Ace Japanese

The Te Form or that て thing you keep seeing everywhere

Ace Japanese May 5, 2022 May 5, 2022Blog, grammar

The te form is one of those topics that so many Japanese learners never get past. It involves some funky table, or a song, and it can’t really be translated into English. It ends up being the graveyard for many a Japanese learner.

To spoil the ending, I never really learnt the te form through any of the techniques that were presented to me through my various Japanese classes and living in Japan.

I was also not making the te form correctly even after passing JLPT 三級, (was it 三級? It was way back in 2003 so I can’t remember anymore, but I don’t think I went for 四級) which flawed as the test may be, certainly attempts to test whether you understand the te form.

I distinctly remember getting corrected on a te form (embarrassingly I still didn’t know the difference between している and しっている) in 2008 or 2009, a full five(!) years after my ten months in Japan and after graduating with 90% in my high school Japanese program.

Just so you know, the mistake I made was I was trying to write that I loved someone「愛している」but ended up typing「愛しっている」, which is nonsensical but I guess means ‘I know love!’. Not quite the same. But I do remember thinking, ‘why do I still not understand this basic thing?’.

At least I didn’t leave it up as a status on a messenger program for weeks until someone pointed it out to me (I did do that, probably it was up for months).

The te form is a topic I do spend a bit of time with a lot of my students on, and I’m yet to really find a good way of teaching it.

Even when I think I’ve condensed it down so that it is not some massive topic, I can ask a student a few weeks later to make some te forms and they can’t do it, or I see them misusing it in some written work.

One of my attempts at explaining the te form.

Also, I’m a Japanese teacher so you can contact me for lessons via the information at the bottom of this post.

So what should be done about this? Well, the te form is definitely a memorization exercise. There is really no way around it. If you’re not willing to learn at least 13 separate words, as in my video above, I think you’re going to have a very hard time getting your head around the topic (let alone the rest of Japanese).

And the 13 words is just covering the verbs, and then only the positives, so you’re not even done with it at that point.

So for example, the above picture is one that I mocked up recently to help my students, and it basically contains every te form you’ll need to know: the all-important verbs, and then also nouns, adjectives and all negatives.

So how can you use this to learn? You’ll need to write out all the words in the first column: たべる・はなす・かく and so on. Then, leave it for a day or two, and then try and write the te forms next to each. Check against the table, or better yet have someone check it for you.

You’ll also want to find a Japanese language partner, and have a go at practicing these. This is vital, as the addition of a っ or other vowel changes can be hard to hear as a JSL speaker, but a Japanese person (or someone like me) can point out that you’re pronouncing them wrong.

If you found this lesson useful, I’d really appreciate a donation. It goes directly into supporting this website and me to produce more content that will help you improve your Japanese.

If you’d like to have personalised Japanese lessons, be they 1-on-1 or group lessons, contact me today via the website’s contact form. You can checkout my youtube channel for examples of what lessons will look like, and I have a professional home studio setup with microphone, lighting and software so that I can display anything on screen including articles, videos and much more.

The Ubiquity of Subtitles in Japan (AND THAT’S A GOOD THING)

Ace Japanese April 27, 2022 April 27, 2022Blog

If you’ve ever watched Japanese TV, you might be surprised at the amount of subtitles that you get on almost any show.

The subtitles are not limited to the traditional closed caption subtitles for the hard of hearing, but are put on the show itself by the production team.

There are several reasons for this which are interesting to go through, so let’s get into it.

Generational Reasons

Comedy in Japan has a long tradition, but the entry onto the scene of comedians from the Kansai region brought up a few problems. The dialect of the area, 関西弁（かんさいべん）, is frankly quite hard to understand if you’re not used to it.

The majority of media, especially when this change started to happen, was always in 標準語（ひょうじゅんご）which is the Tokyo dialect or standard Japanese.

This lead to conflicts in households, as people not used to the fast-paced Kansai dialect missed many jokes and references, used to complain that they didn’t understand the TV anymore that their kids wanted to watch, leading to lots of repetition of jokes.

The use of subtitles started to get used in particular with one of the most famous comedy groups, Downtown, and has since exploded in popularity to be on almost every TV show.

**絶対に笑ってはいけないホテルマン24時間 – The two founding members of Downtown seen here on the left and centre.**

Kanji is Hard

Another big reason why subtitles are so common, is that it’s a great opportunity for repeated Kanji exposure.

