In this post I talked about the results of my review of using ChatGPT for explaining Japanese grammar, focusing on a particularly concerning case of a hallucination about particles.
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 »
After seeing how a student of Japanese was using ChatGPT to write a daily journal, I decided to put down some of my thoughts on using ChatGPT and other AI tools for Japanese learning.
I’m happy to announce the release of my first book about Japanese grammar fundamentals: “Japanese Grammar Gatten!”, available now on Amazon.
I’m proud to announce the release of a new book in my bilingual reader series, “Kantan! Read Japanese Stories Like a Native” by classic science fiction author Juza Unno.
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 »
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 »
This is a full bilingual translation of the Japanese fairy tale “The Accordion” by Ogawa Mimei, a story about a mountain hermit who comes across a main selling medicines.
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.
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.