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 169
Learning Japanese with Dyslexia: Routes That Work
Japanese is not one skill but several, and they can be learned in an order that suits you. If reading is the hard part, speaking does not have to wait behind it.
14 min readJapanese Sign Language and Learning Japanese as a Deaf Learner
Japanese Sign Language is a full language in its own right, and written Japanese is a separate skill from it. This guide separates the two clearly and gives a Deaf or hard-of-hearing learner a realistic route into reading and writing Japanese.
16 min readHeritage Japanese Speakers: Closing the Literacy Gap
If you grew up hearing Japanese at home, you already own the part most learners spend years chasing. What you are missing is kanji, register and range, and those three gaps have a much shorter route than a beginner course suggests.
17 min readJapanese Condolences and Funeral Etiquette
When someone dies, Japanese gives you a small set of quiet, fixed sentences to say instead of improvised sympathy. Learning them means you can speak kindly at a moment when the wrong long sentence would be worse than a short one.
15 min readJapanese Wedding Phrases and Giving a Short Speech
Being asked to say a few words at a Japanese wedding is an honour and a small panic. The speech has a fixed shape, and once you know the five parts and their opening and closing lines, only one section is actually yours to write.
14 min readReiwa, Heisei, Showa: Reading Japanese Era Dates
Somewhere in your first month in Japan a clerk will hand you a form with a birth-date field and no Western year in sight. Once you can convert an era year in your head, that form takes ten seconds instead of ten minutes.
13 min readJapanese for Driving and Getting a Licence
Driving in Japan is mostly straightforward until someone speaks to you: a clerk at the licence centre, an attendant at the pump, an officer at the window. This is the language for those moments, plus the words painted on the signs themselves.
15 min readJapanese Language Tests Beyond the JLPT
The JLPT is the best known Japanese exam, but it is not the only one, and for some goals it is not the right one. This guide maps the main alternatives and shows which reader each suits.
14 min readHow to Read Japanese Handwriting
You learned the printed shapes, then someone handed you a note and none of it looked familiar. Handwritten Japanese follows its own logic, and once you know what a moving hand does to a stroke, most of it becomes readable again.
15 min readWhat Yoroshiku Onegaishimasu Actually Means
Yoroshiku onegaishimasu is the phrase learners hear on day one and still cannot translate on day five hundred. This guide explains the job it performs so you can place it correctly instead of guessing.
12 min readOtsukaresama Desu: Japan's Most-Used Work Phrase
Otsukaresama desu is the phrase you will hear more than any other in a Japanese office, and it is not really thanks, not really hello, and not quite well done. This guide shows what it actually does and when to say it.
11 min readDaijoubu: The Word That Means Yes, No, and Maybe
Daijōbu is the single most useful word in everyday Japanese and the one most likely to make you say the opposite of what you meant. The meaning lives in the situation, not in the word.
13 min readPractical guides
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