Category Archives: Japanese Study: Intermediate
Japanese grammar: Using the desu/masu form mid-sentence
Japanese has a fairly complex set of ways to express politeness, but in terms of verbs there are two primary forms, the regular form and the polite form. The regular form includes the regular non-past or dictionary form, for example 食べる [taberu]. Other forms like the te-form (食べて [tabete]) are also considered to be non-polite.… Read More »
A warning on using ChatGPT and other AI technologies for foreign language learning
Announcing a new grammar textbook: Japanese Grammar Gatten!
Japanese Bilingual Reader Release: “Kantan! Read Japanese Stories Like a Native (Volume 4)”
Interesting Japanese loanword: アピール (apiiru)
English-based Japanese loanwords are a double-edged sword. While on one hand they can give English-speakers a free ticket to understanding words used in Japanese, on the other hand Japanese loanwords can sometimes be different than their original counterparts, whether it is a minor nuance or a huge gap. In this post I’d like to go… Read More »
Japanese Poem Translation: “Darkness and Light” by Suzuko Nakano
Suzuko Nakano (中野 鈴子) (1906-1958) was a female Japanese poet born in Fukui prefecture who has, as far as I can tell, never been translated into English. This is my translation of her poem “闇と光と” (Darkness and Light). There is very little available about her in English online, but this is her Japanese Wikipedia page.… Read More »