Please read my introduction to Kobun article before reading this one. Brave Kobun pupils! I’m going to take you further into the woods of Classical Japanese with verbs. Remember, Kobun is very different from Modern … [Read more...]
If you were to ask people to describe "Japan" or "the Japanese" in one word, there’s a pretty good chance that you’d hear one word over and over again: “homogeneous.” The Japanese have long prided themselves on the … [Read more...]
Imagine yourself on the city streets of Japan. Here, let me paint a picture for you. Image by Stéfan Le Dû A crisp autumn morning, salarymen heading toward their places of work pace past you; a group of school … [Read more...]
Want to read part 1 of this series? Read it here - Japanese, The Borrower Language part 1: Where the Japanese Language Came From. The phenomenon of language borrowing is in no way unique, but it seems to stand out more … [Read more...]
English loanwords in Japanese are often a source of amusement for native speakers of English learning Japanese as a second language. There’s so many of them, it seems like if you don’t know a word in Japanese, you can just … [Read more...]
“Takai desu ne.” This is one of the first sentences I ever learned from my adventures with “Mary-san” via the Japanese textbook Genki. If any of you have used that textbook, you’ll know the story of my good old pals … [Read more...]