Let’s face it – weather is one of the most boring, hackneyed conversation topics in existence. But when looked at the point of view of foreign language study, weather forecasts become a surprisingly useful resource. To start with, forecasts on professional radio stations (check NHK news podcast out as an example) will have announcers that enunciate cleanly and… Read More »
I picked P.G.Oneill’s “Japanese Respect Language” because I hadn’t seen too many Japanese textbooks focused exclusively on respectful language, which is arguably one of the most difficult aspects of Japanese to master. At the time when I decided to get it I remember thinking the term “respect language” had an unfamiliar ring to it, having usually… Read More »
In the last week I’ve went through the process of migrating this blog from a standard WordPress.com blog to a self-hosted WordPress.org blog. I’ve been running this blog for several years and have written a couple hundred articles, so I thought it was time to take it to the next level. A self-hosted blog has many advantages,… Read More »
In the continuing quest to improve my Japanese reading skills and experience various facets of Japanese culture, I’ve been reading different types of books over the last few years. The genres range from children’s picture books to classics like Ningen Shikkaku. My latest challenge was the book “オレたちバブル入行組” (Oretachi baburu nyuukougumi) by Jun Ikeido (池井戸潤), which began serialization… Read More »
In the age of the internet and mobile devices, when there is a need to look up the meaning of a word in a foreign language the average person is likely to use a cell phone, tablet, or desktop computer. For Japanese language specifically, the free mobile dictionary apps I have tried are pretty mediocre,… Read More »
My family and I had a great time on our 15-day vacation to Japan this August, and I really enjoyed writing so many posts about it. Although it’s possible to get a page linking to a bunch of blog posts using keywords (like this), for ease of use I think an old-fashioned table of contents… Read More »
Studying a foreign language never gets old because you always have new things to learn. In Japanese, once you put in the time and effort to learn the grammar and a good chunk of the Kanji characters, you’ll get to a point where you can start reading native-level Japanese little by little. But there will always… Read More »
On our recent trip to Japan we took over 2000 pictures, the majority on a brand new Olympus TG-4 Tough we purchased just for this occasion. I’ve went through them and selected my top 40 favorites.
Watching Japan’s countryside rush by outside the window of a fast-moving train always mesmerizes me. There is a natural, peaceful beauty to the expansive fields of green, interspersed with homes bearing bright-colored roofs in shades of orange and blue. The land is fairly flat, so in some places you can see far into the distance, as things… Read More »
One thing I feel makes Japanese culture unique is their service mindset (called サービス精神), which manifests as attention to detail, thoroughness, and politeness with dealing with customers. I touched on this topic in several other articles of this series, for example the ANA Stewardesses. When responding to a customer, you can see their respect reflected in… Read More »