I think it’s fair to say that all modern languages (which the exception of those constructed by academics) grow and evolve in response to the times and the culture of the countries speaking those languages. This means that there aren’t many hard and fast rules that work 100% of the time. It’s almost as if exception… Read More »
As a follow up to my previous article as to why Japanese has so many loanwords (where I quoted a Japanese person’s opinion on this topic) I’d like to present my own thoughts here. First of all, there is the question of whether Japanese really has that many loanwords. While it is clear there is an… Read More »
Anyone who has studied Japanese knows that the language contains loanwords called 外来語 (“gairaigo”), which words ‘borrowed’ from another language and imported into Japanese. As part of this transition, the works take on a new spelling and pronunciation, which can be a shortened version or one containing syllables from multiple words. The meaning itself can… Read More »
Though I am a big advocate of learning a foreign language using all possible resources, music is one part of Japanese culture I haven’t emphasized as much as manga, novels, or TV dramas. Although I’ve enjoyed songs from various Japanese genres, and there are few artists I’ve been into (Quruli, Utada Hikaru, Yui, etc.), recently… Read More »
The Japanese word “大変” (taihen), made out of the characters for “large” and “change”, and is typically used for two related meanings which I will go over in this post, along with example sentences. The first is to express something is extreme, and can roughly match with english “very” or “terribly”. When using it as an… Read More »
We received “99 Tears” as a gift and since it was a relatively thin paperback book I decided to try it out. It’s a set of 12 short stories, each written by a different Japanese author. The settings and characters are all different, but they all share an emphasis on interpersonal relations, especially those with family.… Read More »
It’s no exaggeration to say I’m a huge fan of Japanese Ramen soup, so much that I’ve been considering writing an entire post on it. But this time I’ve decided to write a review of a ramen shop I went to recently in Hollywood, Florida, that was quite delicious. The store is called ‘GoBistro’, and to be… Read More »
The Japanese verb 来る (‘kuru’) is often one of the first verbs learned by Japanese students, not just because it is easy to understand but also because it is used somewhat frequently, in both it’s simple form and in a few special usages. First let’s look at the simplest way to use this verb, where it’s… Read More »
In Japan, as well as some other Eastern cultures, rice is eaten daily and products made from rice are very abundant: rice wine, sweets made from rice (mochi), even rice paper. Rice is not only relatively inexpensive and nutrient-rich, but it can be made quite easy at home in a device called a “suihanki” (炊飯器), or rice-cooker.… Read More »
The Japanese term “調子” is quite a multifaceted word with seven definitions in the dictionary, as well as a handful of expressions and compound words that use it. In this post I’ll talk about the usages of it that I have heard most, and I feel are most likely to be useful. The primary definitions for… Read More »