A surprisingly common question is, “Should I learn Chinese or Japanese?” This is, equally, a surprisingly difficult question to answer. There’s a lot of different factors that would influence your decision. I’ll be covering a handful of different things, but we’ll focus on the earning aspect first. [toc] Should I learn Chinese or …
Edwin Arce
In this article we’re going to do a deep, deep exploration into the Japanese education system. We’ll cover how the system is structured from pre-school to post-grad, what the classes are like, what exams there are, as well as hitting on all the major points in the history of Japanese education. For convenience sake, I’ll …
We’re covering a really fun expression in Japanese in this article: kakatte koi. Anyone who enjoys Japanese media has probably heard this more than a few times, and you might even have a rough idea of what it means, just from the context and emphatic nature of the expression. But in the next few hundred …
Today’s topic is a uniquely challenging one: prepositions in Japanese. We’re going to have to get familiar with flipping concepts around from how we generally understand them in English. I won’t lie: It’s a huge challenge at first, but after a handful of practice, without even noticing it, this new way of engaging with language …
Alright, let’s dig into a word that’s a bit old and a bit new. A word with a distinct meaning that we can use with some real gusto. That word is keshikaran and today we’re going to delve into it’s modern meaning, its past, and everything in between. To start off, let’s lay a foundation …
In this article we’ll be discussing the Japanese word kisama in great detail. We’ll cover what it means (of course), and also how to write it, use it, and where it comes from. It’s a somewhat strange word in the Japanese language, with a long and varying history, so it’s well worth the time to …
This article looks at a simple interjection in Japanese, ara-ara. While simple, it definitely has some guidelines to be aware of and pitfalls to avoid, not to mention some easy confusions. Don’t worry, we’re going to tackle all of it. Let’s start simple… What’s the meaning of ‘ara ara’ in Japanese? ‘Ara ara’ is …
If you’re familiar at all with Japanese media, you’ve probably encountered the word kimochi quite a few times and in quite a few different contexts. In fact, you may have even heard it and not realized it, as it’s morphed into some slang forms as well. In this article we’ll cover the basic meaning, as …
Speaking proper Japanese in a business setting opens a whole can of worms on the language learning experience. It’s not enough to know the right words—you have to know when to use them, how to conjugate them, how to understand the ever-present sub-text, and, finally, how to use your body appropriately. That’s right, learning business …