Tofugu.com – Wonky Japanese Language and Culture

Over at TextFugu (Tofugu’s Online Japanese Textbook), I get to make all kinds of worksheets, cheatsheets, etc., that go along with the Japanese lessons, some of which might be useful to you. I figure hiragana and katakana charts are the kinds of things people go out and search for on the interwebs when they aren’t distracted by LOLcats. Read more…

My boss is heading to Japan for a few days next week (lucky!), so I’m helping him with some really last minute language study before he heads out. The goal isn’t to teach him any grammar, vocabulary, or anything like that, the goal is to make sure he’s able to get by as simply as possible. That’s why I made him a one-page cheatsheet, and then sharing it with all of you. Read more…

Why, it was just yesterday that I teamed up with Koichi to kick some Katakana butt on edufire. A rather special class, it was – none of your usual vocabulary fluff. We’re talking real, useful katakana and it’s guaranteed to knock the Christmas socks off any native Japanese speaker when they hear you, or Tofugu isn’t a wonky bean-curd fishman! So, let’s get stuck right in to this 2-part blog post – Gakuranman x Tofugu – Fluency through Katakana Special!

I went for a vintage look with the slides – what do you reckon? Is the ‘Fugu a classic fish yet or still wet around the gills? Read more…

Japanese particles can be fun, if by fun you mean eye gouges and hair pulls. I haven’t come across too many people that enjoy Japanese particles. Tolerate? Sure, there are a few, but most people aren’t fans, and most teachers don’t make things too easy. Yesterday I taught a couple of courses on Japanese particles over at eduFire, and did everything I could to make particles easy and understandable. I figure if someone like me, who lacks a technical understanding of all grammar (in English, especially), can understand particles, then so should everyone else. I made things easy, cut out the fat, and simplified everything as much as possible, and I think for the most part it worked for people! Read more…

Learning to speak Japanese doesn’t get any easier. Right when you think honorifics make sense (which will never happen), you suddenly realize you’re not speaking like your own gender, which is usually a big surprise because nobody tells you about this for a really long time. So here I am, telling you that you need to think about your gender when you are speaking Japanese. It’s really not that tough at all, and yet, since 90% of Japanese teachers in America are women, 90% of students end up learning women’s Japanese. By clicking through you’ll be able to see a video, some of the history behind this, and a chart that plainly lays out women’s/men’s language for you. Here’s to making things easy (clink!). Read more…

When learning Japanese, you can get by for a few years without worrying about transitive and intransitive verbs. As things start making sense, though, you’ll begin noticing that there are verbs that sound and look similar, but have very slightly meanings. Some common ones are:

1. 始める vs 始まる (to begin vs. began)
2. 起こす vs 起きる (wake up someone vs. wake up on your own)
3. 入れる vs 入る (to insert vs. to enter)

Transitive Verbs: These verbs are descriptions of actions that are being done by yourself. For example, “I opened the door” would be transitive, whereas “the door opened” would be intransitive. These are actions in which Read more…