Japanese learning blog
Practical guides on speaking, grammar, pronunciation, listening, and study planning, written for learners who want to use Japanese in real life.
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How to Say Understood in Japanese Without Offending Your Boss
Japanese has at least four common ways to say understood, and they are not interchangeable. Picking the wrong one will not stop the work, but it quietly tells your listener how you see the distance between you.
13 min readTotemo, Sugoku, Kanari: How to Say Very in Japanese
Every learner arrives with totemo and uses it for everything from mildly pleasant to genuinely overwhelming. Japanese has a whole ladder of degree words, and the rung you pick tells the listener how strongly you feel and how formal you are being.
15 min readJapanese Sizes, Weights, and Temperatures You Have to Handle
Living in Japan means giving your height in centimetres, your shoe size in centimetres, your room size in tatami mats and your fever in degrees Celsius. This guide gives you the words and the questions, and tells you where to check rather than guess.
16 min readMaji, Gachi, and Mecha: Japanese Intensity Slang
These are the words young Japanese speakers reach for when normal adverbs are not strong enough. They are easy to pick up from a drama and easy to say in the wrong room.
13 min readZenzen and Betsu ni: Two Words That Sound Colder Than You Mean
Both of these words are easy to learn and easy to misfire with. Used flat, they can make a friendly learner sound bored or annoyed to a Japanese listener.
14 min readShikata ga Nai: Saying It Cannot Be Helped in Japanese
Shikata ga nai is one of the first long phrases learners pick up, and one of the easiest to misplace. This guide shows where it lands well, where it lands badly, and what to say instead.
12 min readOmou or Kangaeru: Two Ways to Think in Japanese
Both omou and kangaeru translate as think, but they do different jobs. One states what you feel about something; the other describes the work of reasoning it out.
13 min readKanji Homophones and How to Tell Them Apart
Japanese packs a very large vocabulary into a small set of syllables, so identical-sounding words are everywhere. Writing, pitch and context each solve part of the problem, and speakers have ready-made phrases for the rest.
14 min readMottainai: The Word Behind Japan's Attitude to Waste
Mottainai is the word a Japanese speaker reaches for when something good is about to be thrown away or left unused. It carries a small pang of regret that the English word waste does not.
13 min readNatsukashii: The Nostalgia Word English Cannot Translate
Natsukashii is one of the first words learners recognise and one of the last they use correctly. The problem is not the meaning; it is where the word points.
11 min readUsing a Japanese Coin Laundry: Every Button Explained
A coin laundry is one of the few places in Japan where nobody is there to help you and every instruction is in kanji. Learn about thirty words and the room stops being a guessing game.
13 min readVending Machines and Self-Checkout: Reading the Screens
Japan asks you to talk to machines more than to people, and the machines are all in Japanese. Learn the thirty or so words that appear on their screens and buttons and most of the daily friction disappears.
17 min readPractical guides
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