Travis Vroman

I know it’s been quite a while since I’ve posted here. To be honest, I’ve had a lot going on, and maintaining this blog hasn’t been the topmost priority. I just recently got over the flu (the actual flu, not just the common cold. You know, the kind that typically sends you to the emergency room). I’ve been focusing really hard lately on trying to keep my Japanese studies up as well, and to me that ranks higher than updating this blog. On an unrelated note, I’ve been trying to learn to play guitar on my spare (ha!) time. Man, that crap is hard! First and foremost, though, I have been working on sharpening my skills as a developer since that’s what brings home the bacon. After all, without bacon, what is there? All jokes aside though, I am still […]

Everyone has used Google-Sensei’s fantastic Image Search feature to find things online. Sometimes it gives you whacked results, but most of the time it’s pretty spot-on. That being said, most people probably don’t think about it being used as a dictionary. Think about it for a moment and it will make sense. If you type in “banana”, Google-Sensei will return a wide array of photos featuring bananas. If you enter “car”, you’ll get a variety of content featuring cars. Why not apply this to language learning? Why not apply this to Japanese? For example, in the article image I entered “バナナ” (banana). Behold, photos of bananas! The next time you are stuck on a word, type it into Google-Sensei’s image search. The image feedback has the added bonus of helping it stick in your brain. That is all.

Alright, so it’s been a bit again since I have updated. Most of the reason behind this is what I stated before, but I also feel that I should come clean about something. As hard as I tried not to, I have broken the chain! 🙁 I know, bad Torabisu! Bad! The truth is that the learning curve at my new position is a steep one, and I’ve been spending my spare time getting up to speed on things required for it. When I originally posted about the chain, I knew this would probably happen at some point no matter how hard I tried. It’s inevitable, really. Life tends to get in the way of studying Japanese sometimes – that’s just the way things go. It was never my intention to keep the chain perfect. Nothing is perfect in life, […]

Hello, AN followers! It has been a (long) while since I have posted. For this, I do apologize. The lack of posts is due to a decent number of factors. First, there has been a lot going on in my personal life which has been occupying much of my time, thus taking from the time I used to have to write. It’s not a complaint – just a fact. I’ve still been studying my Japanese every day, and haven’t broken the chain yet (that’s good, at least). Family and friends should always come first over everything, and sometimes we lose sight of this. I know I have. For far too many nights I have sat in front of my computer either writing code, studying Japanese and or navigating Facecult{{1}}. While some of these things are important (such as sticking to […]

おはようございます！Happy 2014! I just wanted to take a moment and talk about some current events and updates. First off, I should mention that the Links page has been revamped. I’ve added a ton of new resources and reformatted it so that everything is organized into categories. I’ll be updating that page more in the coming months. As I mentioned in the previous article, I have decided to apply for the 2015 JET Programme. That article is the beginning of a series that will outline my journey through the application process and (hopefully) after acceptance. I also updated my YouTube channel with a new video, which can be found here. Please subscribe if you like it (as well as the other videos on my channel)! Stay tuned!   [Image source]

UPDATE: I am putting this on hold for the time being for reasons I will discuss in a future post. I will explain more in detail within the next week or so. Original post: So I have decided that I am going to apply for the JET Programme. I am making my first move towards living and working in Japan. The JET Programme? For those of you who don’t know, the JET (Japan Exchange and Teaching) Programme is a program designed to promote and facilitate international exchange between Japan and other countries. Basically what this means is that it is a way for someone such as myself to learn about Japan, it’s language, culture and history. In exchange, the person (me, in this case) would provide the Japanese people with a unique perspective of the United States, along with it’s […]

日本のクリスマスケーキ ( にほん　の　くりすます　けーき / Japanese Christmas Cakes ) are hugely popular in Japan this time of year. They are typically a light sponge cake with strawberries and whipped cream, decorated beautifully as is typical with all Japanese food. In recent years, there are many other variations as well, such as チョコレートケーキ ( ちょこれーと　けーき / Chocolate Cake) versions: If you’re curious about making a 日本のクリスマスケーキ, there is a video recipe here that details all the steps needed to make a beautiful cake. Images sourced from various places among the interwebs.

Read an interesting article on AJATT today that made a lot of sense. So many times I’ve heard, “I’m too old to start learning Japanese” or “I should have started when I…”. Stop that thinking right now and start learning Japanese instead. Otherwise you’ll be wondering in 20 years why you never got anywhere with it. I really suggest you read the article though as it drives this point home better than I can at the moment. Now then, back to my studies! And in case you missed it, the article is here.

I’ve heard about Lang-8 for a while, but never actually looked it up until recently. As it turns out, this was a fantastic move. More on that in a moment. So, what is Lang-8? On the surface, it’s a journal that you post to with a community. However, it’s so much more than that. Lang-8 is a community with native speakers of over 190 languages for you to interact with.  An Overview of How it Works Basically, as mentioned before, it is a journal that you post to, with a twist. When you sign up, it asks you for two things (aside from the standard information all sites ask for upon registration, like email): your native language and your target language(s). The twist is that all of your posts will be in the target language, not your native one. So for me, this means […]

This is the second article in the Method Change-Up series. If you haven’t yet read the first, please do so first. The biggest changes in my method for learning Japanese have been detailed in the first article in this series. However, I have made another change (more like a decision, actually) that I’ll detail here. A while back, made a post about trying something called MCDs (Massive-Context Cloze-Deletion Card), a concept first introduced to me by this post at AJATT. I decided to give it a go in tandem with my sentences to see how I liked it. In fact, it was so different than how I was used to learning that I actually tried it for over a year. In that article I hinted at possibly switching over to MCDs. However, after trying it for a long time, I have […]