Welcome to Forum Spotlight! Here we’ll be introducing interesting and useful posts made by members at our very own JapanesePod101.com Forum. This week's forum spotlight post is a question asked by debondtjan about the best way to write out kanji and kana that was answered by Belton. ======= Question： ======= "For writing the kana/kanji, what would you suggest: a thick pen or a normal pen to practice? The bigger, calligraphic versions of kana & kanji (where they use a thick pen) always look so much better and easier to the eye than the smaller ones. One problem I currently see in my learning process, is that sometimes small hiragana (on screen) miss some pixels (that you clearly see on bigger hiragana) that aided me in... Show more

Welcome to Forum Spotlight! Here we’ll be introducing interesting and useful posts made by members at our very own JapanesePod101.com Forum. This week's forum spotlight post is a question asked by thegsusfreek about the Japanese writing system from a beginner's point of view that was answered by QuackingShoe. If you're a beginner who is confused by how the Japanese writing system works, you'll find some answers here! ===================== Question from thegsusfreek: ===================== I've just started using this program and I've signed up for the 7 day premium trial. I'm absolutely loving it! But, I have many questions about written Japanese. I hope that someone can help answer them. 1) In the first table of the "Kanji Close-up"... Show more

Welcome to Forum Spotlight! Here we’ll be introducing interesting and useful posts made by members at our very own JapanesePod101.com Forum. This forum spotlight post contains the final part of a list of new proposed Jōyō Kanji, which comes from Psyさん. What are Jōyō Kanji? The answer to that question along with the first installment of the list can be found here! For the second installment, click here. Here is part 3, the final installment of the new proposed Jōyō Kanji list. Next to each kanji, you will find the reading (onyomi is in katakana, kunyomi is in hiragana), the character's meaning, and a sample word using that kanji. No Kanji Reading Meaning Sample Word 126 諦 テイ・あきら（める）... Show more

Welcome to Forum Spotlight! Here we’ll be introducing interesting and useful posts made by members at our very own JapanesePod101.com Forum. This forum spotlight post contains part 2 of a list of new proposed Jōyō Kanji, which comes from Psyさん. What are Jōyō Kanji? The answer to that question along with the first installment of the list can be found here! Here is part 2 of the new proposed Jōyō Kanji list. Next to each kanji, you will find the reading (onyomi is in katakana, kunyomi is in hiragana), the character's meaning, and a sample word using that kanji. No Kanji Reading Meaning Sample Word 65 采 サイ dice; die 拍手喝采（はくしゅかっさい） 66 塞 サイ・ソク・ふさ（ぐ）・ふさ（がる） ... Show more

Welcome to Forum Spotlight! Here we’ll be introducing interesting and useful posts made by members at our very own JapanesePod101.com Forum. Our second forum spotlight post containing a complete list of new proposed Joyo Kanji comes from Psyさん. The Jōyō Kanji (常用漢字) are a list of 1945 "daily-use" kanji characters established by the Japanese Ministry of Education in 1981. Japanese children will have studied all of these kanji by the time they graduate from junior high school. The Ministry of Education has reviewed the current Jōyō Kanji set and proposed 191 kanji to be added to the list.  These characters are still under review, and the final list of additions is expected to be announced in the fall of 2010. Due to the amount of... Show more

Welcome to Forum Spotlight! Here we'll be introducing interesting and useful posts made by members at our very own JapanesePod101.com Forum. Our first forum spotlight post explaining particles for beginners of Japanese comes from Bueller_007さん. This was posted in response to a listener who said that they were having trouble keeping all of the particles straight. は (wa) marks a topic, emphasing what follows it as being specific to that topic. There is no real equivalent in English, but people often say that "AはB" = "As for A, B". The "topic" is often the grammatical subject, but can be anything (including the grammatical object, and sometimes the verb), and it may also follow some other particles. Grammar Bank が (ga) marks... Show more

Brandon Fogerty, a talented young programmer from Georgia and a long time community member of JapanesePod101.com has just finished coding a beta version of an Installer application for our iLearning Center. This incredible application, which is currently in beta and available only for Windows users, simplifies the installation process of the lesson notes and sound zip files on the iPod by automating the entire process and removing the need to unzip, drag, and drop the the files manually. Premium subscribers who currently use the iLearning Center and are interested in beta testing this fantastic installer can get started by following these 3 simple steps: Step 1: Read the PDF Installation Guide, which outlines the requirements and... Show more

Dimitri-san has done it again! This time he emerged from his secret programming laboratory with a JapanesePod101.com Widget (see image below)! This incredible widget allows you to listen to any lesson on the feed; furthermore, it even allows you to see lesson specific notes for each lesson by clicking the italic i in lower right corner! Dimitri's diabolic creation has been added to Mac's Dashboard Widgets and can also be downloaded from Dimitri's website. Please direct all technical questions, issues, and feedback to Dimitri at dimitri008@mac.com (please indicate in the subject line of your email). We too at JapanesePod101.com would love to hear your feedback about the widget.On behalf of eveyone here at JapanesePod101.com, we would... Show more

Dimitri-san, a young and talented programmer from Los Angeles, has just launched Version 1.0 of his incredible JapanesePod101.com application (see screenshot below). Using our RSS feed, his incredible application enables end users to quickly browse, search, sort, listen, and watch our daily podcasts and videocasts using one convenient tool. You can even see the romaji and transcripts as you hear each lesson! Version 1.0 includes the following upgrades and improvements: powerful control over managing all the episodes, as they can be filtered by name, date time — you name it! instant search built in easy to use controller for playing episodes plays video episodes, along with audio ones next button goes up the list, selecting... Show more

Are you a Mac user? Do you listen to JapanesePod101.com? If you answered 'yes' to both questions then you are in for a real special treat! Our young friend and talented programmer, Dimitri from Los Angeles, has just launched beta version 1.2 of his JapanesePod101.com super-duper application (see screenshot below). Using our RSS feed, his incredible application enables end users to quickly browse, search, sort, listen, and watch our daily podcasts and videocasts using one convenient tool. You can even see the romaji as you hear each lesson! Anyone interested in beta-testing the application can get started on Dimitri's website where they can download it, see screenshots, and read frequently asked questions. Please direct all technical... Show more