You’ve probably heard the deal about the popular app “Line” in Japan. It’s Japan’s go-to messaging/social app, which I believe is still at the top of its game. I’ve used it for a few years now, and it’s pretty damn great. But I’m not here to praise the Line app again. I’m here to try a suggestion recently made in the comment sections of a post.

“How about creating a Line group so members of Jalup can help each other out and practice and communicate with each other in Japanese?”

A Line Group is a powered up chat room. Invited members can text, upload pictures, videos, voice memos, have phone (video/audio) conversations, create notes, like/share those notes, etc. It’s also a good way to expand Japanese learner friendships, as you can start talking with people inside and outside the group easily. At any time that you want to practice actual speaking, texting can be expanded to a phone chat. The new line group call function apparently supports up to 200 people speaking simultaneously. We could probably break some kind of Japanese learner Guinness world record with that.

I’m not really sure how well using a Line Group will turn out, but I think it was an excellent suggestion, and worth a try to see what happens. Since the Jalup forum fizzled here, this could be a possible replacement.

The same rules that apply to the comments section here on Jalup here apply to the Line group:

● Help each other out to succeed: share tactics and strategies, advice and experience.
● You are encouraged to comment in Japanese whenever you want.
● Be friendly. Disagreeing is fine, but do so politely. Personal attacks/nasty comments will have you banished from the group.

Moderation is hard, because it isn’t as simple as a forum, and it will be hard to keep track of multiple conversations over time. But if there is an abusive member, the best thing to do is e-mail me directly, and I’ll remove them from the group.

I want to make the process to join very simple, so I’m going to go the QR code route, which makes anyone able to enter with a few easy steps. If things get out of hand (which I hope they won’t), I may have to ask people to request access by e-mail, and then I’ll directly add them. We’ll see how it goes.

Please leave any suggestions you have

How this group will progress, the dynamic of it, what is done with it, and it’s success will all be based on you guys that join. I see possibilities such as scheduled weekly chats, weekly group phone calls, even watching native media together and having discussions, but let’s first start at the beginning. I will try to participate sometimes when I can (I warn you in advance, I’m a bit of a stamp fiend), but it’ll be up to you guys to really make this work.  So… よろしくお願いします！

Here’s how to join:

In order to be able to moderate better and prevent trolling, this is an invite-only group. You must provide any two of the following four.

1. Self-introduction (who you are, why you’re studying, etc.) and the Line name you plan on using.
2. Provide some links to some of the posts (old and new) you have commented on.
3. Provide a receipt to any Jalup purchase you’ve made.
4. Have a friend already in the Line Group vouch for you.

Then you’ll get an e-mail invite. And you’re in! Welcome!

Notifications

Once you are in the group chat room, you need to change the following settings to avoid being blasted with thousands of notifications:

1. Click on the down arrow button on the top right of the screen and click the 通知OFF (Notifications OFF) button.
2. In your phone’s general notifications section, turn off the icon badge. You can completely turn off notifications if you want, but if you use Line to talk with other people in real time this will get in the way of that.

Let’s get Jalupining (Jalup Lining)…

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Adam

Founder of Jalup. Software Engineer. Former lawyer, translator, and interpreter. Still shadows Japanese out loud on his daily walk while other people stare.

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