So you’ve passed JLPT 1. You’re a master of Japanese. People point and stare due to your Japanese abilities. You start feeling worthless. There’s an emptiness in your heart. What is there left to do? Is this it? Is this as good as it gets? Hellzno. Enter stage right: Kanji Kentei … the nearly impossible [...]
Ever hear of a hydrozoa? Unless you’re a marine biology major or the Emperor of Japan between the years 1926 and 1989, then you probably haven’t. So what on earth is a hydro-whatsit, and what does it have to do with Japan? Turns out Emperor Hirohito was really into them.
Cat Island Japan. It’s an island covered in hundreds, maybe thousands of cats. People population? Under 100. This island has become a little tourist attraction for people who happen to like cats. You can take pictures of them, pet (some of) them, stay in cat-shaped lodging, and even visit a cat shrine. It’s a little [...]
There hasn’t been a lot of good news coming out of Japan lately (though I’d say a big part of that is news agencies trying to shock audiences as much as possible so they can make more $$$). At this point, sure, the nuclear reactors are kind of a problem (though time will only tell), [...]
If you’ve been living under a rock (or hiding under a table, which would be quite appropriate in this case), an 8.9 9.0 magnitude earthquake hit off the coast of Sendai, Japan, causing massive damage and potentially up to 1,000 casualties or more (at least, that’s what recent reports have been estimating we’ll end up [...]
I read about this strategy on Lifehacker (you can read the whole thing here) about a week ago, and thought it would be particularly useful for kanji (and vocab) learning. Learning a new language isn’t so much about the language itself. It’s more about staying motivated and making progress. Sure, some people can grind through [...]
A lot of folks have been asking about TofuguTV, kindly mentioning that I was planning to put out the first episode in January. Although I have poor sense of time, I realize that it’s at least the beginning of February now, if not 1-35ish days later than that. This is just a “hey, it exists” [...]
