Speaking and pronunciation
Practical guides on speaking, grammar, pronunciation, listening, and study planning, written for learners who want to use Japanese in real life.
Speaking and pronunciation · Page 50
Taking Your Turn: Interrupting Politely in Japanese
Plenty of learners can build any sentence they need and still say almost nothing in a group, because the conversation never seems to leave a space big enough to step into.
10 min readActive vs Passive Japanese Vocabulary: How to Convert
Most intermediate learners do not have a vocabulary problem. They have a retrieval problem: the words are in there, and none of them arrive in time.
9 min readA 30-Day Japanese Speaking Plan That Actually Fits
Thirty days is not enough to become fluent, and it is more than enough to go from freezing to holding a five-minute conversation, provided the plan is built around speaking rather than around studying.
9 min readHow to Give Directions in Japanese, Not Just Ask
Every phrasebook teaches you to ask where the station is. Almost none teach you what to say when somebody asks you, which happens the moment you look like you live there.
9 min readDescribing People in Japanese: Looks and Personality
Describing a person is one of the first genuinely useful things you can do with adjectives, and it is also where a learner most easily says something ruder than they intended.
9 min readHow to Talk About Your Country in Japanese
Within three minutes of meeting someone in Japan you will be asked where you are from, and within five you will be asked what it is like there. It is the most predictable conversation in the language, and almost nobody prepares for it.
9 min readMaking Suggestions in Japanese Without Sounding Pushy
There is a big difference between let us do it, shall we do it, and it might be worth doing, and Japanese marks that difference clearly. Using the wrong one with your manager is the fastest way to sound presumptuous without meaning to.
10 min readNegotiating Politely in Japanese: Price, Dates, Scope
Negotiation in Japanese is rarely a contest of positions. It is a slow exchange of hints, and the sentence that gets you a better deal usually looks like an apology.
10 min readRelaying a Message in Japanese: Dengon and Reporting
Somebody rings while your colleague is out, and now you have to write down who called, what they wanted, and say it back to a third person in a language where even the verb for said changes with rank.
9 min readHow to Introduce Two People to Each Other in Japanese
You know how to introduce yourself. Introducing two other people is a different skill, and getting the order wrong in front of a client is noticeable in a way that a grammar mistake never is.
9 min readJapanese Humour: Jokes, Boke and Tsukkomi Explained
The moment you can make someone laugh in Japanese is the moment the language stops being a task, and the mechanics of getting there are far more learnable than most people assume.
9 min readHow to Explain Your Job in Japanese Beyond the Title
Enjinia desu answers the question and ends the conversation. What people actually want to know is what you do all day, and that takes three sentences you have probably never practised.
9 min readPractical guides
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