You should also take note of what else do you own; a tablet by itself or do you own other things to tie into an Eco system? Apple really shines when you have other Apple devices to ‘connect’ to (Apple TV, Airport, other iPads) but lacks the customization of an Android tablet. Apple holds resale value very well but they update the product line about once a year so your ‘current model’ will be ‘last gen’ next year.

That said, I use my iPad as a replacement computer. I write code, use photoshop, FTP/SSH into remote computers, surf the web, email, play games, FaceTime(Apple’s free video chat)/iMessage(Apple’s free text messaging)/Skype/VoIP, watch videos (both online and off), use Numbers/Pages/Keynote/iMovie, and just about every thing else with my iPad. We also have three other iPads, three other iPhones, Apple TVs, Mac’s, and we all make use of iCloud.

I started with an iPad because of the way it would play nice with my Mac (Windows and Mac didn’t get along too well back then). Now I have an Eco system around Apple and use the various ways they all communicate with each other, like airplay and air drop. For us it makes more sense to get an iPad over an Android tablet. If I was starting over it would still be Apple but only because I like the way the UI feels, not because it’s Apple. I have yet to see an Android phone system that a like, but that’s a different story!

Even though I prefer to play games on the PSS/PSV the DS/3DS can be very good at helping with Japanese studies (I have all four, it’s just my opinion). Here’s a reply I made about some good Japanese DS carts. I don’t know if it’s in the scope of what you’re looking for but maybe it’ll be of some use.

• This reply was modified 10 years, 4 months ago by  ロブ.

Midori has always had handwriting recognition.

The link button doesn’t work properly. The text value isn’t used for both the mouse over and link text, only the title attribute. To get around this bug/error when using the link button look for the >< and place the text you want to appear between them.

As in:
title="TextFugu">・Here・</a>

The course you’re looking at does seem to be the same as the Durham College one, and you even get credit! Please let me know what you think of the course. It’d be great to get another perspective on it before committing time to it.

I won’t go into it too much as Ririko Hayashi isn’t a member here to give her viewpoints. That said, the course seems to be more of an automated classroom with lessons automatically ‘released’ by the server then through actual human intervention. The forums were left to students helping other students. When I took the class there were questions on the class forum that were left unanswered all the time, unless the student came back to give an update for other readers. Now this ‘students helping other students’, in my opinion, may work for places such as TextFugu where the students are at different levels and can help their juniors but in a class where everyone starts at the same first lesson at the same time it doesn’t.

The only time I saw Ririko in the class forums was during another students thread where I started commenting on how the u in desu isn’t always pronounced during conversation (kinda funny of all things given the other thread here). She agreed but made a point about saying su when learning. I went on to speak with Ririko and discovered the class would seem to be formal feminine Japanese in Romaji, without any overview or lesson on Hiragana. Granted the class is only 12 lessons over 6 weeks and geared around speech so it may be a bit unreasonable for kana lessons. However, when I asked her to state the amount of Romaji in Japan that students were likely to encounter the subject seemed to be avoided. Huh…

Honestly, save your $100-150 (depending on what college you went through) and get a Japanese phrases book/app… or better yet just use TextFugu. You’ll learn more here then that class would ever offer, IMO.

If you want structured class then I would save the extra money and look at the Durham College Japanese I class ($389.09 + books currently). It seems to be a little of everything, including speech, from what I’ve been told. I haven’t taken it so I can only comment on what others have said. I may look into it next semester (it runs every semester for the semester. The next class starts on the 6th, and the one after should start in January) just to see what it is about. Shame there aren’t more japanese classes here in Ontario.

Sorry to give you such a bad review but its only my past experience and opinion. TextFugu is a great place to start with helpful members and great information, much of which is free and can compliment TextFugu excellently.

Hello my fellow Canuck (SW Ontario here!)

Word of advice, get a BA and avoid Ontario Learn Japanese classes… especially the Edu2Go Conversational Japanese. Personal opinion of course but after my conversation with the instructor I couldn’t recommend it to anyone. I’ve heard mixed reviews about the Durham College class (they host it) so I won’t comment on it.

If you haven’t had a look around here yet there is a thread about Japanese DS games to help learning. There are also a few good iOS apps as well (instaKANA, JLPTSelfStudy, Study Japanese for iPad, Tae Kim’s Learning Japanese, Midori, and Anki).

Good luck! ヾ(＠⌒ー⌒＠)ノ

It is upfront and very easy to see when you sign up on their website (non trial). There is a paragraph right under, and I do mean directly under, the area where you input your credit card details. It’s not hidden nor written in any fancy terms.

For your convenience your subscription will automatically renew at the end of your term.
You can easily cancel your membership any time, online, 24 hours a day.

It is also in the webpage you’re sent to after confirming your email address (the “You’ll Only See This page ONCE!” page). If you read the page there is a line in bold that says;

All this for nothing? All for FREE? Ok, so what’s the catch? Well, there are 2..

After the first month, if you love it, do nothing else but continue improving you Japanese learning with the course and Membership, and you will continue to have access for only $25.00 / month. If it’s not for you, for any reason, just cancel at any time.

The $1 was a ‘bandwidth fee’ for the Ultimate getting started package. When you place your $1 Ultimate getting started package order (which included your first month of premium membership for free, 1 Free product download from the ILL store, and 7 day fluency fast course) you are sent to a page to fill in your details. That page also has a picture of a box labeled “Getting Started Japanese”. No where on that page does it state you will be billed monthly after your first month as part of your subscription, that’s on the previous page. Perhaps another note on this page could have avoided this confusion. Maybe you should suggest this on their forum.

JPod101 also has an active support forum. You emailed them once and then claim foul? Let me flip it the other way, would you be friends with someone that agreed to something then suggested you were doing something shady when you were just doing what you agreed to in an upfront and clear language? You said you emailed once and then waited for a month for a reply but did you email the support email address? Did you check your spam folder in case the reply landed in there? Did you try to use the support forums? You can’t fix something if you don’t know it is broken.

I’m not trying to lay blame, only show another side of this story. Many people scam JPod101 by paying the buck and then doing a site rip, or url hacking the store. Thankfully it gets outdated as new material comes out and you lose the extra features within the site.

On a side note, you should have gotten an email for the ultimate getting started package link as well. Check your spam folder just in case. Might as well get everything they agreed to for that dollar. There’s also a JPod101 50% off Premium membership offer for TextFugu members until September.

Hey, where’s the ice cream? :P

The strawberries may look big but isn’t that what everyone fights over?

I always hate being wasteful when trimming the top curve of the slab. Ya, it’s a flat top and makes a cleaner edge after but it just feels wasteful. Maybe I just need to discover what to do with that ‘extra’ bit, lol. I can’t really tell, are your centre strawberries right to the outer edge? I put mine right to the edge because I like the colour and a bit of strawberry in every bite, but that’s just me. Christmas cake can be done so many ways but the really important question is ‘was it good?’

MMmmm… melonpan…