How should you learn Kanji? By watching my videos of course!

If you’re constantly seeing subtitles while at the same time hearing people speak how they’re pronounced, this allows you to subconsciously study Kanji, get practice with Kanji you don’t see so much, and also have difficult sciencey words written down for your viewing pleasure.

This is important for the native speakers as well!

Some kanji can be ridiculously complex, so having large font kanji helps you to see exactly how the Kanji is written.

Helps with Understanding

Of course, one of the big reasons why subtitles are great is that for those who are hard of hearing, its a great way to understand what is going on without having to rely on closed captions.

Another issue with Japanese is that there are many homophones or words that sound the same but have a different meaning. Obviously context means you can work out which one is being used, but it doesn’t hurt to clear up confusion every now and then. This can be particularly a problem in more formal settings, like the news broadcast, which has a much higher percentage of these types of words.

There is also a tendency to use lots of puns in Japanese comedy, and so subtitles can help make this clearer.

Societal Reasons

While perhaps not the most common reason, given the population density and societal norms, it is good to have subtitles in certain situations.

Someone stuck this on the door opposite mine in the apartment complex I lived in: “Every night until late you’re so noisy! Once it gets past 10 or 11 at night be quiet! Noisy! People surrounding you have to wake up at 6 to go to work, so be quiet!”

For example, many houses in Japan are very close together and with paper-thin walls, so blaring the TV at night is probably not the best move. Also can be good if you’re on the train or bus.

Other Random Reasons

A bit of ‘research’ on this topic gave some other reasons, for example that having lots of flashing words in colours can help draw attention or a way to do emphasis. You’ll also see a very manga-heavy style usage of emoji and other symbols to denote sadness, anger etc.

Another reason is that some TV shows started using them and rated well, so everyone just copied them.

If you found this lesson useful, I’d really appreciate a donation. It goes directly into supporting this website and me to produce more content that will help you improve your Japanese.

Counting with like, numbers

Ace Japanese April 19, 2022 April 19, 2022Beginners, Blog

Counting and its various topics is generally going to be one of those areas that you’ll probably never get truly comfortable with in a second language.

That doesn’t mean you should give up on the topic, but it does allow you to put into perspective what is achievable, and more importantly what is not.

You will be able to find many people who are near-native in a second language, but will still do the most basic calculations using their native language. There’s a lot of rote memorisation and other techniques that make this the case, and no one wants to unlearn all these (or relearn their equivalents in another language).

There’s even some research that points to how certain languages are not very ‘transparent’ when it comes to the name for a number versus it’s value on the number line. For example, out of the languages I have spent a few minutes looking at, French stuck out as having one of the worst number systems ever. But then again their bread is delicious so the French aren’t all bad.

This article looks at several continental languages and particularly focuses on Dutch, pointing out that young children who count in Dutch don’t seem to do as well versus their counterparts in the UK on certain number problems, and their hypothesis is that the structure of the language or numbering system puts an extra mental strain on these children.

Also mentioned are Chinese, Japanese and Korean, which are praised for their more methodical counting system. I guess at some level I agree with them, but not everything is as straightforward on the surface.

So let’s look at a random article that contains a fair few numbers to see how Japanese will deal with having to present some data:

「クソ野郎」と言われる人々に共通する性格特性はあるのか？

In the third paragraph, the opener goes like this, 集められた約400人の被験者に質問をぶつけたところ

Here we have one of the classic number issues in Japanese for both natives and JSL’ers alike: counters. I’ve done an AMAZING video on counters that you can watch below to get a good introduction to the topic here:

I’ve also done other videos that you can find earlier in my Youtube career but they’re not my best work

From about 3 minutes of the above video, I talk about the counter 人, so we can know that 400人 is read as よんひゃくにん and means 400 people. These 400 people were surveyed to understand what the definition of ‘asshole’ is.

In my opinion this word is totally overused, especially by Americans. As an Australian, we have an issue as our accent means we pronounce ‘ass’ more like an upper-class Brit, so you’ll find many Australians switch to the American nasally pronunciation of this word to give it a bit more oomph.

The next number that pops up in the article is from this snippet: 約3分の1(35.26％)を占め. First, we have this useful counting word of 約（やく）which means approximately, and then the next part is read as さんぶんのいち.

