Author: tokyokevin

  • Learners of Japanese

    As a slow learner of written Japanese I am at Wanikani Level 20/60 after about a year. I like to check out how others are going about it. So I create a feed for Reddit’s LearnJapanese. Here is someone who finished up all 60 levels of Wanikani (a kanji learning program, $100 off this week for a lifetime license) after only a year and a half, and has now gone beyond Wanikani for a year.

    Another interesting student is a German software developer and how he approaches the language.

    From that we can learn about new tools. An old one that has been updated recently is Yomitan, whose browser extension allows you to research meaning, readings, and more while on the web. Another new one for me is the jpdb, a database of kanji you can customize to a great extent.

  • Kids on Screens

    Huge (600 pp) trove of research on children’s (toddler to adolescent) use of digital screens. Open Source (free to download) too. From Springer. Handbook of Children on Screens.

  • 100 Heartwarming Stories

    From the BBS, many with short video clips, and most short and simple enough to be used in ELT classes.

  • Rotating Sandwiches

    Rotating Sandwiches

    At least 6, and maybe 8, of these Rotating Sandwiches are not sandwiches. But controversy aside, this is a great resource for language teaching. Besides our yes/no, we can compare, we can guess the prices, we can list ingredients, we can make recipes. I’m sure there is more. Thanks to Kottke for the link.

  • Liar, liar, pants on AI

    “The paper adds to a small but growing body of evidence that today’s most advanced AI models are becoming capable of strategic deception.”

    From Time Magazine, 3 days before publication of the article. Is this interpretation inflammatory or just exaggerated?