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koichi - who has written 82 posts on Tofugu.com.

Koichi is a cool frood that knows where his towel's at. He created Tofugu, and is currently working on a few other projects as well: Koichiben & BoxedTofu.

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Learn Japanese NOW!! (video)

Saturday, August 2, 2008

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Think of this post as an “inspirational” post…or something like that. Might be the opposite, depending on who you are. Over the last five years or so, I feel like I’ve noticed an influx in “instant gratification textbooks.” Everyone is trying to claim that they can teach you Japanese faster. One book will say it can [...]

Why Japanese in Hawaii Weren’t Interned during WWII

Monday, July 28, 2008

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Once again, I thought I’d stick with the Hawaii-Japan topic, since i just got back from there (that’s right, eat your hearts out). In high school, all of us younguns had to do a Senior Report, of sorts. Now, whenever I do essays / reports / etc, and I have the opportunity to write about whatever [...]

The “No Gaijin Allowed” mentality

Thursday, July 24, 2008

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Now that I’m back from Hawaii, I finally had the chance to wade through all the emails I decided to ignore until now (sorry if that was you!). A decent number of them were people worried about racism in Japan; mainly, they were worried that people in Japan would treat them poorly because they were, [...]

Some Japanese Restaurant Culture

Thursday, July 17, 2008

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I’ve been in Hawaii the past week or so, a few days of which was spent with my host family from when I home-stayed in Japan in high school. Having them over here in America (though, Hawaii is about as Japanese as America gets) really brings out some of the subtle cultural differences between Japanese [...]

Takeru Kobayashi Loses Hot Dog Eating Contest again. Shouldn’t go swimming for at least 30 minutes

Friday, July 4, 2008

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Maybe it’s time he commits seppuku, though, I don’t know if I’d want to see a stomach full of hot dogs get disemboweled. It’s been a year since the last “Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest” at Coney Island, when reigning king (at the time) of eating food “really really fast” lost his title, and his [...]

What’s the difference between San, Sama, Kun, & Chan?

Saturday, June 28, 2008

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I know this will be really basic for a lot of you, but recently, I’ve noticed a lot of people having trouble with which honorific to put on the end of a name. Not only have I gotten several emails specifically asking what the difference between them, but I’ve also had a barrage of folks [...]

Tofugu’s ThankYou Postcard Contest Winners…Everybody wins!

Thursday, June 26, 2008

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I was dreading having to choose my “favorite” postcard shot from the ThankYou Postcard contest, but, somewhat luckily, we only got four submissions. Now, originally we said that only three could win, but since we got four, and since I’ve got a lot of extra postcards, I thought it would be nice to extend that [...]

How to Study Japanese Over the Summer

Friday, June 20, 2008

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Well, it’s that time of year, isn’t it? Some of you are getting out of school for summer break and some of you haven’t had to go to school for decades. Some of you took Japanese classes at school, and some of you are self-taught. Either way, summer makes it really easy not to continue [...]

Godzilla Desktops for Your Computer

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

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Ack, it’s been a while since last post. I’m working on a really good article (I think), but in the meantime, I thought I’d show you a sample of something you might see in our “free store,” which will come out along side our “normal store” hopefully in the next couple of weeks. We’ll see [...]