Introducing Mr. Mizuhiro Kaimai (開米瑞浩), diagram wizard

By | April 12, 2018

The other day I had the luck of finding out about Mr. Mizuhiro Kaimai (開米瑞浩) when he left a comment on one of my blog posts and introduced me to a section of his blog where he talks about “Japanese Grammar in Logic Diagramming”.

In this series of articles, Mr. Kaimai discusses several aspects of Japanese grammar using colorful technical diagrams. For example, see this article on particles “wa” and “ga”.

Even after all these years, I still find Japanese grammar to be one of the most difficult areas to master and to explain to others, and these articles are a fresh way to revisit some fundamental areas.

I’ve had some discussions with Mr. Kaimai over email and learned that diagrams about Japanese grammar are really just the tip of the iceberg of what he does. In a wider sense, he is concerned with taking complex technical topics (such as network security) and using diagrams (図解) to convey topics that would otherwise be difficult to explain with just plain text. He explains his work (from his profile) as follows:

「読解力・図解力を軸に文書化能力の向上を図る企業研修」

(and my translation of this)

“Corporate training designed to enhance document-writing skills, with a focus on readability and diagram-wiseness”

If you want to learn more, you can find many related articles on his blog’s main page here. He is also a prolific writer with over 10 books on Amazon Japan on related topics (for example one on learning to explain things clearly), many of which have good ratings. These are excellent resources if you are interested in learning about the world of IT in Japanese, for example if you wanted to work in Japan as a software developer. (I don’t think his books have been translated into English yet, but let’s hope they are someday.)

Besides what Mr. Kaimai researches and teaches, he is a great example of a self-made success, having gone from being an everyday software developer to starting his own company which seems to be doing quite well.

I wish Mr. Kaimai the best of luck in his endeavors` and hope he keeps writing articles on Japanese Grammar in English.

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