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…
Japanese cheat sheet (old)
Alright, I so started this blog about a month ago. Posts are starting to build up and I’m starting to feel at home here lately. I decided it was time to start dishing out some real content, otherwise I’m just another ranting Japanophile. So for the last week or so I’ve been hard at work on a top secret project, and now it’s done!
I present to the world the Nihonshock Japanese cheat sheet!
Katakana Mysteries: 6 loan words Japan got wrong
Two minutes with a fashion magazine or computer manual is all you need to understand that loan words are all the rage in Japan. At book stores, you can find katakana dictionaries for every need, from technically oriented things automotive engineering or graphic design, to more simple katakana dictionaries for old grandmothers and grandfathers who simply want to…
20 Similar-Looking Kanji
For this post I’ve collected 10 pairs of kanji that to untrained eyes might look almost or exactly the same. My intent is not to discourage learners by highlighting the difficult points of kanji (though there are certainly difficulties…), but rather to spark an interest in kanji…
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