The Japanese particle を (called “wo” or “o”) is argubly one of the most straightforward particles in the language, with only one major use: describing the direct object of an action. First, let’s look at a simple example of its usage: 僕は本を読んでいます (boku wa hon wo yonde imasu) I am reading a book. Here, the… Read More »
Verbs are an extremely important part of the Japanese language. One reason for that is the large variety of verbs available in Japanese, some which don’t seem to have direct equivalents in other languages (or at least not in English). But I think it’s also because Japanese tends to omit words deemed unnecessary based on… Read More »
In this post I’d like to talk a little bit about how to deal with translating terms that are unique to a certain culture, in the sense that they are not everyday items that exist in other cultures. An example of a term that is likely to be present in most cultures is “plate”, although… Read More »
In this article I’d like to focus on a few ways to state that something is obvious, in the sense that it should be clearly understood or known by everyone. Another way we express this in English is with the phrase “of course”. Before we get started, I’ll be using the words “darou” and “deshou”… Read More »
Verb order is one of the most fundamental things about a language’s grammar, and for Japanese we have Subject + Object + Verb. Of course, this is just for the most basic of sentences, and there are various ways to build onto a sentence to make it more complex. For example, expressing a chain of… Read More »
In this episode I go over and translate the first few lines of 人間豹 (Ningen Hyou) by 江戸川乱歩 (Edogawa Rampo).
While learning Japanese has many perks, being able to read various works of literature is one of the top ones for me. Japanese is a language rich with words, expressions, and concepts that oftentimes don’t have direct parallels to English, and this makes being able to comprehend Japanese that much more interesting and rewarding. In… Read More »
In this episode I refine my translation of an excerpt of the famous story 檸檬 (“Lemon”) from 梶井基次郎 (Motojiro Kajii).
In this post I emphasize the importance of a good understanding of Japanese, and give a few examples where the change of a particle makes a big difference.
I visit Mochitsuki Japanese festival in Portland this year, for the first time in three years, and was pleasantly surprised. I’ve included a slideshow of a few pictures I took.