What?
How to Japonese is a J-blog authored by writer and translator Daniel Morales, who apparently resembles Lupin III (Yes, a shady fellow, indeed!). Mostly featured are tips for studying, using, and translating Japanese, though Daniel also blogs occasionally about daily life. From the site's About page:
How to Japonese is a collection of the things I wish people had told me at different points in my Japanese studying career. Some posts are aimed at beginners, others at intermediate students, and occasionally I even come up with something for advanced students. I also end up writing a lot about Japan in general.
Why I like it
As I mentioned, How to Japonese was one of the first blogs about studying/using Japanese that I started reading regularly. If you haven't checked it out yet, there's about three-years worth of quality content waiting to be browsed. I especially enjoyed his posts on video game Japanese and Japanese word play.
As a sample, here's one from a while ago about using special icons with Japanese input. He writes:
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I wrote previously about how こめ can be switched to ※ with Japanese input systems. Well, I’ve discovered through a friend at work that there are a number of other tricks you can do with 変換.
Arrows – Type in やじるし and you can get these: →, ←, ↑, ↓.
Circles – Type in まる and you can make these: ○, ●, ◎, ◯, ◉. (The third is called a にじゅうまる, maybe the fifth as well.)
Triangles – Type in さんかく and you can get: △, ▲, ▽, ▼.
Squares – Type in しかく and you can get: □, ■, ◇, ◆.
----Additionally, I give him kudos for engaging his readers and some other members of the community. He does reference other blogs or websites from time to time, and has linked JADJ on one or two occasions (half the time to point out errors, which is great! Making mistakes is one of the best ways to learn!).
How to Japonese was one of my early inspirations for blogging, and I continue to enjoy its posts and articles about Japanese. Thanks, Daniel!
Once again, you can visit How to Japonese here, and follow Daniel on Twitter here.
Howtojaponese was one of the first J-blogs I read too. The other day I just finished up my American taxes thanks to Daniel's post on how to fill them out while working in Japan.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the link, man! Glad that you like things. And I'm sorry I haven't been posting as much lately. I've had to write so much for school that I can't find much time to do the blog. I don't plan on stopping altogether, though.
ReplyDeleteAnd damn, I wish I had someone to show me how to do US taxes now! It's not so easy when you can't exclude everything anymore, heh.
Hey Daniel - it's my pleasure! Joe and I are big fans. Life comes first of course, but hope you can find some time to blog. =)
ReplyDeleteYes, taxes can be a hassle. Not looking forward to that so much.
Thanks for the recommendation! I just subscribed to this blog... I'm surprised I hadn't stumbled across it before o_O
ReplyDeleteThanks for stopping by, Allie! Yes, there are a ton of J-blogs, some more well-publicized than others. Been searching for two years and I'm still finding good ones I hadn't known about.
ReplyDeleteI've stumbled across that blog before in the past myself. Such a wee community of bloggers. Awww
ReplyDeleteThanks for commenting, Hanta! Ah, a fellow 3rd year JET, I see. And in Kochi. Not too far away. We're practically neighbors!
ReplyDeleteNo matter how many times I type しかく, it does nothing :-D Thanks for giving me another blog to follow, though.
ReplyDeleteHey Jake, thanks for stopping in. You have to type it in and then press space while it's still underlined (same way you make kanji).
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Ah, got it now, thanks. I know zero kanji (and as such never type any), so I couldn't remember how to get those options - I was hitting enter, not space.
ReplyDeleteJust tried しかく on my iPhone as well and it works there, too. Not surprising, I guess, since it would probably be confusing if it didn't!
Glad you got it to work, Jake. Now you can make squares and triangles to your heart's content. =)
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