Japanese learning blog
Practical guides on speaking, grammar, pronunciation, listening, and study planning, written for learners who want to use Japanese in real life.
All articles · Page 145
Japanese for Call Centre and Phone Support Work
A call centre is the hardest listening environment in Japanese and the most completely scripted job, which is a strange and useful combination.
6 min readJapanese for Sales and Business Development
The hardest part of selling in Japanese is not the pitch; it is recognising that you have already been turned down.
7 min readJapanese for Driving a Taxi in Japan
A taxi shift is a hundred short conversations, and almost all of the difficulty is in the address.
6 min readJapanese for Food Processing and Factory Kitchens
In a food plant the Japanese that matters most is the vocabulary of hygiene, because that is the part with rules rather than preferences.
6 min readJapanese for Accounting and Finance Roles
Accounting Japanese is unusually written, which suits a learner, right up to the month-end meeting where it suddenly is not.
6 min readJapanese for Working in Real Estate in Japan
Property work in Japan is mostly explaining costs that surprise people, and doing it in a register that has to be exact.
6 min readLearning Japanese as a Swedish Speaker
Swedish uses both vowel length and pitch to distinguish words, which is a rarer preparation for Japanese than it sounds.
6 min readJapanese Kana That Look Almost Identical
Four katakana account for most of the confusion in the whole script, and they differ by the direction of two short strokes.
6 min readDakuten and Handakuten: The Marks That Change Kana
Two tiny marks in the corner of a kana are doing the same job that a whole separate letter does in most alphabets.
6 min readSmall Kana: How Ya, Yu and Yo Combine
A small ya, yu or yo does not add a beat; it changes the one before it, and that distinction decides whether a word is recognisable.
5 min readThe Katakana Long Vowel Mark and How to Read It
The dash in a katakana word is not punctuation and not a hyphen; it is a beat, and dropping it shortens the word.
5 min readJapanese Kana Spelling Rules That Trip Learners
Three of the most common words in Japanese are written with one kana and pronounced as a different one, and nobody warns you.
6 min readPractical guides
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