One of the things I’ve learned about learning a language over the years is that association in memory is a very (very) powerful tool. Memories are almost always learned best when you associate them with another already learned memory. So, if you can attach a new memory to an old one, then the effectiveness of [...]
Most of the world doesn’t speak Japanese. In fact, only 1.8% of the world speaks Japanese, and most of these people live on a series of islands that add up to, approximately, the size of the state of California. If you happen to live outside of this island (statistically, you probably do), then the chances [...]
Japan uses a lot of loan words from different languages, but you probably already knew that. The nice thing about these words is you can usually tell what they mean. For example, セーター (se-ta-) is “Sweater.” They kind of sound similar. Also, アメリカ (amerika) is “America.” I bet you could figure that out if you [...]
In the early 2000s, 4chan became the site of increasingly heated exchanges between those who were anime and manga fans, and those who, er, weren’t. Or perhaps they were just trolls. Well, trolls or not, their slur of choice was “Wapanese” – short for “Wannabe Japanese.” But why am I telling you all this? By [...]
Japan owes a lot to China, there’s no doubt about that. Almost all Japanese kanji were adopted from Chinese characters. Even hiragana and katakana are just random modified bits of Chinese characters. Image sources: 1, 2 Buddhism, although it has begun to diminish somewhat, is still the second most popular religion in Japan, and it [...]
Of course, there are plenty of resource out there to help intermediate and advanced learners of Japanese to practice their reading. They can use any Japanese book, manga, blog, or website and study away to their heart’s content. For beginners, though, finding Japanese things to read that are at or around your level is a [...]
A while back I stumbled across a great website by the name of Tower of Babelfish. Their front page has a bunch of pictures of fugus, so that in itself is enough to make them awesome in my book. Anyway, the guy running the show over there is on an eight year (and counting) journey [...]