Now this is definitely something you have to get used to in Japanese, in that they structure fractions the opposite way that us English speakers are used to. 3分の1 is actually one third, so the denominator is said first, then joined to the numerator with の.

To spell out 35.26％ would be さんじゅうごてんにじゅうろくパーセント, notice the use of 点（てん）to denote the decimal point. Japanese people often shorten % to パ.

Similarly, we then have 約半数(50.13％)を占め, with this word 半数（はんすう） meaning half the number.

Next we have 男性が約8割(79.35％), which introduces the concept of 割（わり）, which stands for 10 percent, thus ８割 meaning 80 percent.

*20 percent off from the stickered price*

Finally, one of the last examples of a number format is another counter, with 14カテゴリ rearing its head in the 2nd last paragraph. カテゴリ stands for category, so there are 14 categories.

If you found this lesson useful, I’d really appreciate a donation. It goes directly into supporting this website and me to produce more content that will help you improve your Japanese.

If you’d like to have personalised Japanese lessons, be they 1-on-1 or group lessons, contact me today via the website’s contact form or acejapanese@protonmail.com. You can checkout my youtube channel for examples of what lessons will look like, and I have a professional home studio setup with microphone, lighting and software so that I can display anything on screen including articles, videos and much more.

Spoken Vs Written Japanese: Worked Examples

Ace Japanese April 11, 2022 April 11, 2022Blog

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 getting a single tweet from someone semi-famous (or better) and building a story around it, browsing through news aggregators can be a way to find the more interesting posts, as well as get a learned opinion about it (that last part was sarcastic).

So today let’s look at a common cat activity: being a butthead.

First, the usual ちがう, now while this word technically means ‘different’, it’s a fantastic word to learn if you want to sound like a Japanese person. This word is used a lot, and really means ‘no’, as in, ‘no, you’re wrong’.

Then there is the それは, referring to the dog bed (yes that’s right, it’s a DOG bed), followed by the phrase 犬に買った, which is more advanced usage of the に particle but shows that the dog bed was bought for the dog.

Finally, the addition of んだ adds emphasis, here emphasising that the bed was bought for the DOG, and not for the cat. So get off it cat. Funnily enough, there was another interesting phrase in here to describe the cat: 我が物顔 (わがものがお).

If you found this lesson useful, I’d really appreciate a donation. It goes directly into supporting this website and me to produce more content that will help you improve your Japanese.

クラブ活動

Ace Japanese February 11, 2022 February 11, 2022Blog, Japanese culture

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 interesting choices like 剣道部「けんどうぶ」and 柔道部「じゅうどうぶ」. If I had my time over, I think I would probably choose Judo.

While referred to as 部活 or クラブ活動, the word ‘club’ was often thrown around, especially when fellow students saw me hanging around school after it was over, because my presence meant I must be in one of the clubs. I was asked a few times 何部？on my way to practice.

Almost the entirety of the school’s grounds are used for 部活. Obviously, there are no more classes going on so the classrooms are free to be used, and some clubs will just put mats down to do martial arts, the soccer field and baseball field is occupied by their respective clubs, and we also had a pool and a gym that held volleyball and basketball practice. There were other clubs like photography and likely a whole other range of activities that took place inside the school that I didn’t see. But it wouldn’t be a stretch to think that a few hundred students would stay back everyday to do the club activities.
The setup at my school was 2 hours or so structured technique practice, cardio work, and scratch matches at the end, spanning Monday to Friday. Each club has a 先生 in charge, and the table tennis club was fortunate enough to have 古井先生「ふるいせんせい」, a marathon-running, downhill-skiing, heavily-tanned, table tennis MASTER. He was very kind to me and always made sure I was looked after, although his actual role at the school was a 体育教師, I definitely saw him in the classroom in a suit and tie teaching other subjects. He was great fun, although 体育教師 have a reputation in Japan for being the enforcers and disciplinarians in school life. This meant he was very outgoing, and when he found out I didn’t know my 担任の先生’s name 「たんにんのせんせい」, he would then always ask me my teacher’s names to test if I had gone and found out.

He would often join around 5 or 6pm, near the end of practice, and proceed to whip a few of the senior players in a few games, laughing and mocking them while doing so. In his absence, the 先輩 is in charge. Being a high school student, this will be the 三年生, however a few months into the school year will see them drop out of 部活 because they want to focus on their studies. That means the 先輩 is the 二年生, of which there were two in the club, myself being one of them. School finished at 3:45, and 部活 started at 4. It was a short walk to the 武道場「ぶどうじょう」, which officially was the practice room for the 剣道部, but we shared half of it with them. Being the 先輩, I was expected to get there first and open it up, requiring a 失礼します～ and knock followed by acknowledgement to get the key from the teacher’s room.

