When I first decided to tackle the question of, “What does saa (さあ) mean in Japanese?” I figured it would be a really straightforward task. The expression “saa” pops up all the time in real life, anime, and tv-dramas, so I figured that I knew exactly what I was going to be tackling right off …
Japanese Grammar
One aspect of Japanese that often causes difficulty for translators and students alike is how the language handles plural. You might have heard that there’s no plural at all in Japanese. While that’s not strictly true, for the most part it’s accurate. That means that, when translating into English or even understanding something in Japanese, …
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 …
If you’ve read even a single blog post on this website before, you probably know that a lot of language comes down to context. One great example is the difference between questions and statements. Even in English, there are clues like the inversion of word order in a statement like “You are eating.” and a …
Orthography is the study of a given language’s writing conventions. In English, for example, orthography deals not just with spelling and grammar, but also with punctuation marks like the period or exclamation mark and the use of spaces. Of course, every language has its own conventions. Japanese orthography in particular has to contend with three …
All you ever need to know about the Japanese Alphabets (well, syllabaries to be more correct)