When learning words in a foreign language, the only way to get a full understanding is to gather data from as many sources as possible: dictionaries, media (fiction/nonfiction) and of course as many real-world situations as possible. I see this is as chiseling away the various subtleties of this word little by little until you have the… Read More »
Who doesn’t love trains, especially children? Even if you don’t love them, living in Japan (or other big cities) pretty much forces them to use them, so this list of train-related words is sure to be of use. 電車 (densha): train [this word is written with the Kanji for “electricity” and “car”, and thus… Read More »
This is the 4nd assignment of a program I am running to help myself and others improve Japanese writing skill. For details, see this post. Also see this post for a list of all assignments. This time the topic will be “趣味”, which is “hobby” or “hobbies”. Feel free to write about a single hobby you enjoy, or more than… Read More »
This is the 3nd assignment for a program I have started in order to help myself and others improve their writing in Japanese. For details about the program, see this post. Also see this post for a list of all assignments. For the first few topics I am keeping to things which are pretty easy to write about, so… Read More »
In this post I’d like to talk about the Japanese word 問題 (mondai), a very useful word which has several meanings. The first meaning, possibly the most common, is “problem” in the sense of something that is not going according to plan. A: 大丈夫ですか？ [Is everything OK?] B: ええ、問題ないです。… Read More »
This is the 2nd assignment for a program I have started in order to help myself and others improve their writing in Japanese. For details about the program, see this post. Also see this post for a list of all assignments. The topic of this writing assignment is to discuss why you started learning Japanese.… Read More »
Recently I came across this interesting post by fellow blogger Moaz Elgabry. For only having studied Japanese a few years, his Japanese writing skill is quite impressive, and I’m curious to see his thoughts on different topics. His post discusses whether the Japanese language really needs to have a grammatical subject and how such a subject should be… Read More »
In a recent post I announced I would be starting a new program on my blog called “Japanese Writing Lab” that aims to motivate people to practice writing in Japanese, provides feedback on their writing, and allows them to see posts of other Japanese learners. This article represents the first writing assignment of that program. For this… Read More »
I’ve created a vocabulary list of Japanese words related to airplanes and air travel in general. This is one area I’ve found I have some weaknesses in, and I thought if I was going to review these words myself I might has well write it up for others to learn from. 飛行機 (hikouki): airplane 空港 (kuukou):… Read More »
My family and I have decided to move from Florida, where I’ve been my entire life, to Oregon. The response I get from most people who I tell this to is: “You’ve moving to be closer to your extended family, right?” No. (Actually the opposite) “You’ve moving because of your job, right?” No. (Will be… Read More »