Tag: gaijin

Leave it to Japan to turn something as simple as "yes" and "no" into something more complex than it needs ...

While the Japan Language Proficiency Test is the most recognized test of Japanese, and likely the best for anyone studying ...

First of all, the J-List and JBOX.com websites were down for a portion of Saturday due to a site issue ...

One of my Twitter followers asked me a question the other day. "What items do you take back to Japan ...

Although rice is the famous staple food of Japan, eaten with almost every meal, the Japanese are no slouches when ...

One interesting aspect of learning Japanese is tackling the complex world of yomoji jukugo, a class of four-character compound words ...

For some reason, gaijin always seem to remember the first words of Japanese we learn. In my case it was ...

Hello again from J-List. This time, I've made the hop from Japan to San Diego and am enjoying the beautiful ...

You've been in Japan too long if you "teach" someone your phone number. In Japanese, you'd usually use the phrase ...

Over the years, I've made various observations about the care and feeding of Japanese females based on my own personal ...

I write a lot about how Japanese names work, since they're quite different from names in Western languages. Japanese people ...

One of the joys of being a long-term gaijin in Japan is eventually building a house here. Houses in Japan ...

Anyone who's worked in Japan probably knows the frustration of making a heartfelt suggestion to one's employer, only to have ...

The Japanese government will soon be making good on its promise of distributing money to families with children, giving approximately ...

I've got an American friend who once asked me an odd question. "I forget, do Americans stand in a line, ...

The other day Yasu, the J-List employee who keeps our site stocked with awesome anime artbooks, Japanese study supplies and ...

Japanese marrying partners from other countries is called kokusai kekkon, and it's viewed by many here as an alternative choice ...

When I arrived in Japan, one of the concepts I had to get used to was joshiki (pronounced joe-sh'ki), a ...

Alcohol has historically played an important social role in Japan, and it's interesting to examine some of the customs that ...

When I arrived in Japan, I had to get used to many new things, like being the only gaijin at ...

I recently came across a blog post by an American who'd lived in Japan for several years, but who'd suddenly ...

J-List loves to find products from Japan that surprise and delight our customers. One of the most popular products we've ...

When a member of one language group learns to speak another language, the laws of phonetics decree that he or ...

There are several methods of learning a foreign language, including Grammar-Translation (learning grammar and example sentences), Total Physical Response ("Simon ...