I recently picked up a copy of Japanese Demystified from my local library. I had been holding off from ordering the book because the cover looked like it was going to be dummy’s guide to the Japanese language.
I couldn’t have been more wrong.
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No one likes to say goodbye, but did you know there are different ways to say goodbye in Japanese depending on when you’re planning on seeing a person again and who the person is?
Here are a few proper ways to say farewell in Japanese without sounding like a newbie or needlessly offending anyone.
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Now I am not by any means an expert on learning languages, nor in learning Japanese in particular. But I have tried to learn some languages and am currently trying to learn Japanese so what the heck, here’s my opinion =)
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Have you ever wanted to see all the 1,945 recommended kanji for reading Japanese? Well…now you can in just over 10 minutes.
Thanks to Kiraianet for the link. Also check out Japan Today for news on what 196 new kanji were added to the jouyou kanji list bringing the total up to 2,136 official kanji characters.
I wrote previously about my concerns with the Heisig method of learning Kanji. In particular the reasons for learning so difficult and obscure kanji.
It been a few months since we started Remembering the Kanji and happy to say that I’m convinced in the method now more than ever.
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When we decided to visit Japan for the first time, it was going to be the first country we had ever traveled to where we didn’t know more than two words of the language.
For that reason, I hit the books hard and attempted to do a three month crash course on the learning the language. It was during this time that I often suffered from what my wife termed as – my Japanese depression.
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I just came across an interesting post over at Tofugu on how to use Evernote to study Japanese.
Evernote is a free web service and software application that allows users to collect notes and information and share it across multiple platforms. I guess it’s kind of like a big yellow post-it note for information gathering.
Evernote is a tool that helps you capture and remember everything. Because it syncs with your phone, computer, and so on, no matter how or where you gather the information, it will appear on all of your devices.
Recently I started using Anki to make up some Japanese phrase cards to periodically review. Since it uses a system of systematic reviews, I believe it’s a step up from using just Evernote. But Evernote should be an interesting tool to add to your Japanese learning methods.
The Japan Foundation, a government-affiliated body set up to promote cultural exchange, has recently opened an English-language website that helps users better understand Japanese expressions used in manga and anime.
I didn’t realize how many different expressions were used depending on if the speaker is a boy or girl, old or young, or even if they are from Osaka or Tokyo. No wonder your head spins when trying to translate anime.
Recently, the I Heart Japan staff has started its long journey towards learning to read Japanese. We’ve already pretty much mastered the hiragana and katakana of Japanese writing, but we’ve been holding back starting on the dreaded kanji.
Kanji is the Chinese character written form of Japanese and it is said to contain over 100,000 characters. Sounds like an easy task, eh?
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Japan can be a big and confusing place, with street signs covered in strange writing and massive amounts of humanity going every which way, it’s not hard to find yourself lost from time to time.
So how do you get yourself out of a bind and find your bearings again? Today we will teach you a simple phrase for asking directions in Japanese.
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