In Japanese there are a few expressions which are close equivalents to English “never”, and in this post I’ll go over a few. If you want to express the concept of “never” in Japanese, you can keep things simple and just use the negative form of a verb. Literally, this is close to “~will not”.… Read More »
I’m always amazed at the differences in nuances between words that seem so similar at first glance. Oftentimes these subtleties are not described in a dictionary anywhere, and the only way to really get them is to ask a native, or spend many years of your life immersed in that culture hoping you can acquire the linguistic sensibility… Read More »
Once you get to the point in your foreign language studies where you are able to start having frequent conversations, you’ll probably start to notice times where the person you are speaking with has difficulty understanding what you are saying. Rather than say “I don’t understand you”, they may be more indirect and try and… Read More »
As I recently posted about, I’m starting a new series where I give a dialog in Japanese followed by one or more questions to test your understanding. This is the first post of that series, and is Level 1, which is the easiest level and targets those who have only studied Japanese a few months… Read More »
In Japanese, when you want to express that you wish for something, you can use the following pattern: Noun or Na-adjective + だといい Verb (in dictionary form or potential form) + といい For example, 優しい人だといいね。 [Yasashii hito da to ii ne] I hope he/she is nice person. みつかるといい [Mitsukaru to ii] I hope you find it. (literally:… Read More »
Thanks to the Internet, a person studying a foreign language without a formal study program can look up answers to the many questions they will surely have along the way. One place where your typical internet searching doesn’t work too well is matters of pronunciation, since it’s hard to convey sounds using just text. There… Read More »
Learning the basics of a foreign language, while a time-consuming activity, is generally relatively straightforward: memorize the alphabet(s), pronunciations, grammar rules, and of course loads and loads of vocabulary words. With these fundamentals under your belt, you’ll surely be able to express a great many things in that language. The challenge comes when you want to… Read More »
With a near limitless amount of material online for studying Japanese, one of the challenges with this blog is to find fresh ways to teach Japanese while providing insights that I’ve learned myself over the years. I’ve also recently begun posting on Twitter, so finding effective ways to use that service is another goal I’ve given… Read More »
This is the first of a series of articles about expressing various emotions in Japanese. When trying to learn how to talk about happiness in Japanese, it is important to understand that this word has different meanings in English and each of these translates to a different word or phrase. When you want to express the momentary… Read More »
Cool Japan Guide, by Abby Denson, is marketed with the catchy subtitle: “Fun in the land of manga, lucky cats, and ramen”. Despite the fact I am pretty heavily into Japanese culture, I haven’t read a printed book on it in some time, so I was looking forward to reading this book. This 128 page… Read More »