Finally! Someone has come out with a strategy for learning Japanese that is easy, simple, and not all that hard. I don’t know why I didn’t come up with this before…oh wait, I did. Learning Japanese shouldn’t be a complicated thing. People often think that it is, and overcomplicated things for themselves. Granted, learning another [...]
If you take a look at the sunny days, and you happen to be able to read katakana, you’ll notice that they spell out the word エロ (ero), which, if you do read katakana, you’ll know notice means “erotic.” Considering they were showing eight different locations, as well as the weather for each of them [...]
!!! Hey! View the updated version of this post in our guides section: Japanese Gendered Language 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 [...]
I recently had a discussion with my friend Max about the nuances of Japanese pronunciation (maybe not so recently; it was when I was back home in Hawaii). One of the more interesting things we talked about was the fact that, in Japanese, there’s no “f” sound. This is a result of the fact that [...]
The other day I stumbled across of a list of “at the same time” grammar points in one of my Japanese text books. I’m studying for the Japanese Proficiency Test, ikkyu level, so all the Japanese I’m learning now either appears only in writing or is used by pompous bastards (sometimes). Still, I thought I’d [...]
Surprisingly, learning Japanese really is like going up stairs in a wheelchair, possibly sans the ninja. I get so many emails of people asking me why their Japanese isn’t getting any better. Here’s how these emails usually go: Hey Koichi, I’ve been studying Japanese for a few years now. I take classes, I talk with [...]
When you’re not saving the Mushroom Kingdom from blood-thirsty turtles, you can use your uneducational Nintendo DS to study, improve, and practice your Japanese. There are several “games” out there to help you. Of course, there are several electronic dictionaries out there that do similar things, and it seems like everyone has them. I’m here [...]
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: 始める vs 始まる (to begin vs. began) 起こす vs 起きる [...]
In America, we tend to be encouraged to be show our individualist side, take initiative, tell people about our accomplishments, and stick out as much as possible from the rest of society. That’s all fine and dandy, I have nothing against being outgoing/initiative/individualistic. I wish I could be more outgoing, but I was raised to [...]
If you can speak English (fluently), then you have no excuse. You should be able to pronounce everything in Japanese, and pronounce it nearly correctly (with the exception of the ‘R’ sound, but even that isn’t too bad). If you are having trouble with Japanese pronunciation it is either because of poor basics or you [...]
