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May 06, 2024
 

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Peter Backhaus
For Peter Backhaus's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:
Japan Times
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Aug 13, 2018
Japanese surnames: Among the usual suspects, you're bound to find some curveballs
How many Japanese surnames are there anyway? It's a tricky question, because the total depends on how you decide to count them.
Japan Times
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Jul 23, 2018
Wherever you go in Japanese, you'll always find your 'tokoro'
The word 'tokoro' can be used to pin down a place in space, time or in a more abstract sense.
Japan Times
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Jun 4, 2018
To be 'iru' or 'aru'? That is the question
To be or not to be? What Hamlet did not know (and likely didn't care about too much at the time) is that Japanese ways of 'being' make a categorical difference between animate and inanimate objects.
Japan Times
LIFE / Language
May 7, 2018
In Japanese, many 'ands' make hard work
There's a lot to consider when making connections in Japanese.
Japan Times
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Apr 9, 2018
Musical vocab in Japanese can be a maddeningly multilingual minefield
A basic grounding in German, English, Italian and Heian Period poetry could be useful for those interested in reading and talking about the mechanics of music in Japan.
LIFE
Apr 9, 2018
Musical vocab in Japanese can be a maddeningly multilingual minefield
A basic grounding in German, English, Italian and Heian Period poetry could be useful for those interested in reading and talking about the mechanics of music in Japan.
Japan Times
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Mar 19, 2018
In written Japanese, it's punctuation, but not as we know it
Needless to say, Japanese has its own set of punctuation marks, and a number of special rules regarding their usage.
Japan Times
LIFE / Language
Feb 19, 2018
Reading the Roman alphabet in Japanese isn't as easy as ABC
It was a long journey from the cobbled streets of ancient Rome to the windy coasts of Japan, but when they finally arrived, they were here to stay: the 26 letters of the Latin alphabet. Better known here as ローマ字 (rōmaji, Roman letters), or just アルファベット (arufabetto, the alphabet), these so-called 横文字 (yokomoji, "horizontal letters") are now an indispensable part of Japan and its language.
Japan Times
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Jan 8, 2018
Put your money where your mouth is
The Japanese money vocabulary is quite expansive, amazingly complex and certainly deserving of closer inspection.
Japan Times
LIFE / Language
Dec 11, 2017
The Japanese fondness for conditionals
Japanese seems to have developed a very special fondness for conditional constructions.
Japan Times
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Nov 6, 2017
The can'ts and don'ts of Japanese society are writ large on its signage
Any relaxing walk through an urban Japanese setting will reveal that warnings and prohibitions are a common feature of the landscape.
Japan Times
LIFE / Language
Oct 2, 2017
In some Japanese sentences, it's all relative
An example of relative clauses: 'The article that I'm about to read doesn't look very interesting.'
Japan Times
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Aug 28, 2017
Nani-tte nan-nano? Knowing what's what in Japanese
The kanji u4f55 has two slightly different readings, and these seem to make it mean substantially different things.
Japan Times
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Jul 10, 2017
In Japan everything counts in its own way
When emails first hit Japan in the mid-1990s, these were counted in u901a (tsu016b), the common classifier for letters. However ...
Japan Times
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
May 29, 2017
Things you need to know about 'mono'
The Japanese word for 'thing' has some quite surprising qualities.
Japan Times
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
May 1, 2017
Pessimists' grammar: No way around 'no'
Words can be like people. Some will always look on the bright side, while others take a more pessimistic view of things.
Japan Times
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Mar 27, 2017
It's not 'broken' but 'being fixed': semantic games in Japanese when stuff fails
The Japanese language offers a number of words and expressions that help convey bad news in a less painful way.
Japan Times
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Feb 27, 2017
Folding and unfolding Japan's ubiquitous 'tatami words'
Japanese has this amazingly amazing capacity to form words through the simple process of repetition, or what linguists call reduplication.
Japan Times
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Jan 16, 2017
Shiritori: a simple game that's great for practicing your Japanese vocab
It's a game that can be played anytime, anywhere. All you need is two players, some rudimentary kana knowledge — and a lot of words.
Japan Times
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Oct 31, 2016
Why you won't learn natural Japanese from dubbed foreign TV
It seems that in Japanese dubbing there is always something found rather than lost in translation — something that wasn't in the English original and is not part of regular Japanese either.
Japan says Biden's description of nation as xenophobic is 'unfortunate'
The National Diet building in Tokyo
G7 eyes plan on U.S.-led $50 billion aid package for Ukraine
A local resident visits the Lychakiv cemetery in Lviv, Ukraine, on Thursday. The U.S. is in talks with close partners to lead a group of allies that would give as much as $50 billion in aid to Ukraine.
Japan drops to 70th in press freedom rankings
A businessman reads a newspaper outside a train station in Tokyo.
Japan’s record-low children population weighs on growth
The number of children 14 years old or younger fell for the 43rd straight year to around 14.01 million as of April 1.
Biden calls ally Japan ‘xenophobic’ along with rivals China and Russia
U.S. President Joe Biden speaks in Syracuse, New York, on April 25.
'Monster' Inoue ready to tear down Luis Nery in title defense at Tokyo Dome
Naoya Inoue (left) and Luis Nery following a pre-fight news conference in Yokohama on Saturday, two days ahead of their super bantamweight title fight.
Debate on constitutional revision at a standstill despite Kishida's pledges
With less than two months left before the conclusion of the current session of parliament, any possibility that Prime Minister Fumio Kishida can deliver constitutional reform before the end of his term as Liberal Democratic Party president in late September, as he has promised, appears remote.
Sapporo court ruling on Ainu fishing rights presents tough questions
A traditional Ainu preserved food called <i>satchep</i> (dried fish) being made at the government-run National Ainu Museum and Park, nicknamed Upopoy, in the town of Shiraoi, Hokkaido, on Dec. 25. The Sapporo District Court ruled last month that the Raporo Ainu Nation's rights as an Indigenous people did not extend to having an inherent right to fish for commercial reasons.
With eye on China, defense chiefs agree to bolster interoperability
From left: U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, Australian defense chief Richard Marles, Japanese Defense Minister Minoru Kihara and Philippine Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro hold a joint news conference in Honolulu on Thursday.
Yellow sand allergy: A health issue made worse by climate change
A screenshot of the Meteorological Agency's satellite image of clouds and yellow sand (in pink) on Sunday.

Podcast

From easily navigable train stations to the helpfulness of its municipal staff, Tokyo has earned high praise for its commitment to accessibility for disabled travelers.
[Rebroadcast] Japan is doing better on accessibility than you may think

Longform

Rows of irises resemble a rice field at the Peter Walker-designed Toyota Municipal Museum of Art.
The 'outsiders' creating some of Japan's greenest spaces
By Stephen Mansfield

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