YouTube is a great source of Japanese-language content for those studying the language, however with billions of videos, even with a good search mechanism it can be hard to find videos appropriate for language learners. Recently I was searching around on YouTube using some science terms in Japanese (like 分子) and came across a great… Read More »
The other day, I made a post about how I turned my backyard into a Japanese karesansui rock garden and included some hints on how to make your own. I received a comment on that post from someone working for Real Japanese Gardens, a website that has some useful information about Japanese gardens (some posted… Read More »
日経大人OFF (Nikkei otona OFF) is a magazine series by the same company that publishes the Nikkei daily business paper. In this post I am reviewing a special edition of that series from 3/15/2012 titled: 「美しい日本語と正しい敬語が身につく本」, roughly translated as “Guidebook to beautiful Japanese and proper polite language”. As you can guess from its title, this magazine… Read More »
Generally when I pick a Japanese novel to read, either the story itself caught my attention or there was something else about the book (for example, it won one or more awards) that made it seem a worthy read. In the case of the novel “Little Bird” (ことり) by Yoko Ogawa (小川洋子), it was clearly… Read More »
Thanks to the nearly infinite resources available on the internet, studying a foreign language like Japanese on your own has become much easier than ten or twenty years ago. You can learn about many of the finer points of the language, including grammar, and even enjoy online media in that language using things like novels… Read More »
I’ve spent some time doing translation work at Gengo as a side job, and while lately I’ve reduced my time there, I still think they provide an excellent service with a well-optimized workflow and great customer support. One of the reasons I’ve gravitated away from Gengo is because they don’t focus on content that requires… Read More »
Many children seem to go through a phase where they are delighted by gross or disgusting things like boogers and farts. I guess you could some of us adults still haven’t grown out of it. (: There are books for young readers that take advantage of this by including these types of gross topics to… Read More »
Because of how long it takes me to read Japanese novels, I’m generally very picky about what I commit to. But once I start reading a book I almost never give up, regardless of how tough things get. When I heard that music was a central theme of “Honey Bees and Distant Thunder” (蜜蜂と遠雷) and… Read More »
In several past posts I’ve mentioned how children’s books are a great way to help train your reading skills in Japanese, one of the main reasons being you usually don’t have to worry about knowing kanji (or even katakana for that matter) since furigana reading hints will be comprehensively used. While you can run into… Read More »
Recently I got a tweet from Alek Ehlke asking me to try out his new iOS app “Manabi Reader”. In case you didn’t know, “Manabi” (学び) comes from the verb “Manabu” (学ぶ) which means “to learn”. While it’s not a very creative name, it’s easy enough to remember. The purpose of this app is quite simple:… Read More »