Tag: Japanese language

Today is a very special day, one I've been waiting for for a long time: Pocky Day, 2011. The Japanese ...

I've written before about how anime is a very stylized world, where characters can have impossibly large and expressive eyes ...

Although all languages share the basic building blogs of grammar, with nouns, verbs, and adjectives, passive and active voice and ...

Every once in a while I encounter a Japanese person who, for whatever reason, can't accept the fact that I ...

Learning a new language means getting used to new linguistic concepts, and there are constructs in Japanese that are very ...

Japanese names are generally written in kanji, and just as there are alternative ways to spell Western names (though I ...

A language is a living expression of the thoughts and minds of the people speaking it, and as such, each ...

Body language is a big part of communication, and one aspect of interacting with the Japanese is picking up on ...

While the average Japanese person on the street may think there are "a lot" of foreigners in Japan, in reality ...

The other day I was riding my bicycle past a steakhouse, and I noticed a sign that promised "Steak & ...

Japan is a subtle place, where people often substitute vague, indirect language when discussing things they don't want to talk ...

October is an auspicious month here at J-List. It's our birthday, and a special one this year since it's our ...

Although Japanese has a reputation for being the "hardest" language to learn -- St. Francis Xavier famously said it was ...

For students of foreign languages, whether Japanese working hard to learn English or us gaijin studying Japanese, success often comes ...

Talking with people from other cultures often requires a "sense" for words that's quite unrelated to actual skill with a ...

All in all, "here are your gums" is not something you'd expect to hear outside a discussion of orthodontics, but ...

In addition to our popular Facebook page and the Tumblr I launched a few months ago, I have a fairly ...

A couple of posts ago I mentioned a funny scene in the Nichijou anime in which Yuko and Mio try ...

September means the start of university, and I've got quite a few readers in my Twitter feed who have just ...

One thing everyone knows about the Japanese people is that they use chopsticks to eat with. Yes, except for certain ...

It's common for words to pass from one language to another, with meanings that get updated or redefined to fit ...

No matter how many years I spend in Japan, every new day brings with it the potential for new linguistic ...

One theme I write a lot about is how there's exactly one "correct" way to do things in Japan -- ...

It's often said the Japanese are the most polite people on Earth, and this is generally a Good Thing. When ...