10 Japanese Expressions Involving Cats
I put together a list of 10 expressions in Japanese that involve our favorite furry friend––the cat.
Category Archives: Vocabulary Lists
Japanese vocabulary list: Calligraphy terms
The characters used in the Japanese language––comprised of hiragana, katakana, and kanji––use a large variety of shapes and strokes, and in my opinion are very visually pleasing. Calligraphy, a traditional art that is still popular in Japan today, takes these same characters and elevates them to a true art form that can often be seen… Read More »
Japanese vocabulary list: violin and music terms
As if I didn’t have enough hobbies, recently I started learning to play the violin. Knowing me, you might not be surprised to find that I’m doing it self-taught, at least for the time being. While I have had basic conversations about violin and music related topics, I realized that there are some terms I… Read More »
Hey man, where’s my drone? (a tale of a runaway UAV) [w/ Japanese vocabulary list]
I finally decided to shell out some serious money for a prosumer drone. Little did I know that our time together would only be a few days… (includes a Japanese vocabulary list of drone-related words)
Japanese words that mean “not at all” (zenzen [全然], etc.)
I’ve noticed that Japanese seems to have a large number of words that are used to describe the complete absence of something, or complete negation of something like an action. These words would generally be used in a sentence or phrase that ends in a verb in the negative tense. In English, this would correspond… Read More »
Japanese vocabulary list: words about sleep
When I couldn’t sleep the other day, I got an idea for a new Japanese vocab list about, well, sleep. Without enough sleep it’s hard to function in daily life, let alone study Japanese effectively. As with my other vocabulary lists, a majority of the words are those I have heard used by native speakers… Read More »
Japanese Vocabulary List: Card and board games
This list is about words related to board (Catan, etc.) or card games (poker, etc.). I hope you find these useful! If you are interested in Chess specifically, I have a vocabulary list for that here. ルール (ruuru): rule / rules 解説 (kaisetsu): explanation 初心者 (shoshinsha): beginner ボードゲーム (boodo geemu): board game 遊ぶ (asobu): to… Read More »
和風月名: Alternate names for the months of the year in Japanese: (睦月, 如月, 彌生, 卯月, 皋月, 水無月, 文月, 葉月, 長月, 神無月, 霜月, 師走)
With a country like Japan that has tens of thousands of years of history, I guess it’s not much of a surprise that there is always more to learn. This includes cultural stuff, but also words and expressions that you may not have had exposure to on a daily basis (especially if are studying Japanese… Read More »
Some thoughts on effective learning of foreign language vocabulary
(The other day a friend casually asked me about how I learn vocabulary words in Japanese, and at the time I could only give a fairly simple answer. So I thought about it some more and decided to write an article about effective learning of foreign language vocabulary.) Regardless of what foreign language you are… Read More »
Japanese vocabulary list: language, reading, writing, and translation
In this vocabulary list I’d like to give some words related to language, reading, writing, and translation. A majority of these are words I have seen and/or used myself. I purposefully left out technical grammatical terms (like 述語), but I may make another list for them someday. Note: as usual, many of the verbs in… Read More »