One aspect of Japanese grammar that is easy to overlook is the omission of subjects and other words which would normally be included in English. If you’re not careful about subject omission you can end up with grammatically “correct” sentences that sound awkward. Let’s start with a simple example: When I got home, my television… Read More »
When learning a foreign language, there are always times when we make mistakes, and many of those times we end up saying or doing something embarrassing, or even funny. For example, there have been times when I tell my wife something in Japanese and she says “What?” (”何？”） and then I repeat it, and she… Read More »
”気” in Japanese, pronounced “ki”, represents something like “natural energy”, though it can also mean “air” or “atmosphere” in some cases. A similar word is used in many other Asian cultures, including Chinese (‘Chi’ or ‘Qi’), Korean, Vietnamese, and Thai. The large character pictured above is a more complex version of more the commonly used… Read More »
I’m sure that those of you studying Japanese take advantage of TV dramas and anime to help boost your vocabulary and comprehension, but documentaries are another great resource that is often overlooked. Documentaries typically talk about more real life subject matter, so you’re more likely to learn expressions you can use in real life, unlike… Read More »
Regardless of your level of Japanese ability, there are always times when you want to say something in Japanese, but your mental book of words, phrases, and grammar doesn’t give you a good answer. Even if you have friends or family who speak Japanese fluently, it may be a bit annoying to constantly asking them… Read More »
This time I’d like to introduce an expression whose meaning I picked up after hearing it several times in conversations with native speakers. As you probably know, いい means good as an adjective, and its adverbial form is よく (not いく）. That may seem irregular, but if you remember that よい is another way to say… Read More »
There is one type of Japanese reference book that I often run across in bookstores that always makes me wonder. It’s the Japanese verb dictionary which have several hundreds of pages, each containing a verb and its various conjugations. For a beginner where money is no object and you just need to double check your… Read More »