Although social media is mostly a waste of time, from a language learning point of view, it’s a great way to get involved in conversations with natives and see the back and forth that can result. Seeing as most journalist’s attempt at research and investigation or original story writing involves…
School sports in Japan is an interesting setup, and I was fortunate enough to go to two different schools during my 10 month exchange in Japan, and of course even between schools in Japan there are large differences. I joined the table tennis club, 卓球部「たっきゅうぶ」, although there were many other…
I’m a reader. I like to read about technology, finance, politics, or anything that is well-written. One of the benefits to reading is you come across some fancy name for something that you figured already had a fancy name but you just didn’t know how to look it up. That…
One thing I’ve noticed as I’ve been studying Japanese, is that the influence of Buddhism in Japanese culture is massive. Of course, this filters down to the language as well, and any attempt at reading about Japanese history is going to throw you into a world of complex kanji and…
Sometimes you may find yourself learning a new word or grammar point, and then see it nonstop for the next week. No matter what your read, or what Japanese you listen to, you just keep seeing that same point. How is it you never noticed it before? Was this such…
If you want to improve the speed of a second language, you need to stop translating in your head. Sure, you can watch a TV show in Japanese and then pause it every few seconds to take in what people say, but you’re going to be pretty useless in an…
A great channel to test your Japanese skills on is QuizKnock. Their YouTube description is the following: 東大クイズ王・伊沢拓司を中心としたメンバーが、ガチンコクイズや盛り上がるゲーム、激ムズ入試問題など様々な無理難題に対し、頭脳と根性で挑戦していくチャンネルです。勉強動画もあるよ！ ガチンコ means to do something seriously. It comes from Sumo, originally being ガチン which is the onomatopoeia for the sound of two wrestlers slamming together when they go from the 蹲踞 crouch…
You want to get as much input as possible when learning a language. One video that really opened my eyes to how important input is to language learning was this great channel What I’ve Learned: If you don’t spend a lot of time hearing what ACTUAL Japanese sounds like, no…
Te forms are super important in Japanese and I’ve done several videos and blog posts on them. At least a basic understanding of the te form is needed to get any meaningful progress in understanding let alone speaking Japanese well. However much of the focus always seems to be on…
The JLPT is opening up for registrations soon for the December 2021 sitting. You can read about what the JLPT is on their website. The reason I’m talking about it is because it’s a great opportunity to test your Japanese level. Now, the JLPT is not a perfect test. Indeed,…