Japanese Proverbs: December 2009
I’m surprised I was able to pull myself away from FFXIII long enough to do my monthly proverb post, yay me!
As usual, I originally tweeted these proverbs throughout December–one per day (except Christmas eve)–and now I’m bringing them all together in a blog post. Enjoy! And please follow me if you like these and want to keep up with the new ones…
Star Wars quotes… in Japanese!
So you want to know how to quote Star Wars in Japanese, do you?
I won’t pretend that I can come up with a useful or sane reason for such an endeavor, but follow me, 若きジェダィ (young Jedi), and I shall show you the ways of the フォース.
Japanese Proverbs: November 2009
This is a collection of Japanese proverbs that I tweeted throughout November 2009. I missed a couple days when I was out with a hangover (sorry, I’ll be more responsible next time), that’s why there’s only 27.
The many ways to say “I”
One of the many unique and intriguing features of Japanese is the vast selection of words you have available to choose from when you want to say “I.”Each of these words has a different connotation reflecting the speaker’s view of his/herself and relationship to the listener.
For this article, I’m introduce to you my personal collection of “I” words that I’ve encountered here in Japan (even if I’ve only seen them once or twice in obscure contexts). Hopefully, this list will help to prepare you for your own Japanese adventures.
How I studied kanji
Kanji is the most common stumbling block for Japanese learners. It’s easy to see why: there are 1,945 Joyo kanji, hundreds more non-Joyo kanji that are still very commonly used, and yet hundreds more kanji that are used in people’s names. And each of these intricate little characters has a specific order in which the strokes must be written, probably has multiple readings, might have multiple meanings, and can be mixed and matched with many other kanji to create compound words (熟語 : jukugo).
Basically, there is a reason that Japanese students are still studying kanji even in high school, and that reason is that kanji are as difficult as they are many.
Vocab power: stop saying “totemo”
Totemo means “very” in Japanese, also sometimes pronounced とっても/tottemo with a kicked “t” for added emphasis. Because it is so easy to pronounce, so broad in meaning and so simple in grammar, it is one of the most useful words in the Japanese language. “Power-words” like totemo great for speed-learning, and non-Japanese pick up on these words with unparalleled ease… However, all too often those learners end up clinging to these words to a far greater degree than they should and for a much longer time than they should…
Japanese Proverbs: October 2009
Another month, another round of proverbs. For those of you who are following me on twitter you already know the drill: every day I select a new Japanese proverb to tweet for everyone’s learning pleasure. So if you like these, please be sure to follow me.
Starting this month I’ll be including the romaji readings for the proverbs alongside the katakana…
Katakana Mysteries: 7 lucky loan words
In the first chapter of Katakana mysteries, I covered a few words whose Japanese meaning has by one path or another become quite different from their English ancestors. This time, I’ve rounded up 7 more words/phrases that are interesting for the opposite reason: their accuracy. You probably wouldn’t have expected these underdogs of English to even become loanwords at all, much less to have survived the Japanese translation gauntlet intact…
Crazy kanji: what’s the highest stroke count?
Sooner or later every Japanese learner asks the question, which kanji has the highest stroke count?
Well, today I’m going to hopefully answer that question for everyone once and for all…
Japanese Proverbs: September 2009
Every day I tweet a new Japanese proverb with it’s reading, translation, and definition explained. Here is a roundup of all 29 proverbs that I posted in September 2009 (the first full month that I’ve been doing this…). If I had done one every day there would have been 30 but it looks like I forgot one on the 30th…
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