 1-4 core vocabulary by listening (Japanese in right ear, English in left ear)!
• Study JLPT 1-4 core vocabulary with all kanji by simply looking at your mp3 player screen!
• Professionally translated JLPT Core Vocabulary
• Professional studio recordings from professional native voice artists
• Instant Download Satisfaction!

With the JLPT just around the corner, consider supplementing your studies with PlaySay’s proven on-the-go system!

• Starting for as little as $12.95
• Save even more by purchasing test bundles
• Use the convenient PayPal Buy Now button for instant download to your iPod or favorite mp3 player

Available for all JLPT Levels (Click on your level below for more details and instant download)

Summer is here and school is out! For all of you students, we have a sizzling hot deal! Sign up for ANY Basic or Premium subscription and get 25% Off instantly!

Don’t wait until classes begin in Fall, start now and be ahead of the curve once school is back in session!!!

This limited time offer expires on Monday, June 30, 2008 at 11:59pm EST.

Mina-san,

When we first started JapanesePod101.com, we only had a few lessons and a few levels, so it was very easy to figure out how to use the site. But now with over 700 lessons and many different levels and series, a lot of people have asked us “Where should I start?” While there are many ways to use the site, we definitely have a few recommendations!

We grouped the lessons in 4 categories Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced and Miscellaneous. Also we designated each level linear or non-linear. Then we listed descriptions of the each course and included the first and last lesson so you can better gauge which levels are perfect for you!

Check out the page here:
http://www.japanesepod101.com/help-center/the-courses/

Also, since it’s Golden Week, we’re running a special Promo to save you 33% on any Basic or Premium Subscription! Woo-hoo!

http://www.japanesepod101.com/golden-week/

Thank you for all the name entries, for all the votes, and of course, we can’t forget the feedback. This has been a very interesting contest, not without its challenges.

We apologize for the delay in posting this prize announcement, but the logistics of a contest of this scale do not allow for a very quick turnaround.

We’ve decided to award the first place prize, a lifetime subscription to all of our existing sites, to all 8 finalists. We will be contacting all winners by email with the next step.

In addition, for everyone who submitted an entry, we are offering a FREE 1-Month Premium Subscription to JapanesePod101.com + a very special coupon. Look for a follow-up email in the next few days with details on how to claim your prize.

Thank you again!

Sign up for our Premium 12-Month subscription TODAY and we’ll ship you our top-selling “Japanese Kanji Flashcards” for FREE (a $35 value).

If you really want your Japanese learning to start with blazing speed then you must have a set of Kanji Flashcards. Not just the digital kind, but the hard, hold-in-your-hands cards that will speed up your learning and recall by at least 250%.

Click to sign up for a 12-Month Premium subscription TODAY!

* Can’t be combined with any other offer or coupon. Prior subscriptions are not
eligible for offer. Limit one per customer, non-transferable. Only while supplies last!

We would like to start with a big, make that a very BIG, “Arigatou gozaimasu!” In total we received over 5,000 submissions! We were blown away by the incredible response to our request for help.

We would like to thank everyone who submitted a suggestion, and also would like to let you know we’ll be sending along a very special e-mail for you in the near future. Please keep an eye out for it.

Below are the finalists. After 7 straight days of analyzing, testing, comparing, brainstorming, and more, below are the finalists.

We would like to ask you help one more time, as we would truly appreciate a vote for your favorite.

Thank you everyone for voting. The final results are below:

Thank you again. It is you, the listeners, that make our community and site so special.

Yoroshiku onegai shimasu.

Some of you may have noticed that the “Contains” and “Ends with” search methods of the word dictionary in the Learningcenter are gone. We changed the way the dictionary works to improve performance, and to take a large step closer to providing you more accurate search results. Therefore it now returns results ordered by relevance. The order is not perfect, processing natural language with computers is difficult, but it should be much better than before

Now I will explain by example how the remaining search methods work:

The default “Is” method will now also search inside English phrases. A search for “way” for example will still find “途中 - on the way, en route, midway”. It will also find “one-way traffic”, but will not find “always”.

The “Starts with” method works on top of the “Is” method, with the same behavior. Searching “way” with “Starts with” will add “道草 - (n,vs) wayside grass, loitering on the way, (P)” to the results for example.

We are always looking for new features to add to our site, or ways to improve existing features, and in most cases ideas for new features come from the feedback you provide. So please keep the feedback coming!

Mina-san, our friend Tajee and her team have started a new short video series starring a Ninja Girl who offers insight into different Japanese things and events.

You can see Ninja girl in action here.

After weeks of development, we’re happy to announce the launch of the much anticipated My Feed. This fully customizable RSS feed lets Premium members decide exactly what lesson content they want on their Premium feed.

Setting up My Feed is a a simple 3 step process.

1. Choose the lesson types you want (e.g. Beginner, Newbie, Audio Blog, etc.)
2. Choose the type of content you want (e.g. Main Audio, Dialog Clip, Review Clip, PDF, Video Vocab, etc.)
3. Add My Feed to iTunes or other iTunes compatible feed readers like Juice, and just watch the content you want come rolling in.

To learn more about My Feed check out the video below or if you’re a Premium member, click here to get started now.

Thank you all for your continued support and feedback! Without it we simply could not do what we do. We hope you like this new feature and as always, if you encounter any issues with this new functionality or wish to see it enhanced in some way, please post a comment here or shoot us an email.