Why I Train in Ki Aikido
I decided to write up the main reasons I continue to train in the martial art of Ki Aikido extensively for several years, and plan to continue to do so.
Japanese expression: (何となく） “nan to naku”
Lately I have been doing less articles about grammar and expressions and more on media reviews and other topics, but since I recently got a request from a colleague I thought I would give a treatment of the expression 何となく “nan to naku” (which can also be written in full hiragana as なんとなく). First, let’s… Read More »
Japanese Pronunciation Highlight: The debate of the soft “ga”
In recent years I have been more active on Twitter/X and a little less active on this blog, though I am still trying to keep up the pace of at least one article a week. Besides the persistency of blog articles vs. the transience of Twitter posts, there is the fact that it’s much easier… Read More »
Netflix Anime Series Review: Pluto
I’ve decided to review the recently released series Pluto, based on the manga by Naoki Urasawa, now one of my favorite anime series.
A reconsideration of teaching Japanese intonation (and a useful tool to examine intonations)
Japanese intonation, in a nutshell, consists of a series of high and low pitches, where each word has a characteristic pattern of these high and low pitches. There are words where the pitch rises, words where the pitch falls, as well as where the pitch both rises and falls. When a word is said in… Read More »
Japanese literature release: “Alien Christmas” (Volume 3 of Masao Yamakawa collection)
I was brought up where celebrating Christmas for a religious reason was the norm, but now as an adult it’s safe to say my feelings for Christmas are quite different than when I was a child. I celebrate it for different reasons, and am more aware that some parts of the world don’t think of… Read More »
Japanese Youtube Recommendation: Taigu Osho (talks from a Buddhist Priest)
As part of my continuing education in Japanese I’m always on the lookout for good content in Japanese that is interesting, educational, or both. While watching videos is fun, in terms of budgeting my time I find I have many more opportunities to experience content going on a walk or driving, so I tend to… Read More »
Anime movie review: One Piece Film Z
While I had watched a few episodes of the One Piece anime many years ago, for whatever reason I stopped watching it. Then when the Netflix live-action series came out a few months ago I watched it immediately and was really impressed––it seemed like one of the best anime to live-action adaptations to date. The… Read More »
Japanese Grammar and More: Episode 13 (The Good, Bad, and Ugly of Studying Japanese)
In this episode of my podcast for learning basic Japanese grammar, I go over the “ne” particle and a few expressions for saying goodbye.
Starfield Japanese vocabulary list
I’ve collected a list of Japanese vocabulary words related to the popular space RPG game Starfield.