Japanese Contest

I probably should have blogged about this when it actually happened in, like, late March, but that was the middle of the semester and I didn't even have time to post about Japan. So I recently found some old bookmarks about it and got the urge to write something now while I'm still organizing my Philippines posts. As far as you need to know, it's like it just happened. :p

For a while now I've noticed that when I reach for my iPod, I'm not thinking about playing music or watching videos - I'm listening to podcasts. Anime, video games, news, whatever... they usually update often enough that I can get my fix whenever I need it. Naturally, one of the podcasts I listen to is to study Japanese, and it's called JapanesePod101.com. They put out 15 minute audio lessons for various levels of proficiencies, which generally include a story in Japanese, an English translation, and a discussion of key grammar points for the remaining time. It's a really cool podcast and the most popular one for studying Japanese, plus they expanded it to other languages and even reversed it for Japan, where EnglishPod101.com is the most listened-to podcast in the country.

Anyway, they have news segments too, and in News 75 on 3/23 they talked about this kanji contest that kanji-enthusiast Eve Kushner had posted on her blog. At the time I didn't really think much of it; they had contests in the past that I didn't bother with, either because I was too lazy to look into them, or didn't think I'd win. This time Jasmin IMed me really excited, going on about this contest (which can be found here) and how we could get a free book about kanji if we got one of the top 3 highest scores. I had recently introduced her to the podcast, and she was determined to win this book Crazy for Kanji which supposedly helped to get people excited to learn kanji. To win, you needed to answer 8 really difficult kanji questions, dealing with things like "the kanji with this meaning is composed of two characters which mean what?" or "when you combine these two characters you get a kanji that means what?" (the questions and answers are here).

The questions were hard but it said we could use any resources we wanted to in answering them. Personally, I enjoy learning kanji, having made nearly 500 flash cards that I'm constantly reviewing, and I have programs that let me look up Japanese words and kanji really quickly. It took me a good hour or so out of my schedule of boring school work to get it done, and then I "helped" Jasmin with her answers too, which we both submitted through emails. Five days later I got this reply:

Hi, Greg.

Great job!!! You got 100%! Congratulations!
Please send me your address.

When I list you as a winner, is it OK if I indicate the country you're in?
I've been asking this of all the winners.

Thanks and congratulations again!

Best,
Eve

OMG TOP 3 SCORES!!! Jasmin got the same email too, and we were really psyched about winning this book. Of course, if they're asking us about our address and our country she was probably expecting winners to be pretty far-reaching around the globe, so I had Jasmin give Eve her Guam address. Eve Kushner was really nice about replying too, and we were able to send a few messages back and forth in Japanese, which I was really glad to get some practice in for. Well, on April 3rd they finally posted the results: 21 people had gotten 100%, and all 21 would get free signed books! It kind of took away from thinking we got 2/3 of the spots, but still cool that she posted our names on the winners page.

I've never won a contest like this before and it felt so awesome to receive the book in the mail. I haven't read too much of it so far, but since I'm planning on doing some Japanese studying this summer I'll definitely get to it.

P.S. I put up a new widget-type thing on the side on my blog so that people could add themselves to a list of followers. I'm pretty sure there are only a couple of you who actually check this thing but I was just curious. XD