Table of Contents

What are tengu? You may have heard of them as "forest goblins", perhaps "mountain demons", or maybe even "birdmen". Regardless of how you try to interpret the…

These days, there are a lot of foreign expats who are making inroads into Japanese society. This is a list of who I consider to be the top ten successful expat…

Translation may be impossible, but this does not make it the less necessary. - Goethe Some people argue that nothing is untranslatable. I find that stance to …

今晩は。気づいたことです。 山梨県には富士山があるが、富士山という山には梨が一つもなし！富士山に登った時、…

I know there're a lot of people out there who are against putting your name into kanji. It's cheesy, fake, embarrassing and what have you. To tell you the t…

When you study a foreign language like Japanese or Korean, you begin to understand that there are a lot of terms that we can't express in English because the wo…

As a foreigner in Japan who currently teaches English, it's impossible to avoid having an opinion on a policy of mandatory second-language education. Deas from…

Learning Japanese in a classroom setting, you probably won't be getting into too many heated arguments, unless your class resembles Yankumi's 3D. If you stick …

I have another "What the textbooks don't teach" post coming up soon, but today I'd just like to share some more fun Japanese mnemonics. 傷がずきずき疼…

I always make a point of telling my undergrad students that the difficulty of learning a language is relative. I give them an example, typically using kanjigo …

Almost exactly a year ago I touched a little bit upon what the textbooks don't teach you, with examples like 中途半端 (ちゅうとはんぱ, half-assed) an…

I'm interested in this idea of a natural link in the human brain between abstract properties of shape and sound. Originally put forth by Wolfgang Kohler in t…

明けましておめでとうございます。 皆さん、今年も頑張りましょう。 私は今年、日本語も韓国語も、そして韓国�…

"Japanese has no grammatical gender, number, or articles." - Wikipedia "Japanese doesn't use any equivalent of a, an, or the. In translating from English to Ja…

Sir Richard Francis Burton was a lot of things. He was an explorer, writer, soldier, orientalist, ethnologist, poet, hypnotist, fencer and diplomat. Most impo…

I've stumbled across a word that I can't find in Japanese! Gleek (as in the saliva that squirts from under your tongue if you yawn or eat something sour) …

Some of you out there are looking for a good way to study Korean. (And by "good way" I mean "free way") You might have tried Smart.fm only to find out that,…

I'm a geek. So be it. I like the status. I enjoy fantasy novels. I used to play online RPG games (and I still would if it was at all possible, which it isn'…

There have been recent developments in my life which are taking me back home to San Diego in March or April 2010, which gives me just a couple months more than …

I had fun writing up the first "What the Textbooks Don't Teach" post and so, for now, I'd like to continue the series. The word I'm going to talk about today…

I'm thinking about making this a new series of posts I'll get to every once in a while here - Talking about Japanese language that you don't really come across …

For anyone interested in the history and background of Japanese manga, here are a few books that are highly recommended: It's pretty hard to deny that …

Day one of my Japanese study binge

My goal to study Japanese during every free moment for a week straight before my winter vacation

Yet another story of how kanji saved my life...would have sounded a lot more dramatic and probably would have been a more interesting read. But, seriously - Ka…

Sesquipedalian is far from being a common vocabulary term. The same holds true of its Japanese equivalent, "多音節". In fact, I showed the word "多音節"…

Get it while it's hot: There's a seller on Amazon.com who's selling the Complete Gokusen DVD set (all 3 seasons) for just $27.75. Gokusen is one o…

You probably already know about MySoju.com. But did you know about bada.us? You can find full episodes of some non-drama Korean programs like 미녀들의 수…

Recommended manga for learning Japanese, and how to choose a manga series for yourself.

I haven't really thoroughly explained my own study process, but, to put it simply, I collect sentences that highlight content that I want to internalize. (I go…

A good dictionary is one of the first tools that a language learner should pick up, and exploiting it for all it's worth is one of the first skills that a langu…

Mnemonics for learning a second language are a little different than what you might remember doing in elementary school as you tried to cram for your next spell…

I have achieved vocabulary success! This might work for you, too. Speeeeeeeed Reader! I was always jealous of speed readers who could get through at least a …

I got an email from reader Joshua who has stumbled upon a bit of a hurdle in his Japanese studies, and I thought maybe you might be facing the same thing, so I'…

If you can understand these basic characteristics of memory then you're already on your way to better information retention! I've introduced a couple ideas t…

Clear out of your mind everything you thought you knew about language learning and let me build you a new picture from the ground up. The most important task…

You don't need to consciously calculate the trajectory and velocity of a ball in order to catch it. You just catch it, and your wonderful brain takes care of a…

I wrote before about how I came to appreciate the Heisig method when applied to learning standard Mandarin, but I didn't go into any detail about the cognitive …

Long-time readers of this site will probably know that I am a Heisig skeptic. Scratch that - Was a Heisig skeptic: I've been partially converted to the Heisig…

I don't consider myself to be particularly different than other serious language learners, so I assume that the rest of you out there experience the same proble…

Japanese slang is important to learn, but learn to speak Japanese in a social context.

Mark C. Baker's The Atoms of Language starts out with an interesting story of how the Navajo language aided the U.S. Marine Corps in WWII against the Japanese. …

The success rate of Japanese learners Most Westerners, in fact the vast majority, who study Japanese will ultimately fail. I only have a general idea based on…

I hate to be the one to tell you this, but you're wrong. You make mistakes. But hey, that's actually good to hear, right? Because now you know you have thing…

Just like alpha males and females enjoy a higher position in the social stratum, you will enjoy a higher position in the language stratum when you become an Alp…

Japanese is easy, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. There is no language in the world that you can't learn. The only real problem is getting a Wester…

You pick a language and decide to become its master, what do you do next? Perhaps you're thinking you should enroll in a course. We need teachers, right? W…

I highly recommend visiting Japan if you're looking for a jump start on your motivation to learn the language.

Kodansha's Effective Japanese Usage Dictionary truly lives up to its title, and I really recommend it to pre-intermediate through pre-advanced level learner…

There are a handful of online dictionaries out there to help Japanese learners along in their studies. That may not sound like a lot (the idiomatic phrase is "…

In this look back at Smart.fm, I'll cover the following topics: A review of the system How to attack it The system as a personal review tool The…

Rikaichan is an amazingly efficient tool for looking up Japanese words simply by placing the mouse over them on any given website in Firefox. (Or Rikaikun for …

There is no definitive "correct" way to study language, but some language learners prefer more structure than others. Here's one progression of materials (both…

ReadTheKanji.com has been around for quite a while in a beta form, but with (fairly) recent announcements on the site going subscriptions-based I thought it…

NihongoUp has been around for nearly 9 months now, so I felt it was time to give it a review. When the program was first announced on JapanSoc.com, I had thi…

A friend got me thinking about bilingual puns recently, and I've come to recognize them as a good mnemonic device. In Japanese, these jokes are called 親父…

By now you should be completely abandoning the idea of actual notecards for the superiority of the SRS system in your studies. Not only does it manage your stu…

Over the past month or so I've had the chance to make a comparison of Anki and Mnemosyne SRS (Spaced Repetition Software) systems, and the results are out: Ank…

Usually I like to talk about things I recommend for studying. Here I'll talk about things you shouldn't touch with a 3-meter-pole. If you're serious about l…

I present five, amazing, free Japanese study resources that you can take advantage of right here on this very internet.