Monthly Archives: June 2015

Language learning technique: take things a bit beyond your comfort level, then dial them back

One technique I have found useful in language learning is to find some content, whether it be reading or listening, which is a bit beyond my comfort level in terms of difficulty, and practice with it for a period of time. For this to be effective I would say it should be for at least days, ideally… Read More »

Three expressions in Japanese for “by the way”

The casual English expression “by the way” is used to transition from one conversation topic into another. In this post, I’ll go over three different ways to express this type of feeling in Japanese, each with it’s own unique nuance. そういえば 「Sou ieba」 This phrase does not contain a subject and literally means something like… Read More »

Japanese grammar: The pattern 「〜上で」

The Japanese character 上 has a basic meaning of “up” or “above”, and is pronounced “ue” when written by itself. In Kanji compounds, it is often pronounced as “uwa” (上着, uwagi) or “jou” (上陸, jouriku). “上” does have some other usages, and this time I’d like to discuss the expression “〜上で”. This can be used to… Read More »

断る(kotowaru): an important Japanese word with two nearly opposite meaningshe first mea

The verb ことわる in Japanese, written in Kanji as 断る, is notable in that it has two meanings that are nearly opposite to one another. As usual in cases where a word has more than one definition, you need to use context to tell which is being used. The first meaning, and perhaps the more… Read More »

Japanese 手(hand) : usages and expressions

In Japanese, the word for ‘hand’ is written as 手 and pronounced close to the English “te” sound from “tell”. In this post I’ll talk about a few words that use this character, plus other meanings of it. To start with, in baby-speak the word “お手手” (otete) is often used to mean “hand”. The word for “wrist”… Read More »

Japanese vocabulary: Business/Economics terms

These days I’ve been listening frequently to NHK’s 「社会の見方・私の視点」 (Societal perspective / My point of view), which is a news podcast that talks about a diverse set of topics including government, economics, world politics, business, industry, and many others. Needless to say, the Japanese is extremely high level and there are many words that you would… Read More »

Expressing a state with「でいる」

In Japanese, you may have learned that the “ている” form can be used to express a state rather than an ongoing action, like ”壊れている” (broken). There is another way to express state using a noun or na-adjective, plus “でいる”. The “で” is the “te” form of “だ” (is), and “いる” is the same as in… Read More »

Go (囲碁): An ancient asian board game of deep strategy

Go is a two-player board game which originated in China over 2,500 years ago, and is now popular in other countries including Japan and Korea. In Japanese it is written as “囲碁” (“igo”). The game board contains a grid which is typically 19×19, though sometimes smaller sized grids are used for beginners (9×9 or 13×13).… Read More »

Using the Japanese particle で (de) to explain a reason

The Japanese particle で is one of the first particles that is typically taught, because it’s usage to mean where an action takes place, or “by means of” is pretty easy to understand. Here is one example of each: 僕は部屋でテレビを見た。 I watched TV in the room. 僕たち、バスで海に行った。 We went to the beach via bus. One… Read More »