January 2012 Newsletter: Update from Joy o' Kanji

Jan 31, 2012

Hello, Friends of Joy o' Kanji (aka JOKers)!

How are your New Year's resolutions coming along?! Chances are you pledged to study Japanese on a regular basis and learn more kanji. Maybe you're so discouraged with your progress that you've already ditched your resolutions.

Joy o' Kanji can help you out here!

That's not because the approach is like that of a drill sergeant or personal trainer, forcing you to do far more push-ups and sit-ups than you can comfortably do. Far from it. The key word, after all, is "joy."

With Joy o' Kanji, you'll have so much fun reading essays and viewing JOKIA albums that it won't feel like work in the least. And while you're enjoying yourself, you'll absorb far more information about the characters, language, and culture than you even realize. Not a bad way to fulfill your resolutions!

Joy o' Kanji is your bridge to success!

Fun Features on Joy o' Kanji

Did you know that you can do all of the following on the site?

• Download free essays. There may have been some confusion about this before, but two essays are indeed free, so check them out if you haven't done so already. That's the best way to see how much Joy o' Kanji has to offer you. The free essays are 1028 on 猿 (monkey) and 1335 on 芝 (lawn grass).

• Find out which essays have just posted or are coming soon. You can consult Status Updates for two types of posts. "What's New" tells you which essays have just appeared. It also provides synopses of those essays. "On Deck" will tell you what's coming in the next two weeks. You can also go to the table of contents for essays and see the same information, thanks to red tags that say "New" and "Coming!"

• See which characters each JOKIA photo album contains. This feature wasn't available when we launched, but it is now. Go to the main JOKIA page, and you'll notice displays such as this one for the newly posted JOKIA Album 69:

• Read a free blog entry twice a week. JOK Notebook entries are like my old Kanji Curiosity posts on JapanesePod101.com, but they're short and very easy to digest. They appear twice weekly.

• Follow Joy o' Kanji on Facebook or Twitter. "Liking" or following JOK makes it much easier to keep up with new posts in JOK Notebook, What's New, and On Deck.

• Share Joy o' Kanji with your friends. If you go to the home page of Joy o' Kanji and use share buttons at the top or bottom, you can post the site to all your favorite social media, letting your friends know about this resource. You can also share specific pages of the site.

• Upload an avatar. Your avatar might be a picture of yourself or it could be an image of something you love. When you make comments on Joy o' Kanji (as I encourage you to do!), your photo will appear alongside your words. To upload an avatar, just go to Join Us (if you haven't yet registered) or Account (if you have), and take it from there, following prompts to upload a photo. The following set of comments appear—with avatars—on the JOK Notebook entry "A Rabbit Crossed with a Horse."

• List your favorite kanji and explain the reason. These tidbits will eventually go on the Great Wall of Kanji! Again, this is something you can add to your Account page.

Imagine being able to read every bit of this sign!
(Of course, you'd have to be able to see it a little
more clearly than you can here!)

New Content

Currently, 20 essays are available on Joy o' Kanji! (That's half of my inventory. I'd better write more essays quickly!) Twelve were available at the launch. Since we were last in touch, I've posted these eight essays:

Jan. 6: 竜 (1899: dragon)

亀 (1985: turtle)

Jan. 13: 沢 (1552: marsh; plentiful)

斤 (1176: loaf (of bread))

Jan. 20: 塚 (1607: mound)

怒 (1639: anger)

Jan. 27: 屈 (1188: to bend)

浦 (1785: seaside)

At the links, you'll find synopses of each one. (And no, I didn't plan the alternating blues and pinks here. It's an iContact bug that I can't figure out how to fix!)

As mentioned above, JOKIA Album 69 is now available, as well. That means that nine photo albums are at your disposal, one of them free. If you're short on time or money or both, a JOKIA (Joyo Kanji in Action) album is a great way to learn a lot about characters in just 10 minutes or so.

The following JOK Notebook posts have appeared since I last wrote to you:

Dec. 22: Tempest in a Tin

Jan. 3: Difficult to Read

Jan. 6: Dragons Abound!

Jan. 10: A Rabbit Crossed with a Horse

Jan. 13: More and More Dragons!

Jan. 16: Caged Camels and Other Mysteries

Jan. 20: Everything Is Illuminated–Sometimes!

Jan. 24: Velveteen Books

Jan. 27: Drops of Rain, Drops of the Moon

Jan. 31: Siren Song

These are all FREE, and each one has something of interest about kanji, as well as vivid photos, so be sure to check them out!