Thanks to the Internet, a person studying a foreign language without a formal study program can look up answers to the many questions they will surely have along the way. One place where your typical internet searching doesn’t work too well is matters of pronunciation, since it’s hard to convey sounds using just text. There… Read More »
In a Japanese novel I am reading I recently came across the following phrase where 分からない was used in a strange way that caught me off guard. The dialog went something like this: 探したんだけど、わからない。[Sagashita n da kedo, wakaranai] The context here the person speaking was searching for a friend who had been lost in the forest.… Read More »
I have an interest in learning the origins of various Japanese words, which is funny since I couldn’t care less for the origins of words in my native language, English. I don’t think it’s for the sake of history, since memorizing arbitrary facts puts me to sleep, and it’s not for utility since the origin… Read More »
Hal, an animated Japanese film from 2013 directed by Ryōtarō Makihara, is the second of two movies we recently purchased. The first was Patema Inverted, which I reviewed here. These movies were so totally different in almost every way. This movie begins with a terrible plane accident that results in the death of Hal (more… Read More »