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 80
Byōdō-in and Uji Guide: Phoenix Hall, Matcha Town and Japanese to Use
Byōdō-in's Phoenix Hall, the temple on the ten-yen coin, sits by a pond in Uji, a riverside town twenty minutes south of Kyoto that has been famous for green tea for centuries. See the hall, then spend the afternoon drinking matcha on the tea street outside its gate.
12 min readSannenzaka and Ninenzaka Guide: Stone Slopes, Old Shops and Japanese to Use
Sannenzaka and Ninenzaka are two stepped, stone-paved lanes of wooden townhouses that wind down from Kiyomizu-dera towards Yasaka and Gion. They are the most photographed streets in Kyoto, lined with tea shops, pottery, sweets and pickles, and the best place in the city to practise souvenir Japanese.
12 min readPontochō Guide: Lantern Alley, Riverside Yuka and Japanese to Use
Pontochō is a stone-paved alley barely wide enough for two people, squeezed between the Kamo River and the Takase canal, lined with restaurants, bars and teahouses behind lanterns. From May to mid October, the restaurants on its river side build wooden decks out over the water for dining in the open air.
12 min readTenryū-ji Guide: Sōgenchi Garden, Cloud Dragon and Japanese to Use
Tenryū-ji is the great Zen temple of Arashiyama, first among Kyoto's Five Mountains, with a fourteenth-century pond garden that borrows the hills behind it. Add the dragon painted on the lecture hall ceiling and a Zen vegetarian lunch inside the grounds, and it is worth half a day on its own.
12 min readNara Park Guide: Deer, Shika Senbei, Etiquette and Japanese to Use
Nara Park is the big green heart of Japan's first permanent capital, where well over a thousand wild deer wander between temples, lawns and souvenir stalls. It is free, open all year, and one of the friendliest places to try your first few sentences of Japanese.
12 min readTōdai-ji Guide: Great Buddha, Nandaimon, Nigatsudō and Japanese to Use
Tōdai-ji is home to Nara's Great Buddha, a bronze figure about fifteen metres tall inside one of the largest wooden halls in the world. The grounds are free, the main halls charge a small fee, and the ticket window is a perfect place to use a few polite sentences in Japanese.
11 min readKasuga Taisha Guide: Lanterns, Deer, Wisteria and Japanese to Use
Kasuga Taisha is Nara's great Shinto shrine, founded in 768 and famous for some three thousand stone and bronze lanterns. The outer shrine is free, the lantern-hung inner cloister costs a small fee, and a quiet forest walk leads there from Nara Park.
11 min readHōryū-ji Guide: World's Oldest Wooden Buildings and Japanese to Use
Hōryū-ji, founded by Prince Shōtoku in 607, holds the oldest surviving wooden buildings in the world and became Japan's first World Heritage Site in 1993. It sits in the quiet town of Ikaruga, a short train ride from Nara, and rewards anyone who makes the trip.
11 min readYoshino Guide: Mount Yoshino's Cherry Blossoms, Zaōdō and Japanese to Use
Mount Yoshino, Yoshinoyama, is Japan's most celebrated cherry blossom mountain, with over thirty thousand trees climbing its slopes. Outside the blossom season it is a quiet ridge of temples, inns and mountain views, crowned by one of the largest wooden halls in Japan.
11 min readNaramachi Guide: Nara's Old Merchant Town, Machiya and Japanese to Use
Naramachi is the old merchant quarter just south of Nara Park, a grid of narrow lanes lined with wooden townhouses, small museums, craft shops and cafés. It is free to wander, a short walk from Kintetsu Nara Station, and a relaxed place to order in Japanese.
11 min readAmanohashidate Guide: Sandbar, Matanozoki View and Japanese to Use
Amanohashidate, the bridge to heaven, is a pine-covered sandbar about three kilometres long across a bay on the Sea of Japan, counted among the Three Views of Japan. You can walk or cycle across it, ride up to a viewpoint and look at it upside down between your legs.
11 min readIne no Funaya Guide: Kyoto's Boathouse Village and Japanese to Use
In the fishing town of Ine, on the Tango Peninsula north of Amanohashidate, about 230 wooden boathouses line the shore of a quiet bay, each with a boat garage at the water and rooms above. The best way to see them is from a small boat, and the ride begins with a simple question in Japanese.
11 min readPractical guides
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