Category Archives: Japanese Study: Advanced

Less than one day left for submissions to “Promising Translators 2018”!

A few weeks ago I announced “Promising Translators 2018”, Self Taught Japanese’s first ever translation contest, a Japanese to English fiction translation contest targeting amateur translators. The winner will receive a monetary prize, and there be other prizes given as well. This post is a reminder for those who are interested since there is less… Read More »

Two days left for submissions to “Promising Translators 2018”

A few weeks ago I announced “Promising Translators 2018”, Self Taught Japanese’s first ever translation contest, a Japanese to English fiction translation contest targeting amateur translators. The winner will receive a monetary prize, and there be other prizes given as well. This post is a reminder for those who are interested since there is only… Read More »

Bilingual Japanese books at Reajer.com available now for free

(Update: As Reajer has shut down, I have disabled the links in this article, but I will leave the rest of the article for the time being for historical reasons.) In October 2016, I reviewed the site Reajer.com which produces bilingual Japanese/English E-books with detailed explanations, across a wide range of levels from beginner to advanced.… Read More »

Promising Translators 2018 (Japanese Translation Contest): only one week left!

A few weeks ago I announced “Promising Translators 2018”, Self Taught Japanese’s first ever translation contest, a Japanese to English fiction translation contest targeting amateur translators. The winner will receive a monetary prize, and there be other prizes given as well. This post is a reminder for those who are interested since there is only… Read More »

Promising Translators 2018 (Japanese Translation Contest): only two weeks left

Two weeks ago I announced “Promising Translators 2018”, Self Taught Japanese’s first ever translation contest which is a JP-EN fiction contest targeting amateur translators. The winner will receive a monetary prize, and there be other prizes given as well. This post is a quick reminder for those who are interested since there are two weeks… Read More »

Japanese literature reading mobile app review: “Sukima Dokusho” (すきま読書)

Those interested in Japanese novels and short stories have a variety of free options available: sites like Aozora Bunko (青空文庫) which contain older titles and “Shousetsu wo yomou” (小説を読もう) which cater to newer ones. While it’s relatively simply to just pull up stories from such sites on your desktop machine, I think many readers out… Read More »

Promising Translators 2018 (Japanese Translation Contest): three weeks left

Last week I announced “Promising Translators 2018”, Self Taught Japanese’s first ever translation contest, which involves translating a few pages of Japanese fiction into English. The winner will receive a monetary prize, and there be other prizes given as well. This post is a quick reminder for those who are interested that there are three… Read More »

Japanese Translation Contest Announced: Promising Translators 2018

Update: the contest has been closed to submissions and the winners have been announced. I will likely have another similar contest, so please check back later. If you are interested in future contests, please like or comment this post, or send an email to “selftaughtjapanese.contests [at] gmail.com” about what type of contest you’d like to see.  I’m… Read More »

Japanese Novel Review: “Boy of Civilization” (文明の子) by Hikari Ota (太田 光)

I’ll be the first to admit that the novel “Boy of Civilization” was a hyoushigai (表紙買い) for me, which basically means I bought it after being attracted by the cover. Not only was it beautiful on its own, but it also reminded me of the cover of “Lagos on a Journey” (旅のラゴス) by Yasutaka Tsutsui.… Read More »

和風月名: Alternate names for the months of the year in Japanese: (睦月, 如月, 彌生, 卯月, 皋月, 水無月, 文月, 葉月, 長月, 神無月, 霜月, 師走)

With a country like Japan that has tens of thousands of years of history, I guess it’s not much of a surprise that there is always more to learn. This includes cultural stuff, but also words and expressions that you may not have had exposure to on a daily basis (especially if are studying Japanese… Read More »