Category Archives: General
Japan Trip 2024 Video
In March of 2024 I went on a trip to Japan with my family for around a week. We went to Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, Jinbocho, and Akihabara (yeah, it was a busy trip!). I’ve detailed a previous trip to Japan on this blog fairly extensively here, and for this recent trip I am not planning… Read More »
Japanese Literature Release: “Bitter Honey”
Japanese word deep dive: “nakama” (仲間) [as heard in One Piece]
When studying a foreign language, it’s nice to learn a little bit about a lot of words. But at the same time, it’s also nice to get deep and learn the various nuances of certain words, especially those that are used frequently. In this post I want to do a deep dive on the word… Read More »
Why I Train in Ki Aikido
Japanese expression: (何となく) “nan to naku”
Lately I have been doing less articles about grammar and expressions and more on media reviews and other topics, but since I recently got a request from a colleague I thought I would give a treatment of the expression 何となく “nan to naku” (which can also be written in full hiragana as なんとなく). First, let’s… Read More »
Japanese Pronunciation Highlight: The debate of the soft “ga”
In recent years I have been more active on Twitter/X and a little less active on this blog, though I am still trying to keep up the pace of at least one article a week. Besides the persistency of blog articles vs. the transience of Twitter posts, there is the fact that it’s much easier… Read More »
Netflix Anime Series Review: Pluto
A reconsideration of teaching Japanese intonation (and a useful tool to examine intonations)
Japanese intonation, in a nutshell, consists of a series of high and low pitches, where each word has a characteristic pattern of these high and low pitches. There are words where the pitch rises, words where the pitch falls, as well as where the pitch both rises and falls. When a word is said in… Read More »
Japanese Youtube Recommendation: Taigu Osho (talks from a Buddhist Priest)
As part of my continuing education in Japanese I’m always on the lookout for good content in Japanese that is interesting, educational, or both. While watching videos is fun, in terms of budgeting my time I find I have many more opportunities to experience content going on a walk or driving, so I tend to… Read More »