When studying a foreign language, learning to write holds a special place because one can attain a fairly high level of competency without actually living in a country where that language is spoken. This is because both reading, an important related skill, and writing itself can be learned and practiced with just a computer and an internet connection. Strictly speaking,… Read More »
Lately, I’ve been trying out a bunch of random Japanese novels via the free samples available on the E-book site Booklive. I went through a few that were mediocre, after which I came across upon the 2014 novel『そして、星の輝く夜がくる』(Soshite, hoshi no kagayaku yoru ga kuru) by Jin Mayama. I got absorbed into it after only a few pages, and before I… Read More »
All human-made languages are built from rules, upon which are piled on exception after exception (at least in the languages I have studied). In this post I’d like to go over a confusing usage of a Japanese particle that I’ve stumbled across in my own speech several times. What particle do you think fits in the… Read More »
The phrase “仕方ない” (shikata nai) is one that I learned very early in my Japanese studies and I’ve found it to be fairly commonly used, as well as pretty straightforward to understand. The word 仕方 (shikata) means “way to do something” or “method”. For example, since お礼 means “thanks”, then お礼の仕方 means “the way to thank”… Read More »
While trying to organize things around the house lately, I found a bunch of novels from the famous author Keigo Higashino, known for his “Galileo” series of novels which was made into a movie, as well as many others (like 白夜行) I have around 49 novels from this great author which I’m looking to sell in bulk,… Read More »
When learning a foreign language, I think we all tend to go through stages. First, we may have a mild (or major) interest in the culture of a foreign country, and begin to pick up a few words here or there in that country’s native language. In the case of Japanese, it might be a few… Read More »
I had previously written a review of the Japanese novel “Candy Candy Final Story” (キャンディ･キャンディ Final Story) written by Nagita Keiko, and later posted a translation I did of the prologue. Generally, when I do translations of small fragments of novels, I don’t intend to follow up with translations of any future chapters. However, in this case… Read More »
In this post I’d like to discuss the Japanese podcast “僕と、嫁さんと、息子と、ゲームと” which I’ve been listening to almost every day during my commutes to work lately. (By the way, if you aren’t using podcasts to help supplement your Japanese studies, you’re missing out! You can see a few other of my podcast reviews here) This podcast, translated as “My… Read More »
I feel that particles (such as の、で、に) are the heart of the Japanese language, or at least a grammatical aspect of the language that is significantly different to languages such as English. I think it’s fair to say that without a very strong grasp of particles, one can never fully understand the subtleties of more advanced sentences.… Read More »
Nobody loves being sick, but there is nothing worse than being sick except being sick where you can’t express how you feel to those around you. This vocabulary list is about words related to not feeling well, and about getting better (the doctor, etc.) Many of them I have used myself in the real world.… Read More »