Don't worry about putting a spoiler on the main page of slashdot. Month of ignoring all information about the newest Zelda game isn't that big of a deal...
Avoid *like the plague* sites that tell you that you can learn Japanese from Anime and Manga. This is not possible if you want to speak with any amount of seriousness or authority.
There are two ways you will probably speak like if you do this: like an old Japanese man, or like a young Japanese girl. For the confused, neither of these are desirable unless, of course, you are one.
For the serious Japanese student, unfortunately you will have to fork out some money for a decent book with some sort of audio suppliment. Besides the grammar, vocabulary, written systems, and cultural differences that affect speech, the pronounciation is very difficult to master, and actually hearing it is required for proper imitation. For a language this complex, it is quite nearly required to have a proper teacher for the more advanced grammar and situations. For instance, there are about 10 different ways to say "you" in Japanese, none of which are used most of the time, and each with a very different connotation that a book can't effectively explain.
Continuing without a teacher is inadvisable, however, there are some interesting places online to check out.
http://wikipedia.org should always be your first stop.
http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/afaq/afaq.html
has a faq from a newsgroup that is decently helpful.
> To get a really good Japanese dictionary, you're probably going to have to go to Japan.
Nope. Sorry. I'm in Japan and have been looking for a good one for 4 months. There are a lot to choose from, but all of them are in Japanese. Unless you can read the language to start off with, it's not much use. Asking for the definition of any Japanese word will return the definition in Japanese. Nearly all of the devices here are for Japanese native speakers.
The game isn't the problem. The problem is the person. Americans, in general, are stupid. I am one so I'm allowed to say this.
Take a look at Canada, Japan, even Europe. Same games, same fanatics playing them over and over all day. I've been living in Japan for 4 months and have heard of ONE shooting...and it's not because they aren't reported. Any news of gun violence at all is a front page story because it just doesn't happen.
If all it takes is a game to spur someone to a shooting spree, there is something fundamentally wrong with that person. If he didn't play video games, it would have been the music he listens to...not the music, then the friends he has, etc etc.
Don't make excuses for people by saying it's the games. It's the person.
Slashdot Mirror
Don't worry about putting a spoiler on the main page of slashdot. Month of ignoring all information about the newest Zelda game isn't that big of a deal...
Where's the love?
Hate 1, Hate 2, Hate 3
Avoid * like the plague * sites that tell you that you can learn Japanese from Anime and Manga. This is not possible if you want to speak with any amount of seriousness or authority.
There are two ways you will probably speak like if you do this: like an old Japanese man, or like a young Japanese girl. For the confused, neither of these are desirable unless, of course, you are one.
For the serious Japanese student, unfortunately you will have to fork out some money for a decent book with some sort of audio suppliment. Besides the grammar, vocabulary, written systems, and cultural differences that affect speech, the pronounciation is very difficult to master, and actually hearing it is required for proper imitation. For a language this complex, it is quite nearly required to have a proper teacher for the more advanced grammar and situations. For instance, there are about 10 different ways to say "you" in Japanese, none of which are used most of the time, and each with a very different connotation that a book can't effectively explain.
Continuing without a teacher is inadvisable, however, there are some interesting places online to check out. http://wikipedia.org should always be your first stop. http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/afaq/afaq.html has a faq from a newsgroup that is decently helpful.
Netiquette guidelines are not, as the article says, unspoken.
http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1855.txt
...check out asfrecorder...
Download them with asfrecorder, then watch them with mplayer. Makes streaming ASF files play nice.
> To get a really good Japanese dictionary, you're probably going to have to go to Japan.
Nope. Sorry. I'm in Japan and have been looking for a good one for 4 months. There are a lot to choose from, but all of them are in Japanese. Unless you can read the language to start off with, it's not much use. Asking for the definition of any Japanese word will return the definition in Japanese. Nearly all of the devices here are for Japanese native speakers.
The game isn't the problem. The problem is the person. Americans, in general, are stupid. I am one so I'm allowed to say this.
Take a look at Canada, Japan, even Europe. Same games, same fanatics playing them over and over all day. I've been living in Japan for 4 months and have heard of ONE shooting...and it's not because they aren't reported. Any news of gun violence at all is a front page story because it just doesn't happen.
If all it takes is a game to spur someone to a shooting spree, there is something fundamentally wrong with that person. If he didn't play video games, it would have been the music he listens to...not the music, then the friends he has, etc etc.
Don't make excuses for people by saying it's the games. It's the person.
That's where wine debug comes in handy.....