The English language and the Japanese language have very strong differences that can seem off-putting to a native speaker of either language to attempt to learn the other. When focussing …
Japanese Particles: an Introduction
Japanese is a language that is not dependent upon sentence structure so much as it is dependent upon particles (in Japanese, joshi, 助詞). Particles are characters that relate a …
4 Min read
How Hard is it to Learn Japanese?
Learning a new language is no easy feat, especially Japanese. It can take years to even half-decently learn a language. That’s why the question, “how hard is it to learn …
4 Min read
Happy New Year in Japanese (and Other Greetings)
New Year’s Day marks the end of weeks of winter celebration. There was Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa and then New Year’s Eve right at the December’s end. Students wrapped up their …
Is Your Stomach Standing? 8 Common Japanese Idioms
Japanese is a language with a rich reservoir of idioms. There are lists and dictionaries of Japanese idioms out there, which are worth looking at as a reference or just …
Japanese Sentence Structure Explained
In English, there is a concrete grammatical structure. In a simple sentence, you have the subject, the verb, and the predicate. Of course, this changes as we get into more …
Meccha Uzai! 10 Japanese Slang Words You Should Know
From the outside, Japanese may seem like one of the most polite languages out there. Because of all the bowing, calm gestures, and Japanese honorifics, you may be shocked to …
4 Min read
Japanese 101: Hiragana vs Katakana
To the untrained eye, the Japanese language can look quite puzzling, like a quilt made of different textures. The characters don’t all look alike or even similar. The reason for …
3 Min read
Thank You in Japanese (and Other Useful Phrases)
If you’re about to start a Japanese language learning journey, you’re in for a treat! It’s a rich and expressive language. There are quite a few words in Japanese that don’t even …