I’ve translated and published the full text of the classic Japanese fairy tale “The Soul Lives On” (たましいは生きている) by Mimei Ogawa (小川未明), a poignant tale about the strength of a brotherly bond, even after death.
In this post I’d like to go over the phrase さも (“samo”), which you are likely to come across if you read enough Japanese literature, along with a few examples and explanation of its origin. さも is usually written in hiragana, but it can technically also be written with partial kanji as 然も. さも is… Read More »
Compared to other languages, such as English and Spanish, Japanese has a fairly small number of verb tenses. So it’s not much of a surprise that some of the tenses have many different uses, and often do not give much information as to when an action happened. In this post I’d like to talk about… Read More »
With the majority of both my job and hobby life involving computer screens and keyboards, I like to try and set aside some time away from technology, or at least screens. Calligraphy is a fun hobby that I’ve recently picked up, although I still use digital reference materials frequently. But audiobooks are great because they… Read More »
Ever since I got a membership to Netflix as part a promotional deal, I’ve been watching little bits of anime and life-action series on there. For the most part, even if I find something that is good in the beginning, it’s never compelling enough for me to make it through the end (and this includes… Read More »
In this post I’ve translated Hayashi Fumiko’s classic fairy tale “The Crane’s Flute” (鶴の笛) in full, a simple story that touches upon important topics.
Languages have different vocabulary and grammar for different areas (or “domains” as I call them), for example newspapers, popular novels, and Internet forums. This can be frustrating because being knowledgable in one domain doesn’t mean you’ll have an easy time in another. But the plus side is that once you learn some common phrases and… Read More »
One of my translations of a classic Japanese fairy tale is now available for free on Kanshudo, a full-featured site for learning Japanese.
I compared the English translation abilities of 5 different machine translation services (including those of Google and Microsoft) using a short excerpt of classic Japanese literature from Akutagawa Ryunosuke.
The nuances of expressing politeness is one of the most difficult parts of mastering the Japanese language, especially if your native language doesn’t have a strong concept of politeness levels (in my opinion, English does not). One of the things I always talk about when asked about politeness is the verb trio “kureru”, “morau”, and… Read More »