Japanese phrase: 〜ことから (~koto kara)
In this post I go over the Japanese phrase “〜ことから” (~koto kara) and give a few examples of its usage.
Category Archives: Japanese Study: Advanced
Japanese Literature Release: “The Masquerade Ball” by Edogawa Rampo (Bilingual Edition)
I’ve released an ebook of “The Masquerade Ball” in bilingual Japanese/English format. It’s written by Edogawa Rampo, master of classic Japanese mystery.
Japanese Writing Lab #7: A fun event or trip
Having trouble finding opportunities to practice writing in Japanese? In this post I wrote in Japanese about a fun experience I had. I ask you to try doing the same, and in exchange I’ll give my feedback on your writing. Japanese learners of any level are invited, and there is no length requirements on the result.
Japanese expression: だけあって (dake atte)
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 »
Japanese literature review: “大きな鳥にさらわれないよう” (“To Avoid Being Swept Away by a Large Bird”) by 川上弘美 (Hiromi Kawakami)
I picked up “To Avoid Being Swept Away by a Large Bird” by Hiromi Kawakami for the usual reasons––an interesting description on the cover, a curious title, and a reasonable length––but reading the first few paragraphs helped me close the deal (although I admit it was more because the prose was easy to read than… Read More »
Classical poem translation: “The Second of a Series of Miscellaneous Poems” (雜詩其二) by Tao Yuanming (陶淵明)
I decided to translate a poem by the 4th-century Chinese poet Tao Yuanming (陶淵明), leveraging both the original text as well as Japanese translations and explanations.
Japanese Book Review: 首里の馬 (“The Horse of Shuri”) by 高山 羽根子 (Takayama Haneko)
In this article, I reviewed the novel 首里の馬 (“The Horse of Shuri”) by 高山 羽根子 (Takayama Haneko), a book with interesting ideas that I felt fell a little short on execution.
Japanese grammar: Solving the mystery of “僕に言われても” (boku ni iwarete mo)
In this post I go deep into the phrase “僕に言われても” and try to figure out why “に” is used, which seems to be contradictory with typical usages of it.
Japanese literature review: 人間 (“Ningen”) by 又吉直樹 (Matayoshi Naoki)
I reviewed the latest novel by Matayoshi Naoki (又吉直樹), titled “Ningen:” (人間).
The majority of the review is via a Youtube video, but I have also provided a summary of my findings.
The patterns “shite dou?” / “shitara dou?” and vagueness with verb tenses in Japanese
Compared to other languages, such as English and Spanish, Japanese has a fairly small number of verb tenses. So it’s not much of a surprise that some of the tenses have many different uses, and often do not give much information as to when an action happened. In this post I’d like to talk about… Read More »