Free Japanese Lesons

I'm obsessing about learning Japanese ASAP, so I spent the entire morning looking for the fastest kind of classes available: FREE ONLINE LESSONS and any sort of Japanese aid that will help me study on my own , this is what I found:


The Sushi Test
I love this site, after you sign up as a member, you go through a tutorial on how to answer the quiz questions and at the end you can see you big empty tray, after that you can start taking the real sushi test, depending on your score you will get a different sushi at the end, so the more times you take the test the fuller your tray will get, I loved taking this test, I'm definitely using it regularly.



http://momo.jpf.go.jp/sushi/index.php?LangFlag=e

Japanese-Online.com
Membership is required, but since its free it's all good. This website has the most comprehensive grammar and vocabulary lessons I've seen online so far.
http://www.japanese-online.com/

StudyJapanese.org


Free online lessons and interactive flash cards, great for studying at home. I didn't have to register to use the flash cards .

http://www.studyjapanese.org/



Japanese Romaji Quizzes:

This page has romaji vocabulary matching quizzes to test your knowledge its also a great way to learn new Japanese words:
http://www.manythings.org/japanese/romaji/





Nihon Mura

This website has no lessons but it does have some kana, kanji, verb form and numbers quizzes which are great practice. Using it was a bit confusing at first , just select from the top menu which kind of test you want and once you are on the new page select one of the options on the left hand side menu.
http://www.nihonmura.net/en/


Japanese Test
Free online Japanese grammar test , you can fill in the blanks in romaji or hiragana.

http://test.u-biq.org/



CMJ
This website has a lot of good tests but..... you have to be able to read kanji on most of them so its a bit more advanced, but it's still a great resource:

http://opal.ecis.nagoya-u.ac.jp/~webcmjml/



Genki Japan

Games and interactive vocabulary lessons, this site makes learning fun, I think the games are kawaii but you learn them pretty fast.

http://www.genkienglish.net/genkijapan/menu.htm



Kanji Practice
Kanji practice website:http://www.dartmouth.edu/~kanji/
katakana, hiragana, kanji tutor:
http://members.aol.com/writejapan/index.htm#how




Teach Yourself Japanese

This website has an outlined plan for learning the basics, it was last updated on 2004 but the lessons are still good.
http://www.sf.airnet.ne.jp/~ts/japanese/




Joshu


This website covers the basics for studying Japanese at home , it has quizzes to help you out.

http://www.laits.utexas.edu/japanese/joshu/basics.htm







Hope you like the links

Jya ne!

Telling the real from the fake

Lately it seems that every time I go to Gion the streets are filled with Maiko in full makeup walking up and down the streets even though it's early in the day. So I took tons of pictures, each time I saw one, only to realize later that out of 48 pictures I took only 1 had real Maiko in it. Needless to say I felt duped.

In hopes of sparing you from this sad sad disillusionment, I'm going to list some ways you can tell if the Maiko you see on the streets of Gion are the real thing or just made up average girls.

But before I do the list I have to answer the question:

WHY ARE THERE FAKE MAIKO IN GION?

Well..... around fifty fake geisha studios, if not more, have sprung up all around Kyoto. They attract more than half a million customers each year. Before when people visited Kyoto, they would just visit the temples but now a days becoming a fake Maiko is the second most popular thing for tourists to do.

As a tourist the idea of getting your picture taken in full Maiko gear and walking down any street in Gion is almost a dream come true, and that is exactly what you can purchase in photo studios in Gion, I took a picture of this studio advertising makeovers :

Japanese girls also pay to get made up in to Maikos for a couple of hours, Ive seen groups of 3 and 4 girls dressed in Maiko gear having fun, posing with tourists, I have to say if I were Japanese and had the dough I'd get my picture taken with my best friend like that too. These are 3 Japanese girls doing just that:

So now that we know why this happens lets move on to how to tell the real from the fake:

Using a wig.
Real Maiko have their hair done every week, they are not allowed to wear wigs so this is pretty easy way to know right away. Wigs have an upside down triangle shape in the center front area, I drew a line around this girls hairline so you can see what I mean, also close to the ears you can see the wig was not well attached on the girl on the left.

Walking with a companion.
Maiko don't need people to help them walk around Kyoto, only people who are not accustomed to wearing Okobo and a big bulky kimono, or people that don't know their way around town do. The girl in the photo bellow had her mother helping her walk around you can see her holding her hand. This fake Maiko is not wearing a wig, for an extra price you can get your real hair done to have your pictures look more natural, but since mom is with her I'm guessing mom paid a lot of dough to have beautiful pictures of her daughter taken.

