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Is My Past Life Japanese?

I feel like I should post something – it’s not a pressure, really, but just a kind of nudge. But I don’t know what. So I’m just going to write a stream of consciousness post tonight and see what comes out of it. Maybe it’ll even be good. I am… not sure what I believe on many different topics. I am a Christian in the sense that I believe Jesus died and rose from the dead and is now King – I’ve seen too much firsthand evidence to doubt that.… Read More »Is My Past Life Japanese?

Writing Japanese names in English

So for those of you who don’t know, Japanese family names come first. In English, Takahashi Minami, for example, would be “Minami Takahashi”. This, frankly, causes no end of confusion, because it’s really difficult to decide when to use the English word order. One could easily say “never”, but to be honest, that doesn’t sit well with me. Japanese and English are two different languages, and it’s by no means disrespectful to use English word order when writing something in English. It’s, in my opinion, not unlike translating from Japanese.… Read More »Writing Japanese names in English

Tips and Tricks for Japanese Learners

Over the past ouple of years, I’ve learned a few things about Japanese that are not obvious to people just starting out in Japanese. Let me try to summarize them here. Maybe I’ve said some of these before, but I’ll just repeat here if so, I guess it bears repeating. Okurigana Okurigana are those hiragana characters on the end of Japanese words. Here’s the tip: An English speaker is going to be tempted to look at a kanji and think that it is a word. In many cases, it is… Read More »Tips and Tricks for Japanese Learners

What Japanese has taught me about English

I’d say this is a pretty good topic to talk about, right? There are many things about Japanese that are very different from English. Some are just what they are – they’re different, but there’s no real useful insight to be gained about my own language. The fact that Japanese is postpositional, for example. It’s different, but neither system is better than the other. It’s just how things are. But there are other things that are useful, and at least one thing that I intend on taking from Japanese and… Read More »What Japanese has taught me about English

Japanese is not English

Shocker, right? I think Japanese students have some stages that they go through when learning Japanese, especially from a language such as English, and especially if it’s their first second language. The first stage is a kind of one-to-one correspondence between concepts. “How do you say ‘is’ in Japanese?” The answer, of course, is desu. Until it isn’t. Then you get into conjugated verb endings, etc., and you enter the second stage when you realize that there really isn’t a one to one correspondence between words. But for a while,… Read More »Japanese is not English

The most difficult things about Japanese

I’ve been studying Japanese (to varying degrees of success) for close to three years now (I think).  It’s most certainly been a while.  Over this time I’ve grown to understand where Japanese is simple and straightforward – and where it’s not.  Here are what, in my opinion, are the most difficult things about Japanese. Understanding Spoken Japanese It is very difficult for me to understand spoken Japanese.  It may be because there are many different dialects than Tokyo standard that are just different enough to throw me for a loop. … Read More »The most difficult things about Japanese

My Favorite Japanese Words

And now for something completely different: A post about Japanese! I love the way some Japanese words sound. I will confess something: The long “I” sound is one of my favorite sounds. I’m not sure why – perhaps it’s because the abbreviation for the word “Interstate” in the US is a long I, and when I was a child, any long trip we took would always be along an interstate. I-75, I-70, I-80, I-90.. For this reason, I also like city names like “Rock Island”, “Moline”, or “Salina”. Japanese doesn’t… Read More »My Favorite Japanese Words

Systems vs. Goals: Why I am Failing at Learning Japanese

A couple of years ago, I was watching a Morning Musume video and saw lots of strange characters flashing along the screen, along with a bunch of gibberish.  And then I thought to myself, “I would like to learn Japanese”.  And thus, a goal was set. Two years later, I am wholly unsatisfied with my progress towards this goal, and I’m not going to lie, I’ve been seriously thinking about quitting.  It’s still something I want to do so the odds are that I won’t, but it is currently a… Read More »Systems vs. Goals: Why I am Failing at Learning Japanese

Hidden Japanese #2

This one rather amuses me, though it’s a little on the adult side. So Americans, when they are getting intimate, use the word “come”.  I’ll be circumspect and not come right out and say the context, but those of you that know what I’m talking about, know what I’m talking bout, and those who don’t, well, look it up at your peril. Japanese say　行く, or essentially, “I’m going!”. I know they like to do things backwards from English, like putting the verbs at the end, but that’s kinda taking it… Read More »Hidden Japanese #2

Hidden Japanese #1

We are mostly all familiar with the typical numbers in Japanese: 一ニ三四五六七八九十 But did you know that these are not the only Japanese numbers?  I’m not talking about ひとつ , etc., I’m talking about an entirely different set of kanji for the on’yomi readings. These kanji exist because in the ancient Chinese culture, long before their language was exported and integrated into Japanese, the Chinese had a problem.  It was really easy to just add strokes to 1, 2, 3, and 10, to make it into another kanji.  So 100… Read More »Hidden Japanese #1