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 »
I translated the second part of Kenji Miyazawa’s famous story “Matasaburo of the Wind”, which happens to be the same story referred to in the song “Matasaburo” by the rock band Yorushika.
Understanding jokes and other forms of comedy in a foreign language can be a difficult undertaking for language learners. To begin with, comedic wordplay based on homonyms (two words with the same sound but different meaning) is often used and may involve subtle aspects of pronunciation (intonation, etc.) Pop culture references are also abundant, including… Read More »
In this post I give a list of words which contain kanji not commonly used in modern Japanese anymore, as a way to help those wanting to get into reading classical literature that is 50+ years old.
In this post I talk about something I’ve experienced in my Ki-Aikido training: the idea of being able to learn from others, regardless of their level.
I published my translation of the essay “My Life” by Hayashi Fumiko (林芙美子), a notable woman Japanese author of the early 20th century.
In this post I talked about Japan’s “Braille Blocks”, a system that is employed throughout Japan to assist the visually-impaired.
I’ve just released a paperback book of classic Japanese science fiction works by Juza Unno, including “Eighteen O’Clock Music Bath”, the first modern Japanese dystopian story.
I translated the second part of Kenji Miyazawa’s famous story “Matasaburo of the Wind”, which happens to be the same story referred to in the song “Matasaburo” by the rock band Yorushika.
When learning a foreign language, it’s generally a good idea to learn some proverbs, what we call “kotowaza” (諺) in Japanese. It’s not just because they are a fun way to learn new words in context, but also because proverbs can express meaningful ideas in a concise form that often reflects that country’s history and… Read More »