While I can appreciate the value of vocabulary lists to get a quick sample of words in a specific area (and have made quite a few myself), there is also something to be said for focused posts on a single word, where spending time giving more explanation and examples can help better remember and understand… Read More »
When learning a foreign language, words can be grouped into two categories: those that map easily to some word in the speaker’s native language, or those that do not. The latter are, of course, generally more difficult to master. From a translation perspective, words in the second category are also often more difficult to translate,… Read More »
In this post I’d like to go over the word “nite”, which is generally written in hiragana as にて. While one of my Japanese/Japanese dictionaries has a full six meanings for this word, fortunately in modern Japanese the use is somewhat limited and easy to understand. “nite” is classified as a “case particle” (格助詞), which… Read More »
When reading a Japanese novel recently I came across the following phrase: うまくやんなよ (umaku yan na yo) At first I was a little confused as to the meaning here, but eventually I figured it out. In this article I’ll go over this phrase in some detail. First is the word うまく (umaku), which is the… Read More »
The Japanese particle と (to) has a fairly large number of usages. In one of my dictionaries there are ten independent meanings listed. While I’d like to cover them all eventually, in this post I’m going to focus on one of the most common usages, that is when “to” is used to quote something. By “quote”,… Read More »
This is the second quiz in a new series that will test your Japanese skills in various areas. While these quizzes will not specifically be targeting the JLPT (Japanese Language Proficiency Test), I think practicing these sorts of fundamentals will help those studying for the JLPT and similar tests of Japanese ability. This quiz is… Read More »
When you first learn a foreign language, you might be frustrated (or at least challenged) by how it differs from your native language. But the more you study, the more you’ll find aspects unique to that language that allow you to express things in convenient ways. In Japanese, by using the suffix かた (sometimes written… Read More »
This is the first of a new series of quizzes that will test your Japanese skills in various areas including grammar and vocabulary. While they will not specifically be targeting the JLPT (Japanese Language Proficiency Test), I think practicing these sorts of fundamentals will help those studying for the JLPT and similar tests of Japanese… Read More »
Compared to English, I feel that Japanese is a grammatically pure language, meaning that there are less complex grammar rules, and those rules can be used more freely without becoming ungrammatical or awkward. For example, Japanese has much fewer verb tenses than English, and factors such as the subject are not taken into account when… Read More »
In this post, I’d like to focus on the word 相談 (そうだん / soudan) for two reasons: it’s high frequency in business-level Japanese and the fact it doesn’t have a great single-world (one-size-fits-all) translation in English. I’d like to begin the explanation by giving the Japanese definition of the word from Dictionary Goo, followed by… Read More »