In my early years studying Japanese I watched a huge number of Japanese dramas, and while this really helped improved my listening and vocabulary skills, it also made me accustomed––or should I say overly sensitive––to the common tropes of this form of media. That, plus the fact I generally try to spend more time in… Read More »
Before I begin this book review I should give some background information about myself. I’ve been practicing Ki-Aikido (more formally known as 心身統一合氣道, “Aikido of Mind and Body Coordination”) for around 2 years now. Besides practicing in a local dojo several times a week, I have trained once in a Japanese dojo, and also have begun reading… Read More »
While I can appreciate the value of vocabulary lists to get a quick sample of words in a specific area (and have made quite a few myself), there is also something to be said for focused posts on a single word, where spending time giving more explanation and examples can help better remember and understand… Read More »
Many parents living in a country different from where they were born have a desire to teach their children about their home country’s culture and language. There is a plethora of resources online to study foreign languages, but for children often physical books are seen as the best type of media. However, there are not… Read More »
Statistics about the number of people reading this blog are a good confidence booster, but readers who interact directly with me are really the lifeblood of Self Taught Japanese. That’s why I do my best to answer all questions that I receive via comments or email, sometimes in the form of long articles. Earlier this… Read More »
Powell’s Books is considered to be the largest independent bookstore in the world, with their “City of Books” location in Portland containing over one million books across over 1.5 acres of space––a venerable labyrinth of books that is a must-see place for any book lover. With all the Japanese culture in Oregon, it’s no surprise… Read More »
Words generally have an explicit meaning (what it says in the dictionary) in addition to an implicit meaning, also called the nuance or atmosphere of the word. When learning a foreign language it is good to understand both, and sometimes there is much more to the nuance than the explicit meaning. “Meccha” (generally written in… Read More »
In this post I want to cover two Japanese scientific terms I have come across: “chidousetsu” and “tendousetsu”. These are generally written in kanji as 地動説 and 天動説, respectively. Chidosetsu is used to describe the astronomical model whereby the Sun is at the center of the solar system, with planets (including the Earth) revolving around… Read More »
When learning a foreign language, words can be grouped into two categories: those that map easily to some word in the speaker’s native language, or those that do not. The latter are, of course, generally more difficult to master. From a translation perspective, words in the second category are also often more difficult to translate,… Read More »
In this post I’d like to go over the word “nite”, which is generally written in hiragana as にて. While one of my Japanese/Japanese dictionaries has a full six meanings for this word, fortunately in modern Japanese the use is somewhat limited and easy to understand. “nite” is classified as a “case particle” (格助詞), which… Read More »