SmileTalk

Showing posts with label Education. Show all posts

Wednesday, 30 July 2014

Smiletalk Updates That'll Put A Smile On Your Face

It has finally happened! Smiletalk now has an option to listen to Japanese talks!

Now you have a supply of Japanese listening comprehensions that will undoubtably be invaluable resources to you! You should check out our article on how to effectively use listening comprehensions. Don't forget to help support learners in Japan by contributing your own talks!

Don't forget to check out the facebook page for more information and of course the actual website. If you have any ideas please drop them in the forum where I personally read all of them.

Thursday, 26 June 2014

Fred's Phrases: Anime: Fruits Basket Vocabulary

Earlier this week we reviewed the anime 'Fruits Basket' so why don't we learn a bit of the vocab used in the anime?

Daoist (Taoist) symbols carved in stone: yin-yang and animals of the Chinese zodiac. Qingyanggong temple, Chengdu, Sichuan, China. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Anime Vocabulary Lesson 1: Fruits Basket

Animals of the Zodiac

Eng: Jap: Kanji

Mouse: Nezumi : 鼠

Ox: Osuushi: 雄牛

Tiger: Tora: 虎

Rabbit: Usagi: ウサギ

Dragon: Ryū: 竜

Snake: Hebi: 蛇

Horse: Uma: 馬

Sheep: Hitsuji: 羊

Monkey: Saru: 猿

Rooster: Ondori: 雄鶏

Dog: Inu: 犬

Pig: Buta: 豚

And the extra...

Cat: Neko: 猫

Miscellaneous words
Landslide: Jisuberi: 地滑り
Handsome: Hansamu: ハンサム
Schoolgirl: Joshi seito: 女子生徒
Hot spring: Onsen: 温泉
Curse: Noroi: 呪い
Hug: Hōyō: 抱擁

Wednesday, 18 June 2014

Some Free Language Learning Hacks

So you want to learn Japanese but you can't get a hold of any textbooks, you are just too broke or nowhere near you sells them. Your only means to learn Japanese is the internet but oh my goodness it's so confusing, where do I even start? How do I measure my progress? Am I going to have to buy those really expensive Genki Japan books that everyone is talking about?!

No.

Japan Characters - Food (Photo credit: Teratoiid)

This is the internet generation and trust me you don't need a book to help you learn when you have the media.

Every day you are bombarded by thousands of advertisements trying to sell you something, pictures of scantily clad woman brandishing bottles of perfume and promising that for just $69 you too could be this beautiful. Adverts are designed to get their message across clearly and quickly to a wide audience and usually have visual aids. This makes them the perfect tool to practice you're Japanese or any language you are learning on.

It doesn't just stop their though listen to Japanese music, get a hold of some lyrics and scratch out some of the Japanese words. Learn the meanings of the one you scratched out, if it's a verb learn all of the parts to it. Do this with a few songs especially if you can find common words in them. Next listen to the song and write down the words you scratched out and their meaning. If you get it right why not treat yourself to some gorgeous plum wine? Keep this up until you learn the whole song and don't forget to sing along to those lyrics. I must admit I get up and do a jig every time I hear Gackt's song Vanilla. Find the music you like and use it as your springboard into the language. Submerge yourself in the Japanese language, watch Japanese commercials on Youtube (it's actually incredibly entertaining and freaky).

Saturday, 31 May 2014

New Updates for Blog

The main website has had a few updates and now it's time for the blog to do the same. Our current mascots Kate, Chloe and the gang are being redone by none other than Lorrainiaful!

So in the coming weeks you'll be seeing transformations such as:

into ->

so please stay tuned and look forward to these fantastic upgrades!

Wednesday, 28 May 2014

Smiletalk website update

I am excited to tell you avid Smiletalk users and eager learners, about Smiletalks latest features. As you know the site at the moment is still in it's infancy and with each passing month we boldly stride forward to improve it for the users. This month we have added a more social element to the website but stay tuned because even bigger and better updates are in the works. Thank you so much for your support!

Now lets take a closer look at these new features!

The Latest Features

Smiles

English: Hitch-hiker's gesture Русский: Жест автостопщика (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Hey you, someone just gave you a smile! This means that they found your recording helpful and wanted to show their appreciation with a little smile. It's basically a thumbs up meaning you did a good job and just a little something to help motivate you!

This will help you decide on the content you can upload by seeing what people like. It will also help you to improve your posts by mimic the ones you made that got a lot of smiles.

Comments

We have finally created a comments feature! This means that people can now comment on your talk to tell you if it was helpful or not and to thank you for uploading. You can also comment on other users talk and maybe even ask for a specific talk! More features like this coming real soon

Plays

Now you can see how many time your talk has been played. If it is being played a lot then you know a lot of users are using it. You should feel proud that you are helping break down the language barrier!

Thank you all once again for your support and remember, by just sharing a few words you are helping billions of people by providing listening comprehensions

Friday, 4 April 2014

Miso Soup

Hello! I'm Chloe and this is my kitchen!

A bowl of miso soup (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Here we talk about cool Japanese foods and I even give you recipes! Today's cool Japanese food is....

Miso

(みそ)

ヒラツメガニの味噌汁(miso soup) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Miso Soup (Photo credit: carlosj)

Miso is just one of those awesome Japanese seasonings that not everyone has heard of. It is made by fermenting soybeans with salt and a fungus known as kōjikin in Japan. Sometimes rice is included to make the delicious gloopy paste. Just add a little dashi soup stock and you have some tasty miso soup (misoshiru) on your hands! Surely the king of staple foods.

Miso is rich in vitamins and high in proteins and was even around in feudal Japan. Most of the time it has a delicious salty taste but both the taste and smell change depending on how it was fermented.
Miso has quite a lot of variety so it's worth
experimenting with.

Miso Soup (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Here is a simple recipe for Miso Soup that I hope you will enjoy!
Vegetarian Friendly!

Ingredients:

4 cups water
1/3 cup miso
3 green onions (scallions), chopped
1 tbsp shredded nori or wakame seaweed
1/2 block firm silken tofu, cut into 1 inch cubes
dash soy sauce (optional)
1/2 tsp sesame oil (optional)

Prep Time: 5 minutes

Cook Time: 5 minutes

Yield: Serves: 3-4

Instructions:

Get a medium sized saucepan and put in you water and dashi packet (be sure to give it a good stir!).
Bring it to boil on medium heat. When it boils reduce it to a simmer for approximately five minutes.
Make sure you've gotten rid of that Dashi packet. Get a Tbsp. of miso and mix it in with your dashi. Kepp on doing it till all of the miso is used up.
you can try adding tofu to dilute it if you like. Just cut it into neat cubes and plop it in, give it a gentle stir. You of course don't have too but it is tasty.
Get some lovely soak dried wakame and put it in some water for a good ten minutes or so.
While that's soaking slice up a nice green onion and serve it in a bowl with your wakame when you're ready,
Put you miso soup on simmer till it heated through and then serve.

Top Tips

Kombu Dashi is the best for vegetarians.

Don't boil the miso because it ruins the taste.

Taste as you go!

I hope you enjoyed this lesson! Why don't you post a response on Smiletalk about your experience making miso soup!