One battle I’ve found that will never seize to disappear in my life is the constant battle of keeping my Japanese wits about me and not letting them slip into oblivion.

Ever since leaving the great land of the rising sun my retention of Japanese has slipped over time prompting me to make desparate stabs at self-induced recital of my base knowledge, shamelessly watching copious amounts of Japanese tv, listening to Japanese music, and also gleaming on to the latest methods of Online Study.

One would think that given this effort I would have a chance, yet language knowledge is like water and slips the mind at it’s lowest points. However… I may have landed upon a duct tape recovery tool of sorts… This one known by the name “iKnow.” iKnow looks and sounds remarkably like Rosetta Stone except it’s more… friendly? or atleast portable.

The idea works around a preset course for basic study, but then supplemented by “lists” or courses that other users can submit based upon a multitude of media. It’s a fancy design with many logging tools, algorythms, and the like– but brass tacks come down to whether my use of this product will help me keep me sharp.

Suffice to say it’s a nice tool for the language retention tool box. It’s great for vocab practice and kanji… but I have yet to find “bunpo” or grammer lessions. This I can find via my old books I suppose.

What I know is that I really need an environment of total saturation… A place like Japan! lol… I’m coming back there! Hopefully some day soon!.. Regardless… Try out iKnow! for y’all Japanese wannabe learners.. I know that if I were in a language class again I’d be using it all the time to supplement my vocab practice for tests and such…

Ahhh to worry about tests once again…. them were the days!

~J

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