Language | BILINGUAL Jul 7, 2020

Playground love: Exploring the green among the gray

Some playgrounds are closed due to the pandemic, but outdoors activity is still what most doctors order.

Language | BILINGUAL Nov 12, 2019

Middle? Inside? Relax, the kanji for naka has this one in the bag

The kanji for "naka" is used in many different ways. A rectagle with a line cutting it in half, the kanji is also one of the easiest to remember.

Books / Reviews | ESSENTIAL READING FOR JAPANOPHILES Sep 21, 2019

'Japanese Linguistics': Insightful description meets valuable instruction

"Japanese Linguistics" is a broad-spectrum primer on Japanese, covering everything from grammar to the social context of the language, for the undergraduate student or avid polyglot alike.

Language | BILINGUAL Jun 3, 2019

Don't give up yet on giving and getting in Japanese

One of the first things taught in anthropology classes is that presents exchanged in a given society hardly ever come for free. When someone gives another person something, that always entails some sort of obligation. Acts of giving and receiving are hence highly sensitive ...

Language | BILINGUAL Apr 1, 2019

Heisei it ain't so! An era of great vocabulary is ending

In the beginning there was the word. More precisely, the prefix. When the Heisei Era officially started, on Jan. 8, 1989, Japan's economy was still merrily bubbling along. That must have been one reason for the popularity of 超 (chō, hyper-). The prefix itself ...

Language | BILINGUAL Feb 4, 2019

Wake up and smell Japan through new vocabulary

The world is full of smells. Good smells and bad smells, pleasant and unpleasant smells, fragrant and pungent smells. Though the nose is not our most reliable advisor in perception — eyesight is far more important, as is well known — smells clearly have ...

Language Dec 3, 2018

A dash of hiragana in the 'foreign' soup

Japanese words you'd think should be written in katakana will sometimes show up in hiragana. There's a cultural reason behind these rare switches.

Language Nov 5, 2018

A hiragana-kanji mix can make reading a lot easier

It's no news that Japanese writing is a complex affair. Apart from the sheer number of characters — 48 each for the hiragana and katakana syllabaries plus an almost open-ended number of kanji — there are also various rules about when to use what.

Language | BILINGUAL Oct 1, 2018

Nothing is left undone with the plethora of negative prefixes in Japanese

Everything in life has a negative side to it. This nasty fact has also left its mark on Japanese, in the form of negative prefixes that will turn just everything into its opposite.

Language | BILINGUAL Sep 3, 2018

Getting to know Japan on a first-name basis

What's in a first name? In Japan, you'll find insights into societal change.