Japanese vocabulary list: Ki Aikido (martial arts) training words 
I wrote up a few pages of vocabulary words and expressions that can be used during training Ki Aikido (or another martial art) in Japanese.
Category Archives: Japanese Study: Intermediate
Japanese literature release: “Dreams of a Child: Mimei Ogawa: The Father of Modern Japanese Fairy Tales”
I’m happy to announce the release of a collection of stories by Mimei Ogawa (the father of modern Japanese fairy tales) containing 36 stories and one essay, all in bilingual Japanese form.
Japanese verbs “ukeru” (受ける) and “ukaru” (受かる): a useful pair
Japanese verbs often conveniently come in transitive/intransitive pairs, but sometimes those verbs don’t have the meanings you would expect. In this post I’d like to talk about “ukeru”（受ける） and “ukaru”（受かる), two verbs that are pretty important in daily life. The first of these, “ukeru” is the transitive one, which means it takes an object using… Read More »
Foreign Language Tricks: Being aware of tone and nuance (and being humble)
Some thoughts on being aware of what we don’t know as language learners, and acting accordingly in a way to get along well with others.
Japanese vocab list: house-related words
This is a handy Japanese vocabulary list about words related to houses.
Japanese Bilingual Reader Release: “Kantan! Read Japanese Stories Like a Native (Volume 3)”
I’m happy to announce Arigatai Books’ latest release: a bilingual reader featuring a story by Hayashi Fumiko, an important woman Japanese author.
Japanese word deep dive: “nakama” (仲間) [as heard in One Piece]
When studying a foreign language, it’s nice to learn a little bit about a lot of words. But at the same time, it’s also nice to get deep and learn the various nuances of certain words, especially those that are used frequently. In this post I want to do a deep dive on the word… Read More »
Japanese expression: (何となく） “nan to naku”
Lately I have been doing less articles about grammar and expressions and more on media reviews and other topics, but since I recently got a request from a colleague I thought I would give a treatment of the expression 何となく “nan to naku” (which can also be written in full hiragana as なんとなく). First, let’s… Read More »
A reconsideration of teaching Japanese intonation (and a useful tool to examine intonations)
Japanese intonation, in a nutshell, consists of a series of high and low pitches, where each word has a characteristic pattern of these high and low pitches. There are words where the pitch rises, words where the pitch falls, as well as where the pitch both rises and falls. When a word is said in… Read More »
Japanese Youtube Recommendation: Taigu Osho (talks from a Buddhist Priest)
As part of my continuing education in Japanese I’m always on the lookout for good content in Japanese that is interesting, educational, or both. While watching videos is fun, in terms of budgeting my time I find I have many more opportunities to experience content going on a walk or driving, so I tend to… Read More »