My friend and collaborator Kaimai Mizuhiro (開米瑞浩) is working on an project that I think will be interesting to those studying Japanese, so I’ll talk about it a little here. Kaimai has a bunch of books out, and a common thread throughout them is how to communicate effectively (both verbally and with diagrams) in a… Read More »
In this post I give over 50 introductory phrases, with translations. that can be used as starting blocks to build Japanese sentences.
You probably know that the Japanese word “sono” means “that”, but in this article I will talk about an alternate way it can be used.
In many ways Japanese grammar is simpler than English grammar, especially in terms of fewer tenses to deal with and the omission of unnecessary words. However, sometimes thinking in terms of English can make it difficult to understand seemingly simple Japanese sentences. In this post I’d like to talk about the expression 「もっと早く知りたかった」 (“motto hayaku… Read More »
In this post I go over the Japanese phrase “〜ことから” (~koto kara) and give a few examples of its usage.
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 try to make sure I get a daily dose of Japanese, not as instructional material (a textbook, etc.) but as content made for native speakers. One good way to do this (which I’ve written about before here) is to set your PC or mobile device to Japanese language. I have my main personal phone… Read More »
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.