words written by It may be obvious, but if your friend sends you a message on Oh My Japan or an e-mail, you should do your best to reply within a reasonable amount of time. A language exchange with a pen pal from Japan is an excellent way to make a friend from Japan, learn about its culture and improve your foreign language skills. As far as calling Japanese people by their names, once you have practiced spelling/pronouncing their name (which you should do immediately! For example, Shunsuke becomes Shunsuke-san. Of course, if your Japanese friend is dropping an f-bomb every third word, feel free to mix it up a little. While abbreviations like LOL, BRB, and "bcuz" are common on the Internet and in mobile phone text messages, most Japanese people are not familiar with them. • Idioms are among the hardest expressions for non-native speakers to understand. Specifically, I would suggest the following: While in truth I often swear, learning how to curse properly can be very difficult for beginners in English. So what is it that makes LINE so popular? But Japanese users still use LINE. Your choice. Just from my own experience, I think that the only Japanese people who continue to use Facebook are those who have friends outside of Japan, or are people who are particularly interested in English. For example, if you are chatting online using software like Skype or MSN, there is a time lag of about half a day between the U.S. and Japan; even just finding time when you both are available to talk can be difficult, since morning in the U.S. is night in Japan (and vice versa). While native English speakers can easily tell what you meant to say even if your spelling isn't perfect, your Japanese friend may be looking up half the words you type in a dictionary. One distinguishing chat feature is the group chat option. A LINE app for the creative narcissistic is the LINE Camera. From the Home/Friends tab, tap the Add friends icon. So long as you have a cell phone you can join this rich and fruitful social land. CHIMMY, SHOOKY, MANG, COOKY, KOYA, TATA and RJ Shop our latest collection of BT21 Merchandise. It can rescue you from your solitude, plus, you can use it to practice your Japanese. I myself was in Japan at the time and remember trying to call my host family from school, but the phone lines (haha) were so clogged that I and countless others couldn't get a dial tone for hours, even days after the incident. They named it LINE because during natural disasters, pay phones have been the most reliant way to contact your loved ones, where there are always long lines outside of them. ), use it often when talking or writing to them. For this reason, especially if you write a lot, be sure to write proper sentences and to break your sentences into paragraphs. When you run out, you can use in-game or out-of-game money to buy new plays, or you can receive and gift free plays to and from friends within the game. Japan Travel is the leading resource for Japan travel information and the primary destination for visitors planning and traveling to Japan. There are hundreds of thousands of stickers available in the online sticker shop, and over a billion stickers are sent daily by Line users. Then, imagine this land as an exclusive club available only to those with smartphones. The coincidence is a little too blinding to ignore. You also had to have a Japanese cell phone email to join, making it hard to get in without jumping through the ever-changing loopholes. If the little features didn't get you, at least one of these will cater to your individual personality needs. From there, you can meet Japanese LINE users and exchange IDs! A long time ago Koichi wrote a post about Mixi and using it to study Japanese. Social network that sucks your life away in a good way! I think the best way to handle this is to pay attention to the idioms you use-- try to listen to yourself as you speak, and if you catch yourself using a lot of idioms, make sure your Japanese friend understands what you are saying. LINE currently has 160 million users. Mainly, though, LINE is going to be a great way to get interested enough to force yourself to read and practice. After the Tohoku earthquake, the Japanese phone services were not working very well. ), you can add san to the end of a name. That's a lot of people in not very much time! June 28, 2013 As for the length of your message, if you are writing in English, keep in mind that your Japanese friend is not a native English speaker. Oh, and did I mention this magical place known as LINE is actually real? Welcome to official Facebook Page for Global Character Brand LINE FRIENDS, beloved worldwide beyond Asia. How well it does in the English speaking world remains to be seen. These are your essentials, and feature the LINE-original characters who are becoming iconic in Japan. First, let's open our history (e-)books. Further, many Japanese people feel uncomfortable with such language (as do many native English speakers!). Unfortunately, as native speakers, we often use them unconsciously, since they are frequently the easiest way to get our points across-- see what I mean? Even so, making friends online, especially Japanese friends, can be challenging. How did something so simple and boring become such a huge phenomenon? Also, when they decide to turn their incoming messages on, you can actually talk to the