Any good Japanese forums?

[mark1888]

I found this site amazingly helpful during my time studying Chinese and was wondering if anyone knows of any similar japanese forums, as I'm taking up Japanese study now.

Cheers.

[atitarev]

Technically not very good but people are nice and I usually get good response:

http://www.japanese-online.com/forum/index.htm

These ones are more sophisticated:

http://japanese.about.com/mpboards.htm

http://www.apricotweb.com/bbschat/joycha_e.htm

You'll get a lot of hits in Google if you do a search.

I find Chinese Forums quite good in many aspects, not sure if there is one in Japanese of similar quality but let's wait if others post.

頑張ってね！ Ganbatte ne! - Good luck!

[DrinkDrankDrunk]

Also check out http://outpostnine.com/ It is the website of an American teaching English in Japan. The message board gets a lot of traffic and his EDITORIALS ARE HILARIOUS! I can't emphasize enough how funny they are! You can read them here: http://www.outpostnine.com/editorials/teacher.html

[jukebox]

I personally recommend this:

http://www.thejapanesepage.com/

It also has a forum.

and JREF is a good place to discuss everything about Japan and Japanese:

http://www.jref.com/forum/

[nipponman]

http://guidetojapanese.org/forum

Tae could use some more members

[流]

my favorite is www.jref.com

They even have a Chinese language section! http://www.jref.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=145

Oh, that site was already mentioned...

~

Oh, I read those editorials... it seems like a pretty close-minded guy...

[amego]

personally recommend this:

http://www.thejapanesepage.com/

It also has a forum.

Yep great site! I'm active there.

[mark1888]

Thanks for all the suggestions. I'll check them out.

[pookie]

Hi there,

I also attempted to find one of similar quality to this several months ago. I came across japanforums. The quality of the comments and threads left a lot to be desired. It left me wondering if there is a large mental gap between the people on this site and on that. Other forums I've visited have given me a similar impression. Perhaps the psyche of a westner who prefers to study China, and one who prefers to study Japan is somewhat different?

Maybe one seeks deep cultural understanding and the other superficial gratification?

These are not my thoughts but would anyone like to outline any differences they think exist?

[atitarev]

To Pookie:

I don't agree with this theory at all. It has to do with the organisers, moderators of the forum, technical facilities available, motivation to learn a language at this moment and people who happened to like the forum and joined it. You can also find a lot of Chinese low quality and low traffic forums. What conclusions will you make if you happen to find them?

[Ferno]

A JET guy has a site:

http://outpostnine.com/editorials/teacher.html

the forums are under "BBS" and the articles themselves are wildly entertaining

[Gestalt]

The quality of the comments and threads left a lot to be desired. It left me wondering if there is a large mental gap between the people on this site and on that. Other forums I've visited have given me a similar impression. Perhaps the psyche of a westner who prefers to study China, and one who prefers to study Japan is somewhat different?

Maybe one seeks deep cultural understanding and the other superficial gratification?

These are not my thoughts but would anyone like to outline any differences they think exist?

Due to the popularity of anime and Japanese pop-culture, lots of young people are interested in Japanese and the threads on some forums can sometimes be a little.. juvenile (for lack of a better word). The younger you start learning a language, the better, and I think it's great they are trying, but the net result is often that you get a whole bunch of 16 years who are just trying to understand anime or computer games rather than methodically working their way through grammar, vocab etc. Nothing wrong with that, of course, it just doesn't usually make for high quality language discussion.

Doesn't apply to all Japanese language forums, of course, but I think there is definately a trend there which I haven't seen with Chinese.

[novemberfog]

I agree with Atitrev, it has a lot to do with the moderation and management of the forums. Also, a lot of the Japanese forums are kind of all-purpose--from travel to pop culture to language. You also get a lot more of the "I want to get .... as a tatoo, how do I write that in Japanese?" I think that it is just that Japan is more widely known by the masses. But I have a feeling the China craze is going to change that.

However, I will note one difference in the Chinese studies community and the Japanese studies community. There are a lot of people who study Japanese soley because they love anime and manga.

Edit: Beat me to it!

[atitarev]

Please take into account that not all language learners surf the web, you don't have to, you know.

[roddy]

I agree with Atitrev, it has a lot to do with the moderation and management of the forums.

Thanks

Roddy

[atitarev]

No worries, Roddy.

Some linguistic forums have sections for different languages, "lounges", I saw some requests on this forum to create a Japanese and Korean sections. I second these requests. What do you think, Roddy, is it worth doing? I am not sure it can attract native speakers but it would be interesting, especially comparing languages and sharing some ideas about learning languages.

Guys, what do you think? Any supporters?

Some of the links above had mupltiple sections too.

Take a look at a language site with multiple language lounges (includes Chinese and Japanese):

(they are in the debug mode today but usually this site works OK)

http://masterrussian.net/mforum/index.php

[roddy]

Was there much interest in Japanese / Korean areas? I seem to remember someone mentioning something about it (me ? ).

I'm kind of in two minds about off-topic stuff like that. I realise it's appreciated by the members, but activity is often low, and if it does increase it does so at the risk of diluting the focus of the board. I'd only really want to do it for people who are already active on the main parts of the board, and to prevent it attracting people only interested in Korean / Japanese I'd probably want to hide it from public view, like the News and Chat forums are now.

Would anybody be interested in moderating / managing these sections?

(Reminds me, need to create the Chinese chat bit)

Regarding the site in general - moderation and management is part of it, but perhaps more important is the design aspect. Take away the quick reply button (I know, I know, I'm evil) and you get rid of people who can't be bothered to wait for a page to load. Disallow animated avatars and images in signatures and you discourage lots of high-school kids. Turn off links in signatures and people who are only interested in promoting their own site are less likely to post. People who used these features but are also genuinely interested in the topics will continue to post.

Roddy

[atitarev]

You're the boss, Roddy. Fully understandable. I wonder what happened to quote buttons? I can't easily quote other posters any more.

I can't be a moderator, not enough time and not enough knowledge of the topic.

[roddy]

Ah yes, the quote button. Another of my pet hates

If anyone has the time and knowledge to run a Korean / Japanese specific forum (or indeed any other forum), and has been a member on here for a reasonable length of time, let me know.

[novemberfog]

Roddy, if you do make a Japanese forum, I would help moderate if you needed the help. While I'm not a native, nor 100% fluent, I do my best. But, I have not been around here that long.

I too, however, share your concern about tilt for the board. I definately think it should be an area that only registered members have access too. The theme of the board should still and hopefully always be Sino. You might consider making the Korean/Japanese area as one. Something like "other languages that use wonderful hanzi".