If you’re read this blog much in the last few years you probably know that I have been gradually publishing a series of ebooks containing translations of works by Mimei Ogawa (小川未明), an important figure in Japanese children’s literature. I also recently released an audiobook of Volume 1 earlier this year. This series of books… Read More »
I reviewed Yuu Nagira’s novel “My Beautiful Garden”, a story about the interconnected lives of a few people facing various problems.
The Japanese language is known for its heavy omission of all sorts of words when they can be inferred from context: objects, subjects, and even particles (tiny words that act as grammatical glue in a way similar to prepositions). Even simple everyday sentences like “食べた” (“I ate it”) can have multiple omissions (in that case,… Read More »
I’m proud to announce the release of a new translation of two of Kyusaku Yumeno’s works, published in both English-only and parallel Japanese/English formats.
When exploring the spacious Kinokuniya in download Portland the other day, I couldn’t decide what to buy so I ended up picking up on a whim the first episode of “Oyasumi Punpun” by Inio Asano. It has a pretty simple cover that is pure yellow, except for an embossed image on the front that I… Read More »
I’m happy to announce Arigatai Book’s first audio book release: “Japanese Classic Fairy Tales” by Mimei Ogawa (Volume 1), available now on Audible, Amazon, and iTunes.
I was recently contacted by Jojo Masala, the creator of a new website for language learning, called “learnl”. He asked me if I was interested in trying it out, though he cautioned that, “It’s in it’s early days and kind of just an MVP now.” (Note: for those of you not too familiar with software… Read More »
In this post I wrote a detailed review of Amazon’s game streaming service Luna in Japanese.
Kouichi Tohei (藤平光一) was a skilled martial artist who leveraged difficulties in his life to reach an amazing level of ability, and went on to established his own style of Aikido called Ki-Aikido, more formally known as Shin Shin Touitsu Aikido (心身統一合氣道). But he did more than simply practice physical martial arts techniques; Tohei Sensei… Read More »
Musings and hints on the difficulties of learning conversation in a foreign language, inspired by a twitter post of someone who was struggling to learn conversation in Japanese without a teacher.