famous person on the other end, or so I've heard (I've yet to actually see this happen). If you don't speak Japanese, Japanese names can be very hard to pronounce. One reason for this is that people run out of things to talk about. LINE has gained popularity in Japan due to already mentioned (but very cute) stickers, chat-centered format, and picky friend-adding system that encourages privacy. Those of you who use LINE will know that it's not just chat, it's so much more. The LINE Friends Store in Harajuku is very easy to find. I'm included in groups for friends, classes, clubs, and even one where we just send each other pictures of what we're eating. After you've found your group or person to practice your Japanese with, it's just a matter of doing it. That's incredibly fast growth. Of course, some people write more often than others, and that's certainly ok. Sometimes, it's those are little features within the chat, like being able to see when a message was read, and the ability to send audio messages, videos, and Japanese-style emoticons that get you. - In Japan, you can only use the phone number search feature if you are 18 or older and have verified your age. From Meiji-jingu-mae station on the Chiyoda or Fukutoshin subway lines, take the exit towards the north-east: as you come onto the main street Meiji-dori, the store will be on your right. It looks like LINE took some inspiration from the Japanese pay phone as well. Making Japanese friends online can be very difficult; many Japanese people are shy, and many more are uncomfortable speaking in English. Line is mostly used in Japan, Korea, Taiwan, China, Indonesia, Thailand and Spain, so there is a chance you haven’t heard of this app. From there, chats, free calls through data or wifi, and fun downloadable related apps that connect with your LINE account await you! Now you can actually know whether someone is ignoring you or not! 1. Fast forward a couple of years. Also you can enjoy a lot of thematic consistency throughout the shop since the designers did their very best to keep everything in theme, from a huge - really huge - bear, to some rare-not-for-sale plushes of Brown, Line's most popular character. One more point to note-- if a Japanese person initially added san to your name, but then drops it, this is a sign that he or she thinks your relationship has progressed and is now more intimate. If you are close in age or the Japanese person is younger, referring to each other by first name should be fine-- the person is your friend after all! The LINE Friends Store in Harajuku represents all that can be found in the app, mostly focusing on the main characters and the Line logo. Even so, making friends online, especially Japanese friends, can be challenging. Then run spell check. Many Japanese have studied English grammar for several years (most Japanese study English for at least six years from junior high school through to the end of high school); however, their knowledge of English is "textbook grammar" and not the kind of "natural" English one finds in TV, movies, and everyday conversation. Submit your ideas using the form below! But you want to make sure that your friend doesn't feel neglected! There are some very cute products and photo opportunities! Find QR codes in shops or department stores, and you can receive interesting deals or free stickers available for a limited time, sometimes associated with a particular event. This type of exchange is suitable for language learners of all skill levels, even beginners. People come and go, and even if you have a few great conversations, sometimes the connection fizzles out within a couple weeks. One of the easiest ways to make people feel special is to use their name. Oh My Japan makes this easy by allowing you to add interests to your profile. Of course it's different for every friendship, but I think a good rule of thumb is to do reply within approximately the same amount of time that it took your friend to respond to your last message. Thus, the safest thing to do is to be sure not to swear too much, especially when you are first getting to know each other. Many Japanese people have actually sent me e-mails thanking me, saying that I was the first American they had corresponded with who wrote in a way that they could easily understand. Tap Search. Because most people in Japan use the internet through their phones rather than computers, an app-based SNS just seems to make more sense than a web-based one! Not to mention that some of these boards are specifically for language study, so people will be a little more forgiving there. 3. However, once you register on your phone, you can download the app onto your Mac or Windows computer and access your account through there as well. Taiwan has 16 million LINE users and Indonesia has over 23 million. For example, if you are chatting online using software like Skype or MSN, there is a time lag of about half a day between the U.S. and Japan; even just finding time when you both are available to talk can be difficult, since morning in the U.S. is night in Japan (and vice versa). Sometimes whole conversations can be comprised of just stickers (although they usually don't make much sense). Most of the games are one-play arcade type games that have a certain amount of plays every few hours. When you join LINE, you get 3 packs of default stickers for free.