Having given grammar a major focus in my studies of Japanese, I’m pretty sensitive to incorrect or unusual grammar. One thing I have come across a few times in the last year or so is a sentence where what is supposed to be an i-adjective (ex: kawaii) is treated like a noun. I’ll give a… Read More »
This article is part of the series on my July 2018 trip to Japan. Please see the table of contents page for other articles in this series as they are posted. While walking through Akihabara we stumbled on the “Square Enix Cafe”, a restaurant that I had never heard of before; but being a Final… Read More »
In my college days, I was really into the collectible card game Magic: The Gathering, although in the last decade or two I don’t think I’ve played a single game. One of the fun things about having children is the possibility of exposing your hobbies and interests to them, and if you are lucky they… Read More »
This article is part of the series on my July 2018 trip to Japan. Please see the table of contents page for other articles in this series as they are posted. I was very lucky to be able to have the opportunity to observe first grade elementary class for an entire day in a school… Read More »
On a recent trip to Japan (which I am in the process of reporting on here), I browsed through many bookstores. Because my reading speed in Japanese still hasn’t quite caught up to my English reading speed, rather than actually read a few pages of a book I generally focus on searching for covers and… Read More »
This article is part of the series on my July 2018 trip to Japan. Please see the table of contents page for other articles in this series as they are posted. I think many people have heard about Japan’s “maid cafes” (メイドカフェ or メイド喫茶）that allow viewing and interacting with cute girls in maid uniforms; but… Read More »
In mid-June I released an English translation of the first part of an intriguing Japanese SF novella that I had discovered titled “Two of Six: A Captain’s Dilemma” (Japanese title: “６分の２”), written by Tomohito Moriyama (森山智仁). The story involves a system malfunction on a spaceship requiring evacuation of the humans aboard, but the escape pod… Read More »
This article is part of the series on my July 2018 trip to Japan. Please see the table of contents page for other articles in this series as they are posted. While I have been interested in Japan’s culture as far back as I can remember, as you can probably tell from this blog it… Read More »
This article is part of the series on my July 2018 trip to Japan. Please see the table of contents page for other articles in this series as they are posted. In Japanese, the word kokuminsei (国民性) roughly translates to “the national character” and represents certain proclivities or characteristics of a certain race of people.… Read More »
This article is part of the series on my July 2018 trip to Japan. Please see the table of contents page for other articles in this series as they are posted. As I mentioned previously, we decided on staying at the Narita View Hotel for a single day at the beginning and the end of the… Read More »