When you get in an environment where you can start to speak Japanese daily with native (or at least fluent) speakers, you’ll surely discover words and expressions that are completely new to you, regardless of how much you have studied the language academically in the past. In this article I’d like to focus on a… Read More »
Whether you are translating between languages, or simply trying to understand a foreign language, looking up the meanings of words is a common activity you can end up doing tens, if not hundreds of times a day. Learning to improve your word research process will not only help save time but can also lead to… Read More »
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 »
Who doesn’t love trains, especially children? Even if you don’t love them, living in Japan (or other big cities) pretty much forces them to use them, so this list of train-related words is sure to be of use. 電車 (densha): train [this word is written with the Kanji for “electricity” and “car”, and thus… Read More »
Nobody loves being sick, but there is nothing worse than being sick except being sick where you can’t express how you feel to those around you. This vocabulary list is about words related to not feeling well, and about getting better (the doctor, etc.) Many of them I have used myself in the real world.… Read More »
Doing translations between Japanese and English is always an educational endeavor, teaching me so much about Japanese and language in general. One thing that I’ve been thinking about lately is how one can be reasonably skilled in two languages, and yet translating simple phrases can be so challenging. I’ve seen this happen even when I… Read More »
When studying your first foreign language, there are many things you have to get accustomed to: new sounds, different characters, and grammar rules, to mention only a few. During this process, the longer you study, the more tricks you pick up to help speed your journey towards fluency. One such trick I’ve learned is to think in terms… Read More »
When studying a foreign language, I’ve had all sorts of small revelations about how language works, and these are one of the things that keeps me motivated to learn even more. I remember in my first foreign language class, which happened to be for Spanish, the teacher said that “someone just didn’t sit on a hill… Read More »
Let’s face it – weather is one of the most boring, hackneyed conversation topics in existence. But when looked at the point of view of foreign language study, weather forecasts become a surprisingly useful resource. To start with, forecasts on professional radio stations (check NHK news podcast out as an example) will have announcers that enunciate cleanly and… Read More »
The word “fushigi” in Japanese, written in Kanji as 不思議, has several related meanings including “strange”, “miraculous”, and “odd”. It can be used as both a noun or a na-adjective. I always like to look at words’ definitions in Japanese to try and get closer to the root meaning. Here is the word’s first definition in… Read More »