There was a quick meeting at the beginning and end of each practice, called by the 先輩 yelling out 集合～ and everyone gathering around. After being dismissed by either 先輩 or in some cases 古井先生, it was time to ride home and get some dinner.

We attended local table tennis tournaments that were held in stadiums or convention centres with hundreds of attendees. I got caught out for the first tournament because I didn’t wake up early enough and also didn’t realise that I needed to wear my school uniform. It was a Saturday after all. One of my fellow club members came to my house on his bike so that we could both ride to the train station, and stood in the doorway in disbelief at me in a t-shirt, having just been woken up by my host mother. After arriving at the tournament, I was presented with a uniform that was about 2 sizes too small, and consisted of a very revealing tight shirt and short shorts. I guess I should also mention it was bright purple. I may have one my first round match but then lost the second, and lost my first round in doubles. From memory only one other member of our team won their first round so I was pretty happy with that.

If you found this lesson useful, I’d really appreciate a donation. It goes directly into supporting this website and me to produce more content that will help you improve your Japanese.

The Baader-Meinhof phenomenon and why you see Japanese everywhere suddenly

Ace Japanese October 12, 2021 October 12, 2021Blog

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 fancy name is Baader-Meinhof phenomenon. This is apparently another one of those cognitive biases that, in my opinion, has its roots in the human mind’s inability to deal with abstract concepts particularly surrounding numbers.

I’m almost certain I’ve read something about that numbers thing but can’t find out what it’s referred to as.

It reminds me of something like the cognitive dissonance experienced when reasoning from certain anthropocentric opinions. I’m not formally trained in any of this, however, I’m not convinced that the experts are much better either (particularly in psychology or psychiatry).

Baader-Meinhof phenomenon

This is that weird feeling of noticing things. The problem comes about because before you knew what something was, or had a name for it, or every put even a modicum of thought into it, that there wasn’t a solid memory of it for your brain to compare to when you see it again.

As something becomes more recognisable, you remember it specifically, which then creates a sort of positive feedback loop and you feel like you’re suddenly seeing the thing everywhere.

This can have some very unfortunate side effects. As the above linked Heathline article points out, if a doctor spends all their time poring over medical journals to learn about new techniques or diseases, the doctor will be more likely to misdiagnose patients with those new conditions as they are fresh in the mind.

The name of the phenomenon actually refers to a terrorist group active in the 1970s. This is because someone noticed a mention of the group somewhere, then suddenly starts seeing references all over to the terrorist group. Part of this is is likely ascribed to just how bad we are at recalling details:

What does the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon have to do with Japanese?

If I’ve done a halfway good job of describing the BMP, then hopefully you realise that this happens all the time with Japanese, especially if you’ve spent time in Japan.

Once you spend some time learning about a kanji, or a grammar point, then you go and have a conversation with someone and that exact thing comes up. Now, if you didn’t know the word, it would just be an almost meaningless sound in a conversation, on top of how many meaningless sounds that you’ve already sat through in trying to learn the language.

So why pay any attention to it? The point is you don’t (or maybe more accurately, can’t). However, once you’ve learnt that word, now it will pop out at you, and you’ll perhaps even have the feeling of deja vu wash over you, making it even more memorable.

This is the way you reinforce things. Reading 1000 words a day and trying to learn is unlikely to work that well. Will you recall any of them even 10 minutes later? That’s why I like to spend time looking over past lists than trying new ones. A word that I want to learn and saved in a list and get tested on is going to stick in my mind much better.

If you found this lesson useful, I’d really appreciate a donation. It goes directly into supporting this website and me to produce more content that will help you improve your Japanese.

Buddhism, Japan, and getting better at Japanese

Ace Japanese September 21, 2021 September 21, 2021Blog

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 Buddhist icons, leaders, concepts and many other facets of Buddhism.

When trying to learn about the 御前座布団・おまえざぶとん, a type of cushion used specifically for Buddhist ceremonies, I came across the following article, let’s have a look at it in more detail.

