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Tried-and-tested ways to learn Japanese while having fun!

Everyone has their own studying methods, but no matter which one you choose, learning a language boils down to mastering four things; reading, writing, listening and speaking. I know people who study so hard they literally memorize words out of a dictionary. There are also the people who think that the best way to pick up a language is to live in the native country and speak the lingo as much as possible.

I believe in practicing over studying. And by “practicing”, I mostly mean “surfing the internet”. If you’re currently struggling with learning the Japanese language, or if you hate studying but would like to improve your Japanese, read on!

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NHK TV worker woken by earthquake, gives viewers a show by accident

As you already know, the third anniversary of the 3/11 Tohoku disaster was remembered this week through a variety of activities, including a fundraiser by Yahoo! Japan which saw the company donating roughly $250,000 to charity. The anniversary was also marked by a powerful earthquake off the coast of Kyushu at around 2 am on March 12, injuring about 14 people and wrecking havoc on innocent anime figures.

It also brought grins to all of the NHK viewers and Twitter users who happened to catch the public broadcaster’s footage of a confused-looking man running around an office in his underwear!

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Live on air, even with the best scripting and a highly skilled team behind you, anything can happen. Minor mishaps during live broadcasts rarely cause too much trouble, and most viewers are generally quite understanding when they do, but there are some combinations–such as, oh, a serious news bulletin and a doodle of a giant schlong– that tend to raise a few eyebrows.

As many of you may have seen, footage appeared online last week showing newscaster Siobhan Riley using a touchscreen to draw on a map of the local area during a live news bulletin, accidentally creating what some people think looks like a giant penis in the process. Unfortunately for Ms. Riley the news even made it out to Japan where netizens positively lapped it up.

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