victionicious

There's a great Google Chrome extension called StayFocusd which temporarily blocks all other websites (and I believe you can also whitelist others) to effectively force yourself to work (or focus, as it were). You might find it useful to effectively force yourself to try and learn within an allocated timeslot. I use it sometimes (albeit not for languages) and it really helps me concentrate and block out distractions. Because I work, it's hard to find time to sit down and study, so I find it pretty great.

I've had an interest in Japanese culture and the language since the age of around 13, and with the increasing number of Japanese (and most languages!) learning apps, I thought I'd give JA Sensei a try on the Play Store. I installed it on my tablet and I've been making steady progress through all of the basics for a few months now. I'm really enjoying it! I think when you're in education you don't want to 'learn' when you get home, but once I started working at a helpdesk I find myself having a lot more motivation to learn music and languages. The idea of training a skill at your own pace is amazing.

Whilst I'm currently starting to learn Japanese using JA Sensei, my girlfriend is studying Mandarin at University. She's going to be staying in China for a while so I'd love to be able to learn some basic Chinese to (mainly) entertain her. Would it be difficult/confusing for me to study both at the same time, or are they far enough from each other to be able to study both? I know that Japanese uses some Chinese characters, so I feel like it might ruin my Japanese learning if I try to learn both. Hope that somebody can help! Thanks

A while ago I started trying out JA Sensei to try and begin learning Japanese as a language. I struggled with it a little mainly due to its difficulty as a language, but is JA Sensei one of the better apps out there for learning Japanese? Are there any alternatives or any apps that I could use as a supplement to JA Sensei? It seems like a great, well-made app, and since I've paid for it I don't really want to keep paying for more apps if this is one of the better ones. Would it also be better to learn the extremely basic ideas behind Japanese elsewhere before using the app? Culture is apparently a huge part of Japanese as a language, so I'd love to know of different apps and resources. Thanks!