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

How many Japanese surnames are there anyway? It's a tricky question, because the total depends on how you decide to count them.

The word "tokoro" can be used to pin down a place in space, time or in a more abstract sense.

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.

There's a lot to consider when making connections in Japanese.

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.

Needless to say, Japanese has its own set of punctuation marks, and a number of special rules regarding their usage.

Japan's problems with deciding on a standard pronunciation for each letter of the alphabet begin with A (ē or ei) and end with Z (zetto, zii or jii).

The Japanese money vocabulary is quite expansive, amazingly complex and certainly deserving of closer inspection.