Monthly Archives: April 2014

Nu Sushi in Coral Springs – one of the best Sushi shops around

Like many people, Sushi is one of those things that at first scared me, with concerns of food poisoning and such. But since it was an important part of Japanese culture I decided to try it anyway, and have been a huge fan since. Sushi is now available almost everywhere these days, from Chinese restaurants… Read More »

Language on Track – A new tool to help with foreign language learning (call for alpha testers)

One day in the middle of January, I woke up in the morning with an idea in my head for a new way to learn foreign languages. In the next month and a half, I spent many late nights and weekends working on a prototype for the site, which is now ready for a limited alpha… Read More »

Don’t underestimate the Japanese ”っ” (little tsu)

The Japanese little tsu, written “っ” (for example in the word “行った”), represents a pause in the flow of sound when speaking. I’ve heard this mispronounced by beginners, and even by those with several months of experience under their belt, so I thought I would clarify any confusion about how it should be pronounced. The brief description… Read More »

Self Taught Japanese’s 100th Post!

I’m extremely happy to say that Self Taught Japanese has reached it’s 100th post! A big thanks to everyone who has liked, followed, commented, or re-blogged my posts. First, I’ll give in to my penchant of analyzing blog statistics and talk about how they have changed for this blog between it’s 50th post and now. My first… Read More »

“っぽい” (ppoi): a slang way to express similarity or the tendency to do something

“っぽい” is a very useful expression that has three main usages. Expressing the tendency to do something っぽい can be used to express the tendency or high chance of doing something, and is generally added to the end of a verb in the pre-masu form. Though you can try using it with any verb, initially you should… Read More »

Review: Youkoso: Invitation to Contemporary Japanese textbook

In the internet age, one of the biggest challenges when studying a foreign language is picking the right study reference out of thousands and thousands of competing sites, books, and videos. Of course finding accurate and error-free material is a concern, but a bigger problem is whether the source is providing you  with relevant information… Read More »

Different ways of saying “except” in Japanese

In this post I’d like to discuss a few ways to express the concept of “except” in Japanese. 以外(いがい) 以外 is one of the most basic ways to say “except” in Japanese. You typically put it after a noun, pronoun, or verb. Here are a few examples: ゲーム以外のアプリはダウンロードしたことがない I’ve never downloaded an (computer/mobile) application except… Read More »