I’m very happy to announce the 4th installment of “Classic Japanese Fairy Tales”, my translations of Mimei Ogawa’s works that are listed in both English and parallel Japanese/English formats. This volume also contains an essay by Mimei where he talks about what children’s stories mean to him.
In this post I go over an interesting use for the word “あれ”, along with a few other common uses.
In this post I go deep into the phrase “僕に言われても” and try to figure out why “に” is used, which seems to be contradictory with typical usages of it.
I reviewed the latest novel by Matayoshi Naoki (又吉直樹), titled “Ningen:” (人間).
The majority of the review is via a Youtube video, but I have also provided a summary of my findings.
I’ve translated and published the full text of the classic Japanese fairy tale “The Soul Lives On” (たましいは生きている) by Mimei Ogawa (小川未明), a poignant tale about the strength of a brotherly bond, even after death.
In this post I’d like to go over the phrase さも (“samo”), which you are likely to come across if you read enough Japanese literature, along with a few examples and explanation of its origin. さも is usually written in hiragana, but it can technically also be written with partial kanji as 然も. さも is… Read More »
With the majority of both my job and hobby life involving computer screens and keyboards, I like to try and set aside some time away from technology, or at least screens. Calligraphy is a fun hobby that I’ve recently picked up, although I still use digital reference materials frequently. But audiobooks are great because they… Read More »
In this post I want to go over the expression というのも (“to iu no mo”) as it is something you will probably hear eventually if you listen to enough native speech. It can also be written in kanji as と言うのも, though perhaps the hiragana representation is a bit more common. I will be focusing on… Read More »
In this post I’ve translated Hayashi Fumiko’s classic fairy tale “The Crane’s Flute” (鶴の笛) in full, a simple story that touches upon important topics.
Languages have different vocabulary and grammar for different areas (or “domains” as I call them), for example newspapers, popular novels, and Internet forums. This can be frustrating because being knowledgable in one domain doesn’t mean you’ll have an easy time in another. But the plus side is that once you learn some common phrases and… Read More »