Language | WELL SAID Jun 10, 2019
Finding amazing ways to use the word 'sugoi'
by Akemi Tanahashi and Hitomi Tashiro
If you’re in Japan, then you’ve probably heard the term すごい, or it’s adverbial form すごく, more times than you can count.
Language | NEWS IN NIHONGO Jun 10, 2019
Teenage pitcher Carter Stewart excited to start career in Japan
American pitcher Carter Stewart (19), who decided to join SoftBank's pro baseball team despite being a high draft pick during the U.S. Major League draft last June, attended a press conference in Newport Beach, California, on the 30th.
Language | BILINGUAL Jun 3, 2019
Don't give up yet on giving and getting in Japanese
by Peter Backhaus
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 | WELL SAID Jun 3, 2019
Don't forget to use 'sokonau' to mark your failings in Japanese
by Akemi Tanahashi and Hitomi Tashiro
Ikō to omotte-ita-n-da kedo, misokonatchatta. (I was going to go, but I missed it.) ...
Language | NEWS IN NIHONGO Jun 3, 2019
Governor looks to draw up Mount Fuji railway plan in two years
Yamanashi Prefecture Gov. Kotaro Nagasaki, who was elected for the first time in January, on the 22nd revealed an idea to draw up a plan that includes an outline to work toward connecting the bottom and fifth station on Mount Fuji via a mountain ...
Reference | FYI May 31, 2019
Moves are afoot to push media to switch Japanese name order in English, but will it work?
by Tomohiro Osaki
Some laugh it off as a First World problem. But others say the topic touches upon issues of identity, sovereignty and press freedom. Foreign Minister Taro Kono recently stirred controversy by saying he wants to change the way Japanese names have long been rendered in ...
Language | BILINGUAL May 27, 2019
Speaking up in Japanese for quality time off work
by Kaori Shoji
Decades ago, the mid-1980s to be exact, I complained to my mom that my dad worked too much. Like legions of middle-aged Japanese salarymen, my father was never home before 9 p.m. and spent his weekends on 海外出張 (kaigai shucchō, overseas business trips). He ...
Language | WELL SAID May 27, 2019
Speaking of that, 'sore' and 'kore' can come in very handy
by Akemi Tanahashi and Hitomi Tashiro
Karutago-tte iu resutoran ni itta-n-da kedo, sono mise, sugoku yokatta-n-da. (I went to a restaurant called Carthago and it was really good.) ...
Language | News in Hihongo May 27, 2019
The 2020 Tokyo Organizing Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games announced on the 15th a plan to launch into space model robots from the anime "Mobile Suit Gundam" to broadcast messages of support for the games to Earth.
Language | BILINGUAL May 20, 2019
Matching the ins and outs of two common kanji
by Mark Schreiber
From April 1, the 入国管理局 (nyūkoku kanri-kyoku, Immigration Bureau), which operated under the auspices of the 法務省 (hōmushō, Justice Ministry), was upgraded from a bureau to an agency. Its Japanese name changed to 出入国在留管理庁 (shutsunyūkoku zairyū kanri-chō), which can be interpreted as the agency ...
Language | WELL SAID May 20, 2019
What's that we were talking about? Ah yes, the many uses of 'are'
by Akemi Tanahashi and Hitomi Tashiro
The demonstrative pronouns related to "ano" are for more than just describing what's "over there." For instance, Japanese uses them to convey sentimentality and in monologues.
Language | NEWS IN NIHONGO May 20, 2019
The story of a black samurai known as "Yasuke," who served under warlord Oda Nobunaga in 16th-century Japan, will be made into a film starring African-American actor Chadwick Boseman, it was decided by May 7 [it was officially announced May 7]. The news was ...