The other day I saw a reference to María Ortega García’s book “Weaving Words: The Alchemy of Languages” (amazon link) on Twitter somewhere, and both the title and book summary sounded really interesting, so I contacted the author. She was kind enough to send me a review copy of the paper version of this book,… Read More »
Japanese is rife with compound verbs, which are generally composed by taking the verb stem (what I like to call the ‘pre-masu form’) of one verb and attaching it to a second verb. For example 食べ終わる (“tabeowaru”) which is comprised of the verb stem of 食べる (“taberu”, meaning “to eat”) and 終わる (“owaru”, meaning “to… Read More »
In this article I’d like to go over the Japanese expression “dake atte” (だけあって), particularly because the meaning is not quite what you expect given the words comprising it. But first let’s look at those words as a starting point. だけ (dake) is probably a word you’ve come across before, and many times it is… Read More »
I put together a list of 10 expressions in Japanese that involve our favorite furry friend––the cat.
I picked up “To Avoid Being Swept Away by a Large Bird” by Hiromi Kawakami for the usual reasons––an interesting description on the cover, a curious title, and a reasonable length––but reading the first few paragraphs helped me close the deal (although I admit it was more because the prose was easy to read than… Read More »
I’ve decided to start doing live streaming on YouTube where I talk about learning Japanese and other related topics. The first public session is scheduled for this coming Saturday.
I’ve made a list of 50 hints for learning Japanese based on my own experience, covering everything from kanji, listening, and grammar to study habits and other topics.
In this article I focus on the differences in using the “wa” versus the “ga” particle in the context of asking simple questions.
This time I’d like to discuss the word おぼしき (oboshiki), which despite having a bit of a complicated origin has a relatively simple meaning and usage.
I decided to translate a poem by the 4th-century Chinese poet Tao Yuanming (陶淵明), leveraging both the original text as well as Japanese translations and explanations.