I try to make sure I get a daily dose of Japanese, not as instructional material (a textbook, etc.) but as content made for native speakers. One good way to do this (which I’ve written about before here) is to set your PC or mobile device to Japanese language. I have my main personal phone… Read More »
I picked up “To Avoid Being Swept Away by a Large Bird” by Hiromi Kawakami for the usual reasons––an interesting description on the cover, a curious title, and a reasonable length––but reading the first few paragraphs helped me close the deal (although I admit it was more because the prose was easy to read than… Read More »
I’ve made a list of 50 hints for learning Japanese based on my own experience, covering everything from kanji, listening, and grammar to study habits and other topics.
This time I’d like to discuss the word おぼしき (oboshiki), which despite having a bit of a complicated origin has a relatively simple meaning and usage.
I feel that grammar is the soul of a language, and in the case of Japanese, particles are one of the most important parts of grammar. In this post I’d like to go over the particle combination “made de” (までで), which may not be obvious the first time you spot it in the wild. I… Read More »
This time I’d like to go over the expression “年は年だから” (toshi wa toshi dakara), and some related topics. I chose this since this expression is a little tricky to understand, especially if you are thinking about it from an English point of view. First let’s look at a short, real-world dialogue using this: Person A:… Read More »
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.