Learning Japanese: The Fun and Unconventional Way Part I

If you are like me you are sick of studying Japanese the way most teachers want you to study it, so I have come up with some of my suggestions on how to have some fun and learn Japanese at the same time. This method will still require you to spend some time studying, but it will hopefully be more fun then writing kanji and vocabulary 100 times each, to remember. I used to do this but found it to be boring and not really a good way for me to learn. My brain just doesn’t work that way!! I need stimulus and something more interesting to go along with the usual text books.

The first thing you are going to have to do is run and and pick up a Nintendo DS or Nintendo DS Lite. It doesn’t matter which one but I recommend the DS Lite because it’s thinner and easier to carry around with you. If you are on a budget then pick up a first gen DS from your local used game shop or off of an auction site.  Once you have picked up your DS I recommend that you pick up the game called Kakitori Kun (It’s the lite blue one in the picture with the little bird on it). This is just about the easiest Kanji learning game there is and was designed for Japanese Children, which is why I picked it up. I asked the store staff, “What is the easiest one you have that is for the youngest kids?”, and he pointed this out to me. The best thing about this “game” is that it forces you to use the correct stroke order when learning kanji. For me, this is a must have since I usually make up my own stroke order half the time (^_^).

While in that section of the store I noticed there was a Electronic Dictionary software for the DS too, so of course I picked that up (It’s the black one in the picture). It’s called the Kanji Sonomama Dictionary, and it has 4 dictionaries in it (English to Japanese, Japanese to English, Japanese to Japanese, and Kanji). There isn’t much more else to say except that it works as advertised and I use it often.

Helpful Links to the Products I am Referring to:

Nintendo DS

Learn Kanji with your Nintendo DS!!

Practice Kanji With Your Nintendo DS!

Turn Your Nintendo DS into a Japanese Dictionary!

Canon Wordtank Electronic Dictionary

Rosetta Stone: Japanese

Part II of this series of posts will continue with the theme of learning Japanese “The Fun and Unconventional Way”. Of course if there is a way that you have found that helps you learn Japanese in a not so boring way, feel free to let us know in the comments or using the contact form and we will add it. Stay tuned….

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