Monthly Archives: March 2014

Blog statistics: Views vs Visitors and what that means about your blog [aside]

Statistics for WordPress blogs provide two important figures, “Views” and “(Unique) Visitors”, and in this post I’d like to discuss what these mean and how you can infer important information by comparing them. First lets look how these are defined by the WordPress support page: Views:  A view is counted when a visitor loads or… Read More »

Review: “Arakawa Under the Bridge” (荒川アンダー ザ ブリッジ)

“Arakawa Under the Bridge” is a manga series created by Hikaru Nakamura (中村 光)  in 2004, which was eventually turned into an anime, TV drama, and movie. I’ve only seen the drama and movie so will be focusing on those in this post, though I imagine the story is much the same. This story starts out… Read More »

“ikizurai” and (improperly) using the -づらい (-zurai) suffix in Japanese

There are several verb suffixes used in Japanese which are used to represent something is easy or difficult. [verb in “pre-masu” form]  +  づらい    => hard to do “verb” [verb in “pre-masu” form]  +  にくい    => hard to do “verb” [verb in “pre-masu” form]  + やすい     => easy to do “verb”… Read More »

Programming Podcast – a fresh look at Japanese conversation between everyday people

A common theme of this blog (as well as my personal studies) is how to experience “real” Japanese in all its forms, without actually living in Japan. By “real”, I mean not just watching Anime or reading Manga, but rather experiencing Japanese that an everyday person would be using.  Focusing on too many fantasy-oriented resources won’t… Read More »

Different ways to express “Again” in Japanese

In this post I’d like to go over a few days to express the idea of “again” in Japanese language, keeping in mind the particular nuance of each. 1) “また” is a simple way to say “again”, and is pretty well known by even beginning Japanese learners due to some common expressions it is used… Read More »

Tate’s Comics: One of the best shops in South Florida for all your comic needs

As I confirmed with my poll the other day, one of the major reasons people are studying Japanese language is because of their attraction to modern Japanese culture, in particular Manga and Anime. In keeping with that, this time I would like to talk about one of the best comic shops in Florida, Tate’s Comics… Read More »

Japanese honorific prefixes お and ご (‘O’ and ‘Go’)

In Japanese, the prefixes お  and ご are used to add a feeling of politeness or respect to a word. The usage of these two prefix is defined as follows: お : used for words with the 訓読み(”kunyomi”), or Japanese reading. It is sometimes written in Kanij as 御. ご : used for words with… Read More »

Placing blame or fault in Japanese with せい (sei)

せい is a word in Japanese which can be used to express blame or fault. I’ll go over a few related uses of this word. 1) Explaining something occurred because of someone or something’s fault. This is similar to using (だ)から in the sense of ‘because’ except it usually has a negative connotation. Pattern: [reason… Read More »