NEWSWORTHY
New Japan residence status planned for foreign blue-collar workers
The Justice Ministry has announced the gist of draft revisions to laws including the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act to create two new types of visa.
Halloween in Japan: Make up, dress up — and hook up?
Halloween has become one of the coolest days on the calendar, and it's less about sweets for kids than it is an occasion for grown-ups to deck themselves out in costumes for all-night reveling.
Non-Japanese YouTubers tackle the art of vlogging in the vernacular
Meet the foreign creators using the local language to build a Japanese fan base.
Counting the ways to talk about numbers in Japanese
From 'ban' and 'go' to 'kazu' and 'su,' there are a variety of ways to refer to numbers in Japanese depending on the situation.
Know your 'wake de wa nai' from your 'wake ni wa ikanai' in Japanese
Introducing two expressions that use わけ — わけではない and わけにはいかない.
Murakami says writing is what he can do for disaster victims
Haruki Murakami says that writing good stories is the best he can do for victims of terrorist attacks and natural disasters.
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.
Impress with your powers of prediction in Japanese by using 'yappari'
Introducing the adverb やはり and its casual spoken version, やっぱり, which is frequently used in Japanese conversation.
Amid the excitement of Naomi Osaka winning at the U.S. Open, some in Japan are wondering whether she will continue to compete for their country at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
Know your spicy from your sweet in Japanese with 'karai' and 'amai'
Introducing the meanings and uses of 辛(から)い (spicy) and 甘(あま)い (sweet), two adjectives that relate to taste.
How to sum up Japan's summer of disaster in Japanese?
The summer of 2018 was one for the books — busting meteorological records, wreaking havoc and devastating entire regions along the coast of western Japan.
Fish in a phone box: Artist sues shopping district over plagiarism
A contemporary artist has filed a lawsuit against a shopping district in Nara Prefecture, claiming a telephone box teeming with goldfish resembles one of his works.
