History of Japan

PBS is famous for its excellent documentaries.
I mostly like their Empires series, about forgotten empires in history.
Their "Japan, Memoirs of a Secret Empire" has been available on youtube for a while.
If you're interested in the history of Japan, especially the time when the country was completely isolated, you may find it worthwhile to check it out.

The Way of the Samurai  

The Will of the Shogun  

The Return of the Barbarians  

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Learning Japanese: Interesting Video Logs (2) Japanesepod101.com

JapanesePod101.com brings several series of short videoclips on basic and intermediate Japanese.  

These clips are available on YouTube, and as they are grouped together by the same topic, you can view them one-by-one like the chapters of a book.

JapanesePod101.com also offers a paying service for students of Japanese.  I have no experience in this myself, but if you feel the free clips are good for you, it may be worthwhile to check it out further.

And you can learn other stuff as well  :)

I noticed a Kanji (3): 所 (ところ, しょ place; spot;)

所 means place or spot, and I see it a lot in combination with other kanji to indicate a certain location.

台所        だいどころ        kitchen

事務所      じむしょ          office

住所        じゅうしょ        address

個所        かしょ            passage; place; point; part
場所        ばしょ            1: place; location; spot; position;  2: room; space;

洗面所      せんめんじょ      washroom; bathroom

市役所      しやくしょ        municipal office; council; city hall

I noticed a Kanji (2): 動 (どう motion; change; confusion)

動 is related to moving or a movement. So if you pay close attention, you can notice it in a lot of words that are related to motion.

動く           うごきます           to move;

動詞           どうし               verb

電動           でんどう             electric

動物達         どうぶつたち         animals

感動・する     かんどう・します     being deeply moved emotionally;

活動・する     かつどう・します     to do activity

自動車         じどうしゃ           automobile

自動車道       じどうしゃどう       expressway; motorway
働く           はたらく             to work; to labor; to labour;

運動・する     うんどう・します     to exercise

Learning Japanese: Interesting Video Logs (1): CultureQuirk

Delphine explains the basics of Japanese in her own style: clear English, to the point and a little fast. もう　少し　ゆっくり話してください。
But watching her video clips will get you up to date in short time.
Excellent Japanese for busy people (pun intended)

Learning Japanese: Learn Japanese Adventure

Well-seasoned engineer and student of Japanese, Kia Leng (Mr. Koh) has written a series of articles on the same topics as you learn in class. He did a wonderful job, and must have spend a lot of time on it.



Besides good (and correct) explanations, you will find lists of words (kana, kanji, romaji, English) and examples sentences. These are truly valuable as you can simply copy them and input them in you Anki SRS.
So I highly recommend this site and encourage you to give him feedback on his efforts.

I noticed a Kanji(1): 見 (み、けん looking; viewing)

As mentioned in one of the previous entries, one of Steve Kaufman’s tips　is to look at the language actively and notice patterns, returning words, and so on.
There are many kanji that keep recurring in several words. If you notice and recognize them, this can help you in remembering the kanji for nouns, as well as the meaning of compounds and verbs.

At a certain point, I found that I started recognizing kanji and as such understanding the meaning of a word without actually having learned that word, especially if it exists out of several kanji. This was actually very stimulating and encouraged me to memorise more kanji than those that we learned in class.

This is the first of a series or articles where I share the kanji that I notice and recognize in other words.

見える      みえます          to look; to seem; to appear;

発見・する はっけん・します  to discover;

花見        はなみ            cherry blossom viewing; flower viewing
意見        いけん            opinion; view; comment

見出し      みだし            heading; headline; caption; subtitle; index

会見        かいけん          interview; audience

見学        けんがく          to visit a factory for study

見本        みほん            sample