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 55
How to Call In Sick in Japanese
Calling in sick is the workplace phone call learners dread most, because you feel terrible and you have to be polite at speed. It is also one of the most predictable calls in Japanese, with about six moves you can rehearse in advance.
14 min readJapanese for Garbage Day: Reading the Sorting Rules
Sorting rubbish in Japan is mostly a reading problem wearing a plastic bag. Learn the category names, the calendar words and the marks on packaging, and the system stops feeling like a test you are failing.
14 min readBounenkai and Year-End Japanese at Work
December is the busiest social month of the Japanese working year, and it runs on a small set of fixed phrases. Learn the invitation, the toast, the parting line and the first greeting back, and the season stops being something that happens around you.
15 min readSenpai and Kouhai: The Relationship Behind the Words
Senpai and kouhai are not ranks and not ages. They describe who arrived first, and that single fact quietly shapes how two people speak to each other for years.
14 min readItadakimasu and Gochisousama: What You Say Around Food
Two short phrases open and close a Japanese meal. They look like fixed ritual, but each one is doing real work, and knowing who you are speaking to changes the form you choose.
14 min readWhy Japanese People Rarely Say Sayonara
Almost every beginner is taught that sayonara means goodbye, then spends a year in Japan without hearing an adult say it. This guide replaces that one word with the parting lines people actually use.
14 min readHow 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 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 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 readEarthquake Alerts and Emergency Announcements in Japanese
When an alert sounds, the information arrives fast and only in Japanese. This is a language guide to that moment, so the words on the screen and in the loudspeaker mean something to you the first time you hear them.
17 min readTwenty Mistakes That Mark You as an Intermediate Learner
Beginner errors get corrected quickly because they break the sentence. Intermediate errors survive, because everyone understands you and nobody bothers to mention them.
17 min readPractical guides
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