In this post I illustrate 50+ sentence patterns in Japanese using example sentences and English translations. The examples are minimal and the focus is on how small changes (especially involving particles) can lead to very different meanings.
While I believe it’s a good idea to learn fundamentals of a language in a relatively formal setting like a classroom or at least using a textbook, often expressions that are considered slang will be omitted or deemphasized in those forums. That’s why I think it’s good to actively seek out slang expressions that you… Read More »
I’m a pretty serious sweet tooth, to the extent that some years ago I maintained a blog about reviewing sweet products. But recently I realized I was misunderstanding a Japanese word related to sweets so I thought I would post about my experience. The other day when I was speaking in Japanese, I used the… Read More »
In this article I wanted to go over a Japanese phrase that I think is used fairly commonly in everyday conversation, 食べていく (tabete iku).
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 »
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).