Age
Maikos are very young girls, mostly teenagers so if she looks a bit older than 30 its a big giveaway sign. You can see on this next picture that the "Maiko" on the left is just a tad bit older than the one on the right.

Tech Toys
Maiko are not allowed to use cellphones, they have to write to people like they used to in the good old days, so any "Maiko" you see using one is a F.A.K.E

Smoking
Maiko don't smoke.

Pierced Ears
Getting your ears pierced is not allowed when you area Maiko so if you see piercing, you know what that means.

Fake Nails or Nail Polish
A true Maiko would never have fake nails on or polished nails either, they are not allowed to do so. So look closely at their hands.

Time of day
Real Maiko only get into their full make up and wardrobe when they have to attend to tea houses which is usually after six , in the daytime to walk around they don't have their white makeup on and they don't use the fancy kimonos either they use lighter more common ones, so if you see a Maiko in full garb at 11 am. you know its a fake.

These are basic signs you can pay attention to tell the difference, but there are a lot more ways to tell the real from the fake, things like hair ornaments and the color of their collar and their hairstyle also the colors of the kimono they are wearing, they way they pose, the way walk , etc

I did get to see 2 real Maiko coming out of their Okiya in a little side street where almost zero tourist were around, I was quite surprised when I saw them walking out , you can see their kimonos are not as gaudy as the rental ones and also their hair ornaments are different, this is the pic:

NOTE: I had originally posted the images without the faces blured but this seemed to upset a japanese friend of mine who on behalve of the girls that got the makeover asked me to cover their faces and respect their happy day in gion as fake maikos, I think that is a noble thing to do so, sorry for the blurs but I really dont need to show their faces to prove my point and this way everybody is happy.

Jya ne!

Osaka Sumo Tournaments

The Osaka Sumo Tournament began yesterday and will be held at the Osaka Prefecture Gymnasium until March 23rd, You can see the wrestlers information and rank on this web page , when you click on their names you can see their stat page with their pics, I think sumo wrestlers look soooo cute on their pics, but they are really tough guys though.

On yesterdays tournament there were excellent matches, very good wrestlers and then there was Ama (Davaanyam Byambadorj) who jumped over his opponent when he mistakenly started wrestling on his own, later he was easily defeated seen how he fell over almost all on his own; it was an extremely easy victory for his opponent, I don't think he was too happy about that, what was going through his mind on that match? I couldn't believe how bad it was.

I'm dying to go to Osaka since its only 30 Min's away, but tickets are really hard to get since people here love sumo and usually buy tickets in advance. Prices range from 3,000 yen to 36,000 yen (roughly from 30 dollars to 360 dollars)

So I leave you today with a video showcasing Asashoryu , he is known for saying foul things to reporters off cameras and for being one of the bests (if not THE best) sumo wrestlers at the moment.

Kinkakuji Temple

Gako chan came to visit us all the way from Yokohama, so we went sightseeing in Kyoto together, unfortunately the weather turned very very snowy, I thought that because of the weather there would be few people site seeing, boy was I wrong, Kinkakuji temple was packed there was a line to get in that looked like a world premiere event was being held inside or something like that, but after we finally made it in it was worth the long line, I think it was a special day, we got to see the temple covered in snow it was beautiful.

Here are the pics:

Hina Matsuri and Marrige Requirements

Today was Hina Matsuri , I don't have enough money to buy the really cool hina sets that every one displays in theyr homes, they are quite expensive, some cost more than 1,000 dollars, but they are so pretty they are worth every penny.

This is a picture of a typical hina set:

Someday Ill have a daughter and enough cash to get one of these sets but today is not that day so I made my own litle binbo hina sama display, because I refuse to let the day pass and not have something that commemorates this special day. Here is my picture, I used a cute little doll I bought at a Jinja in Nara and I made a little origami flower , I used a manju box as the base :

Other than that, I went down to city hall today to get the information needed in order to get married to a foreigner in japan, basically they told me all I need is my passport and my certificate stating that I am single in my country , legalized and translated by my country's embassy and that is it, my boyfriend has to fill out a form and also get papers stating which district he is from, after we get all those papers put together and deposit them in city hall then it takes from 1 hour to 3 days to get it approved and then we will be married.

After all that is done I then have to go to immigration office in Kyoto to see what happens after you marry in Japan, Ill keep you guys posted.