Skip to content

bakatsundoku

What Feels Right

There are things in every language that only native people seem to know. In English, the biggest example is the definite vs. indefinite particle. In Japanese, it’s “wa” vs. “ga”. In both cases, there are rules to follow and you can get there with some thought most of the time, but the difference between a native speaker and one who doesn’t have as great a command of the language is that what is right feels right. I could tell you whether “a” or “the” or neither is appropriate simply by whether… Read More »What Feels Right

Ariana Grande’s BBQ Grill has Seven Rings

I’m sure, by now, if you pay attention to anything Japanese or related, you’ve found that a major US pop star with lots of beauty and very little talent has decided to get a tattoo with Japanese kanji. It is supposed to say “seven rings”, which I assume is the title of either a movie or a song she darkened the door of, but instead, apparently, it says “BBQ grill”. Even though Ariana Grande and I have little in common – she’s a beautiful young talentless star, I’m a balding… Read More »Ariana Grande’s BBQ Grill has Seven Rings

There is no such thing as a Japanese cat.

I made a little bed for my cat. It consists of a bamboo basket and one of her favorite blankets. She is currently curled up in it sleeping, and I have no intention or desire to change that fact. But I was looking at her, and I realized an important fact: my cat could never be Japanese. She’s not even American. She’s a cat, and she will always be only a cat. She may understand some English words, and even sometimes choose to listen to them (I can only wish),… Read More »There is no such thing as a Japanese cat.

Find the Good

Today I’m going to write about something that’s on my mind that is not about Japanese at all. I suppose it could be tangentially, but let’s just say it’s not. Like many in my country, I’ve been inundated lately with bad news. I don’t mean bad news in the sense that it’s bad from a qualitative standpoint – some of it’s actually been pretty good. But I mean it’s bad from a quality standpoint – the news is just bad. It’s badly sourced, badly presented, badly received – just everything… Read More »Find the Good

Road of Resistance

I have recently stumbled upon this particular song by Babymetal, which may have become one of my all time favorite songs and/or pieces of all time.  And that’s saying something considering I have a classical background and also rank Rachmaninoff’s piano concerto #3 as one of my favorite pieces of all time.   The Japanese are in a very real way not very innovative.  There is little that has come out of their country or culture that they can truly say originated there.  True, there are a few things, and… Read More »Road of Resistance

Verb endings

One of the things that confused me the most about Japanese when I first started to learn was the difference between “desu” and “masu”. On first teaching a student Japanese, the teachers have to make a tradeoff at the very beginning.  Do they want to teach how the language works?  Or do they want to teach in such a way that the student can use what they know immediately without pissing people off with rookie mistakes in politeness level, etc.?  Most teachers seem to do the latter, but after starting… Read More »Verb endings

Japan’s Checkered Past

Many years ago, I was taking piano lessons as a late teen.  My teacher was an older Filipino woman who was a child (or a teenager, perhaps) during the Japanese occupation of the Phillipines. She hated the Japanese.  Or at least she struggled to not hate the Japanese.  She told me horrible stories, and honestly I couldn’t blame her for how she felt.  Obviously, that was not my experience, but there are many people and countries out there who remember a Japan that was not an exporter of cool media… Read More »Japan’s Checkered Past

Never fast enough…

I continue to have really mixed feelings about my progress in Japanese.  In some ways I know that I am leaps and bounds ahead of where I was before – I can actually have a coherent – but basic – conversation, and I know quite a few more kanji and jyukugo than ever.  And even more, I’m able to start making connections between kanji and words that I couldn’t previously – actually sounding out jyukugo and being right half the time on how to pronounce them. Which is probably already… Read More »Never fast enough…

Visitors

Every now and then I check my site stats to see who’s visiting what and where they come from.  In something that is perhaps not a surprise and is totally expected given the crap quality of what I create here, there are not many visitors, though there seem to be a little more lately.  Perhaps the most highly trafficked page is one where I call out Akimoto Yasushi for being a bit of a…  not so nice person.  Perhaps the second most one is the one where I say why… Read More »Visitors

Gaijin

I don’t have any tattoos.  In fact, I think tattoos are ugly and I would never intentionally get one.  Why one would intentionally blemish their skin like that is beyond me. (and if you disagree, then go ahead, but this is my opinion and I’m sticking to it). I haven’t put a lot of thought into the topic, but lately a particular image has been sticking out at me, about what I would get as a tattoo, if I ever somehow decided to get one. Here it is. 外人 This… Read More »Gaijin