Tofugu.com – Wonky Japanese Language and Culture

In a couple hours at 1:40pm Pacific Time, I’ll be live on BBC Radio (sorry, no idea which one… people tell me it’s probably #4, though) talking about “Character Amnesia” (or for us Tofugu-folk, “Kanji Amnesia”), so I thought a good way to get my ducks in a line would be to write a post about it… That way, hopefully, I won’t forget what I want to talk about it. Read more…

Greetings fellow fugu-ers! Gakuranman here. (That’s right, ‘schoolboy coat man’.) You may remember me from such indie B-posts as ‘Katakana Words Ate My Soul‘ and Invasion of the Kanji.

But not to fear! I’ve returned today to shower you with gifts. Gifts of knowledge and prosperity. Your Japanese skills will soar and…ahh, what the heck. Let’s just get on with it. Here’s some words related to the Japanese summer with a few colourful anecdotes. Because, you know, language and culture are inseparable. Kinda like this twisted daikon above. Also a mini giveaway for you hungry learners at the end of this post! Read more…

Sometimes (well, often times), you look at the Japanese culture and think “gosh, Japan is really weird.” This is probably one of those times. Then again, what’s so weird about wanting refrigerated panties every once in a while, especially with the kinds of summers Japan tends to get? Read more…

You know how it’s hard to quit bad habits? Biting your nails, drinking, eating too many cookies, yadda yadda (sure, you could take it to be the Seinfeld reference if you want)… But I bet you didn’t realize you have a ton of good habits as well. Brushing your teeth (well, not all of you have this), putting away the dishes, going running, etc.

Now, I’m not saying that creating a habit to study Japanese on a daily basis is easy (it’s not!), and that’s why I’ve compiled a few sneaky things that will “trick” you into studying Japanese and getting yourself into a good habit. It all comes down to analyzing what makes habits into habits, and taking advantage of those things so that you can create a habit without actually having a… habit. Read more…

This post was written by Dave of JapanDave.com who Tweets and has a great newsletter full of amazing pictures of Japan.

Kid’s songs are a wonderful resource to help you learn Japanese better. They are often overlooked because… well, they are a bit silly, but I think they are worth a second look. I’m going to cover a bit of theory here (I promise not too much), and then look at 6 kid’s songs you might use in your studies. Read more…

A lot of people ask about bowing in Japan, and what they should do if they ever visit or live in Japan. Now, bowing in Japan is so deeply ingrained in culture and society that it’s not something people really think too much about (unless you’re in business, but we’ll talk about that in a bit). If you’re a foreigner, you’re probably not going to be expected to bow all the time, though that depends on the person. There are, however, so many different ways one can and should bow, depending on the situation (which can make it confusing if you didn’t grow up bowing to everyone your whole life). Read more…

In the last couple months, we’ve done two Flutterscape.com giveaways. This is the third, last, and by far best in the series. You’ve gotten your hands on Cupmen and Midori Otoko, but now it’s time for you to choose what you want to win from the awesome Japanese products site. Read more…

I’m guessing a lot of you know how to type in Japanese (hint: you don’t need a Japanese keyboard), but did you know about all the “hidden” special characters you can type out while you’re in Japanese input mode? You aren’t only limited to hiragana, katakana, romaji, and kanji. There are a score of other weird characters you can use to make your text a lot more interesting, you know? Here’s a lot of them (mostly the good ones) with an explanation of what they are and how to get them to show up! Read more…

I get all kinds of weird questions in my e-mail inbox. Sometimes they’re creepy, sometimes they’re hilarious, sometimes they’re interesting, and sometimes they’re a part of a pattern. This is one of those patterns. A few times a month I’ll get the following question:

What is the best Japanese Language electronic dictionary?

Once I get the same question too many times, there’s a good likelihood that I’ll just write the answer via a post here, which is exactly what’ I’m doing. So, what is the best Japanese Language electronic dictionary out there? Let’s find out. Read more…

As if Twitter itself wasn’t a big enough time waster, right? This is a Japanese flash game (so is this) that takes your Twitter icon and pits you against another Twitter icon. After you’ve chosen the opponents, Twitter icons are placed on the battlefield, and they break up into a bunch of tiny little pieces, which charge at each other and duke it out. What I learned from all this? The Tofugu Twitter icon is very, very weak. Read more…