Sometimes when working with Japanese documents you may need to remove furigana (sometimes called ‘ruby’) from a block of text. For example, you may be taking furigana-marked source text from Aozora Bunko, but don’t want to include the furigana in some other media. I had this exact problem when working on an E-book of translated… Read More »
(This is part of a series about my recent trip to Japan. See this page for other articles in it.) Furitakiya Onsen Hotel We stayed for several days in the Furutakiya Onsen Hotel (古滝屋) that resides in Iwaki city (岩城) in Fukushima prefecture (福島県). This is a historically significant place that has been around since… Read More »
(This is part of a series about my recent trip to Japan. See this page for other articles in it.) Hato Bus Tour I’d say that less than half of our trip this time involved touristy stuff (like visiting Tokyo Tower), but we did go on a day tour (日帰りツアー) run by the Hato bus… Read More »
(This is part of a series about my recent trip to Japan. See this page for other articles in it.) Sakura, Sakura We planned our trip this time to coincide with the blooming of the sakura (cherry blossom, 桜) trees around Tokyo. This is really a wonderful time because the amazing natural beauty of the… Read More »
(This is part 1 in a series about my recent trip to Japan) For self-taught learners of Japanese, there is no better teacher than actually living in Japan itself; even from just traveling there you can learn so much. Of course, even if you aren’t learning Japanese, there are so many things about Japan that… Read More »
I’ve been an avid reader since I was young, but until high school I mostly read fantasy novels that would be considered popular fiction. In high school I was assigned to read a variety of books in various genres, but I think it’s safe to say a majority of them could be considered ‘literature’ in… Read More »
I’ve mentioned it before, but one of the great things about running this blog is the many interesting people I come across. In some cases, I may only exchange a few words in a post comment, but in others I may go on to have extended email conversations, or even work on a project together.… Read More »
I’ve noticed that Japanese seems to have a large number of words that are used to describe the complete absence of something, or complete negation of something like an action. These words would generally be used in a sentence or phrase that ends in a verb in the negative tense. In English, this would correspond… Read More »
The Japanese particle と (to) has a fairly large number of usages. In one of my dictionaries there are ten independent meanings listed. While I’d like to cover them all eventually, in this post I’m going to focus on one of the most common usages, that is when “to” is used to quote something. By “quote”,… Read More »
I think it’s fair to say that polite language (敬語, keigo) is one of the most difficult things to master in the Japanese language. Polite language includes the basic desu/masu forms that students generally learn early on, but there are also more advanced forms of polite language with varying nuances (ex: 召し上がる、お目にかかる). For the purposes… Read More »