First, we’ve got a lot of tricky vocabulary, here are some of the few from the beginning:

敷物　しきもの any type of cushion or mat
仏壇　ぶつだん Buddhist altar, traditionally in the house
お参り　おまいり Visit to a religious site like temple, grave etc
中綿　なかわた padding

Some snippets

私たち日本人にとって、とても身近な敷物と言えば座布団です。

This pattern of X にとって、Yと言えば is a good way to introduce something like, “If you consider X, then the Y is”.

A few lines later, the phrase:

使い分けていらっしゃる方も多い

comes up, this is an example of polite Japanese by substituting いる for いらっしゃる。

Next we have the phrase 置いてある, which you can learn about in my video:

If you found this lesson useful, I’d really appreciate a donation. It goes directly into supporting this website and me to produce more content that will help you improve your Japanese.

Linkages and Similarities

Ace Japanese September 13, 2021 September 13, 2021Blog

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 a common grammar point and you just were blind to it?

It’s easy to think that you are the problem, that you just don’t pick up these things, or that you’ll never be any good because you can’t remember things as well as you think others do. But it’s also important to realise that many parts of Japanese have links to another if you look hard enough.

One area of this where I notice it all the time is verbs.

Shifting meanings, shifting readings

I was looking up the word 脅かす・おどかす recently. This is not the most common word, and I’m more familiar with 脅す・おどす. When looking up the word in the Japanese dictionary (always try using a Japanese dictionary than an English one), it pointed out that there are two usages of the word:

While the word means to intimidate, it can also mean to surprise someone. That is clear enough from the number 2 definition via びっくりさせる. But then notice that the second word is 驚かす・おどろかす. I know this word from 驚く・おどろく which means to surprise someone.

So hopefully you can see how close these words are, and how in both instances か is used to show it is acting more as an intransitive verb.

On top of that, it made me realise that there is a difference between おどろかす versus おどかす. Because you can be surprised pleasantly such as if you got a free cake, or because you walked into what you thought was an empty room only to notice someone sitting in the corner, startling you.

Remember words not rules, or how to stop translating in your head

Ace Japanese August 11, 2021 August 11, 2021Blog

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 actual conversation.

I’ll show you some examples of words to use to better understand verbs, nouns and adjectives.

Plain Form Verbs to ます Form

Remembering how to change the plain or dictionary verb form into the masu form is tricky. The rule requires about a paragraph of explanation.

But if you remember 4 words, this will enable you to remember how the rule works.

The four words are

たべる　↔　たべます
いく　↔　いきます

It is also important to remember that the first word pair is our RU verb example, and the second word pair is the U verb example. See here if you don’t understand what RU U verbs are, it’s my playlist on YouTube explaining these concepts.

So how do you use these words to help you?

If you remember that a RU verb like たべる goes to たべます, it’s natural to drop the る and add ます.

However if you think of いく and いきます, you will see that after removing the ます, all you’re left with is いく and いき, and that should prompt you to remember that you jump across the hiragana row from the U sound to the I sound.

So for example, just say you have a verb that you want to put into the ます form but you have it in the plain form. Let’s take よむ as an example.

First you consider whether it is a RU verb or U verb. よむ is clearly an U verb. If you can’t make this determination quickly, you need to practice the concepts I talk about in the video above.

So because よむ is an U Verb, we remember our U verb pairs, いく　いきます. We need to think of going from the U sound to the I sound. く　き as applied to our word,　む　み.

We then have よみ. Then, add ます to get よみます, which is our answer.

Adjectives and Nouns into the negative

With adjectives it is again another 2 pairs of words. This is because nouns follow the same rules as なadjectives.

If you don’t know about the two types of adjectives in Japanese, watch these two videos from my beginner playlist:

さむい　↔　さむくない
だいじょうぶ　↔　だいじょうぶじゃない

So how do you use these words to help you?

If you remember that the い is dropped from いadjectives and replaced with くない, you’ve remembered the rule for every single いadjective. Likewise if you remember that you put じゃない on for なadjectives, and by extension, nouns.

So for example, just say you have a word which you suspect is an adjective that you want to put into the negative form but you have it in the present tense. Let’s take たのしい as an example.

First determine if it is a an いadjective, なadjective or noun. It ends in an い so best candidate is likely いadjective.

Remember that さむい　さむくない means たのしい　たのしくない.

f you found this lesson useful, I’d really appreciate a donation. It goes directly into supporting this website and me to produce more content that will help you improve your Japanese.

