The other day I was reading some posts about Japanese on Twitter and came across a post that had a simple phrase written in English, and then translated into Japanese. Here is what it said: Hey, did you lose weight? あれ？やせた？ [Are? Yaseta?] At first, this looks like a pretty innocuous phrase. Both the English… Read More »
Learning the basics of a foreign language, while a time-consuming activity, is generally relatively straightforward: memorize the alphabet(s), pronunciations, grammar rules, and of course loads and loads of vocabulary words. With these fundamentals under your belt, you’ll surely be able to express a great many things in that language. The challenge comes when you want to… Read More »
Me and my wife stumbled on this book in a Kinokuniya bookstore (either New York or San Jose, I forget which), and decided to purchase it to read to our son who we are raising bilingual Japanese/English. This book is based on a simple premise – imaging up various possibilities for a apple which the narrator,… Read More »
When studying a foreign language on your own, it’s easy to get fixated on linguistic things like vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation, because those are your fast-track to being able to actually communicate in that language. But without the well-structured program of a formal class, you may be missing out on some areas like cultural practices… Read More »
The word “koso” in Japanese, usually written in Hiragana as こそ, isn’t exactly a frequent word in Japanese, nor is it necessary in order to express most things in the language. However, there are a few common usages which are good to learn, regardless of your level, and you may even be able to employ a… Read More »
Last year I wrote about the ~garu suffix in Japanese, and have seen a few hits to that article since apparently it is a fairly common question for student of Japanese. Just the other day I had said to my wife the following phrase: 僕はそれ、ずっと懐かしがってた (boku ha sore, zutto natsukashigatte ita) Upon which, she showed… Read More »
This time I’m going to give a vocabulary list which you aren’t likely to see in any textbook – words related to drinking alcohol. Whether you are into drinking personally or not, it’s hard to deny it’s a major part of modern Japanese culture, so it’s probably a good idea to know these. お酒 (osake) –… Read More »
In this post I’m going to go over the Japanese particle “さ” (sa) and a few related words. さ is something that took me quite some time to understand, partially because it wasn’t emphasized in any of the textbooks I originally learned Japanese from. I understand authors deciding to avoid this word because it not used very… Read More »
There is something adventurous about picking up a book in a bookstore which you know nothing about except the title and cover page. It feels like you were dropped in the middle of an unknown country without a map, with nothing to go on but your own sense of direction. This is much how I… Read More »
In Japanese, the expressions “にある” (ni aru) and “になっている” (ni natte iru) are used to express the state of something. “にある” is often used with words like 状態 (joutai, “state”), 状況 (joukyou, “state”) or 傾向 (keikou, “trend). Take this example sentence: 体は睡眠状態にある。 The body is in a state of sleep. Here you can think of this… Read More »