If you follow this blog you probably know that one of the main motivators for me to get serious about learning Japanese was because I am a big fan of the author Haruki Murakami and had a strong desire to read his novels in their original, untranslated, Japanese. When I meet people for the first time, the topic of… Read More »
Being very much into books since I was young, especially fiction novels, one of my long-term goals in studying Japanese has been to read as many Japanese novels as possible, gradually increasing my speed and reading comprehension of Japanese works to that of English. Over many years, I’ve made much progress on this, to the point… Read More »
When learning words in a foreign language, the only way to get a full understanding is to gather data from as many sources as possible: dictionaries, media (fiction/nonfiction) and of course as many real-world situations as possible. I see this is as chiseling away the various subtleties of this word little by little until you have the… Read More »
A few days ago I wrote about an upcoming meetup at the Kale (カレー) restaurant in Portland for the “Portland Japanese Language Exchange” group. It was 6pm-8pm today and I just got back, so I thought I would write a summary of how it was. All in all, I had a really fun time, having… Read More »
My family and I have decided to move from Florida, where I’ve been my entire life, to Oregon. The response I get from most people who I tell this to is: “You’ve moving to be closer to your extended family, right?” No. (Actually the opposite) “You’ve moving because of your job, right?” No. (Will be… Read More »
Lately, I’ve been trying out a bunch of random Japanese novels via the free samples available on the E-book site Booklive. I went through a few that were mediocre, after which I came across upon the 2014 novel『そして、星の輝く夜がくる』(Soshite, hoshi no kagayaku yoru ga kuru) by Jin Mayama. I got absorbed into it after only a few pages, and before I… Read More »
When translating some form of media from it’s original language into another language, the translation of the title is extremely important – nearly as important as choosing the title for the original work. A good title manages to capture one’s interest to learn more about the work in question, or at least stands out enough so… Read More »
Recently the same friend who had introduced me to the great Japanese band Jizue (review) told be about another entertaining Japanese group: Fox Capture Plan. This is an instrumental band with three members (Ryo Kishimoto – Piano, Hidehiro Kawai – Base, Tsukasa Inoue – Drums). They bill themselves as “Modern Jazz Rock” (現代版ジャズロック), but much… Read More »
Today we visited an event at a library in Fort Lauderdale, South Florida, which had many great activities for kids including a free book for the first 1000 children to arrive, boardgames, picture taking area, face painting, and live performances. The first performance was by a Japanese woman of the name of Kuniko Yamamoto, titled… Read More »
Although I’m very much into many facets of Japanese culture, one thing I need to spend some more time researching is some of the classic artists of Japan. Katsushika Hokusai (often just called ‘Hokusai’) is one of the most famous artists from the Edo period. It’s very likely you’ve come across his famous print “The… Read More »