Footage of the Japanese mind thinking about KANJI

Ace Japanese August 2, 2021 October 12, 2022Blog

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 to the 立合い. 東大 is an abbreviation for 東京大学, the other similar one being 京大 for 京都大学.

The video they did on kanji is a great insight into how the Japanese look to recognise kanji and use clues to work out what a kanji is. The feats performed in this video are impressive even by native speaker standards, with specific reference being made that 山本さん has 漢検準一級, meaning he has effective command of over 3000 kanji.

The video we’re reviewing involves kanji that are rotated in a kaleidoscope fashion. The video title contains 万華鏡, ばんげきょう (notice the sneaky げ) to reference this.

Practice – “bits are poking out”

The first is 白 rotated 90 degrees. During the discussion, the controversy of ‘font choice’ is going to be brought up and complained about through the rest of the video.

Certain fonts have what are referred to as 高床式　たかゆかしき. This is originally in reference to granaries and buildings built on stilts. 山本さん points out this are particularly noticeable at the bottom, referring to them as a 出っ張り　でっぱり. What this means is, that you’re likely dealing with a kanji that is actually normally square on the bottom but in this stilt font style, meaning the two similar notches on top are just from the flipped version.

Thus the two notches on top can be ignored, leaving the single notch in the middle. A square kanji with a single notch on top and single line in the middle is 白.

Now this shows an incredible ability to rotate 3D shapes in the mind. Most of these participants are not only good at kanji but also at mathematics. These two factors are not a coincidence for these graduates of the top Japanese universities.

Question 1 – “that deppari looks like child!”

Another reliance on deppari, but a different type of it. Deppari just means bits sticking out, and the top part of 子 appears in several kanji but is fairly recognisable. 鶴崎さん points out that this deppari just looks like 子 to him.

Question 2 – “I’m too dependent on font”

須貝さん has a great bit of insight to realise that with this style of font, square shapes are going to have a bit of overlap because of the difference of height on the bottom stroke.

山本さん blames the font and gets called out by 須貝さん.

Question 3 – “That bit that is thrusting out”

Next up is a similar kind of clue to the でっぱり, but is referred to as a 飛び出し　とびだし. You see this word on signs in neighbourhoods to warn drivers that kids may run out from behind alleys or corners.

“Take care and watch for kids that may run onto the road”

須貝さん refers to it as a ‘characteristic bit that is thrusting out’ and 山本さん worked out it was 品.

He makes the remark that once you have worked out how many times its been rotated, you know the orientation you should be looking at it in. This is also the answer for question 4. There is no logic given for the choice of question 5 either.

Question 6 – “Now there’s no stilts!”

This question and question 5 are why I like this channel so much. The producer is really good at coming up with difficult variations on the same problem so while the contestants think they’ve found a trick, it won’t work for everything.

This time the character of 昼 was used but the starting position was that it was upside down, then rotated twice, 130 degrees each time. This means you no longer have the 高床式 stilts on the bottom.

山本さん points out that because he couldn’t see them on the bottom, he figured that it must instead be the top part upside down. He then uses his hands to draw a rectangle and line and run through his memory to consider all kanji which have these radicals.

“with a rectangle on top and a line on the bottom, must be 昼!”

Final Question – “what’s with that perfectly drawn hexagon in the middle?!?”

須貝さん complains about the centre of this last one, looking like a perfect hexagon.

鶴崎さん points out that the two distinctive legs likely means that he can get the correct orientation of the character that at least one example is written that is not flipped (ie it is how it would normally appear).

But then we have an issue that there could be a vertical stick going through, that can be seen amongst all the other lines, but this is an issue as we have an opening in the centre.

“the line’s not piercing all the way through!”

He then does some air drawing of kanji that have a line on top or on bottom, and then the legs. The kanji that pops into his head is 光.

I was able to watch this video and understand the points in detail and all those explanations you read above are my thoughts based on the video.

I can teach you to understand kanji to this degree as well, it’s not impossible!

If you’d like to have personalised Japanese lessons, be they 1-on-1 or group lessons, contact me today via the website’s contact form or book a lesson via Cafetalk below.

You can checkout my youtube channel for examples of what lessons will look like, and I have a professional home studio setup with microphone, lighting and software so that I can display anything on screen including articles, videos and much more.

If you find this blog post useful, I’d appreciate a donation as a means of thanks!