Last Sunday I reviewed Andrew's simple kanji index, QuickKanji which provoked some interesting discussion about the accuracy of crowd-sourced translations. This is something that might be worth exploring further. It seems to be working for some people. There is a good definition of terms here including 'fanlation' which is a relatively new term for crowdsourcing free translations through a fanbase. (Follow @l_andrew_l on Twitter).
Most of you already know that it takes no less than 100% comittment to learn a language. Take a few tips from 19th century renaissance man Sir Richard Francis Burton who mastered 29 languages in an age without television or the internet. (Hat tip to Alex on Victory Manual).
Or how about these insights into the Japanese sense of honour at the Japan Subculture Reasearch Center? Author Jake Adelstein learned everything he needed to know from the yakuza or the cops, and still has five fingers on each hand. Follow @jakeadelstein on Twitter, or check out his book about his experience as a reporter on the police beat in Tokyo. (Secret handshake to Our Man in Abiko).
Jamaipanese got into the festive spirit with the Japanese Culture and Calendar Exhibition 2010, including more plastic sushi than you can poke a chopstick at. Earlier this year Jamaipanese launched Operation Visit Japan, something that he has been planning for over a year. Now you can ChipIn to help him meet his savings targets and experience the real thing. I first blogged about Kirk in this post from June last year about seven J-bloggers far from Japan. (Follow @Jamaipanese on Twitter).
I really appreciate getting mentions on other peoples blogs, especially when it leads me to great content like this post on using Twitter to improve your Japanese by @zonjineko or more on Manga translation by @Alpharalpha. Posts like this motivate me to dust off my other twitter account @jrfiction and get tweeting in Japanese. (よろしくね @dandanbatakeさん)
And finally, Joe Jones over at Mutantfrog Travelogue has some interesting ideas on what to do with Itami Airport. If they did away with Osaka's third airport, perhaps they could save some money on their expensive and ineffective biometric immigration screening systems.Image: DSC00114 by muzina_shanghai, on Flickr
