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 Speak Japanese Without Translating in Your Head
Translating before you speak is not a stage to be proud of surviving. It is the specific thing making your Japanese slow, and it can be drilled out with a handful of concrete habits.
13 min readEssential Japanese Travel Phrases for Your First Trip
You do not need conversational Japanese to travel well. You need about forty phrases, said clearly, in the handful of situations where they genuinely come up.
12 min readJapanese for Trains and Stations: Phrases That Work
A Japanese station is easy to use and hard to ask about. These are the lines that get you a ticket, the right platform, and a way out when you board the wrong train.
11 min readJapanese Hotel Phrases: Check-In to Check-Out
Hotel Japanese is unusual: you only need simple polite sentences, but the staff answer in elaborate keigo. This guide gives you both halves of the conversation.
12 min readShopping in Japanese: Phrases for Shops and Konbini
Most shopping Japanese is not speaking. It is recognising a fast, polite question and answering it in one or two words before the queue behind you grows.
12 min readHow to Ask for Directions in Japanese with Confidence
Asking the question is the easy half. This guide gets you through the harder half, which is understanding the answer and checking that you understood it.
12 min readDays, Months, and Dates in Japanese Made Simple
Dates in Japanese look intimidating because a handful of readings refuse to follow the number pattern. Learn which ones are irregular and the rest of the system falls into place in an afternoon.
12 min readHow to Tell the Time in Japanese Without Hesitating
Telling the time in Japanese is two counters and about eight sound changes. Learn the exceptions properly and you can arrange, confirm, and rearrange a meeting without pausing to calculate.
12 min readJapanese Adjectives: i-Adjectives and na-Adjectives
Japanese adjectives change shape the way verbs do, and almost all of that change follows two patterns. Learn which family a word belongs to and you can describe anything in past, present, positive, and negative without stopping to think.
12 min readJapanese Family Words: Talking About Your Family
Japanese gives you two words for every relative: one for your own family and one for everyone else's. Choosing the right set is what makes a simple sentence about your mother sound respectful rather than odd.
12 min readJapanese Onomatopoeia: Sound Words You Will Hear Daily
Kirakira, dokidoki, mochimochi. These are not childish extras in Japanese. They are ordinary adult vocabulary, and without them your descriptions sound oddly flat.
12 min readFree AI Japanese Tutor: What You Get and What You Miss
A free tier is enough to build a real speaking habit, provided you know exactly what it covers and stop expecting it to behave like an unlimited paid lesson.
12 min readPractical guides
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