In this post I’d like to go over a useful Japanese word: うそ (uso), which means a lie, or more accurately something that is not true. The Kanji for uso is made up from a few different radicals, but the two biggest ones mean mouth (口) and tiger (虎): 嘘 This term is especially useful in casual… Read More »
As part of raising my son bilingual Japanese, over the last few years I’ve spent a great deal of time reading him Japanese children’s books. I always recommend children’s books to people learning Japanese because typically no kanji knowledge is required, there is a so much culture to absorb, and they are just plain fun.… Read More »
One of the nice things about the Japanese language is that it has relatively few grammatical tenses, at least compared to languages like English which can get quite messy. Knowing a handful of tenses can get you pretty far, although you do have to memorize the conjugation for each category of verbs. In this post… Read More »
It’s been a little over a year since I’ve moved with my family to Portland, Oregon. It’s no exaggeration to say that one of the main reasons we chose this area because of the relatively large proportion of Japanese people, at least compared to South Florida where we came from. I’ve already written a few articles… Read More »
In several past posts I’ve mentioned how children’s books are a great way to help train your reading skills in Japanese, one of the main reasons being you usually don’t have to worry about knowing kanji (or even katakana for that matter) since furigana reading hints will be comprehensively used. While you can run into… Read More »
Recently I got a tweet from Alek Ehlke asking me to try out his new iOS app “Manabi Reader”. In case you didn’t know, “Manabi” (学び) comes from the verb “Manabu” (学ぶ) which means “to learn”. While it’s not a very creative name, it’s easy enough to remember. The purpose of this app is quite simple:… Read More »
The Japanese word ‘shibaraku’ (written “しばらく” in hiragana or sometimes written ”暫く” in kanji), is a word that I learned very early on in my Japanese studies and I still come across quite often. It has a simple meaning and usage that easy to learn and add to your own repertoire. This word means a… Read More »
When studying Japanese, especially if you don’t live in Japan, there are always blind spots which can develop in your learning depending on what materials and methods you use to study. One area that I’ve found difficult is slang, because many of the materials I use (especially books and TV dramas) tend to not use… Read More »
Over a year ago I’d made a post about the expression “yokatta” (よかった), and I thought I would follow that up with a post on the Japanese expression “warukatta” (“わるかった”, sometimes written in Kanji as “悪かった”). If you are relatively new to Japanese you may hear this word as “warukata“, but if you listen closely there… Read More »
It’s amazing how you can study a foreign language for so long, yet somehow overlook what seem like basic things. The other day I was reading a book about Japan written for elementary school children which talked about Japan’s history and culture. On one of the first few pages, it said that the Japanese call their country… Read More »