iKnow Japanese
Posted on 21. Feb, 2009 by themaker in Language
Japanese language learning follows the rest of the world online. KS swots up on the latest DIY learn Japanese website.
Becoming proficient in a language requires years of diligent study and an ever-present motivation to learn. For many of us tackling Japanese, various roadblocks seem to present themselves on a daily basis. With whom can I practice conversation? Should I focus on hiragana or katakana first? What’s the best way to review new vocabulary? And of course, how should I go about retaining Kanji? For those of us who teach English, the workplace usually offers few opportunities to put our newly acquired Nihongo skills to the test. Studying at a Japanese language school, although invaluable, can often subject Westerners to the unfamiliar rote learning methods favored by the Japanese schooling system, which promotes memorization and repetition over interaction and creative thinking. Frustration can mount as a result of these obstacles, and cause even the most focused student to wobble.
Luckily for us, there’s the website iKnow.
iKnow is a site that offers an interactive learning interface of the highest quality, driven to help the self-taught linguist master their language of choice. With a variety of courses to select from, iKnow presents students with a diverse curriculum that tailors itself around users’ needs. Not only is there a wide array of content, but it is delivered in a way that’s easy to use. Simply go to www.iknow.co.jp , sign up and off you go. After the familiar username and email data entry segment, the site will then ask you some simple questions about which languages you are fluent in and which ones you currently learning, along with your current skill level in that language. After the initial login concludes, the site recommends what it thinks would be good starting points for you based on the information you entered.
The courses include all aspects of language, including a vocabulary builder, kanji/hiragana/ katakana exercises, spelling and dictation programs, games and user-uploaded data. Your progress is documented on the website itself and is constantly updated based on your scores in the aforementioned exercises. These can be viewed as graphs, which are available via your iKnow homepage, and the system will reshuffle any trouble points back into the curriculum.
But it’s the user community that is the real highlight of the site. The interface has been set up to mimic popular social networking sites, such as MySpace and Facebook, albeit with a focus on education. Your profile can be as personalized as you see fit, from adding a picture of yourself, listing your interests or keeping a journal in the language you’re currently studying. It works well for communicating with people who are in the same boat as you, keeping each other motivated, while suggesting different tactics and learning tools to help hone each other’s skills.
iKnow is currently in its beta form and offers lessons in English, Japanese and Chinese, all of which are free. The creators’ tagline is “Personalized. Social. Learning.” And it delivers on all fronts.
Anyone looking for a new spark to ignite that burning desire to master Japanese
should look no further. Now you know.
Recent Comments