きれい I have talked about quite a few English words which requires a few different Japanese words to translate them…
thin
thin The English word “thin” is also a tricky word when you want to translate it into Japanese. When somebody…
busy
busy The English word “Busy” is often remembered as 忙（いそが）しい in Japanese and it is correct when you talk about…
to put … on / to wear …
Japanese has at least 5 words for the English verb “to put … on,” depending on the item of clothing being talked about. This post explains what goes with what
Strong Coffee
When a flavour is dense, the word “strong” is often used in English, but in Japanese we use 濃い（こい/koi）, which…
play
Play is a difficult word to translate into Japanese because there are many different meanings. Following are some examples. 遊（あそ）ぶ…
A Young Boy
Often the English word “young” is translated as 若い (わかい/wakai). However, the Japanese word 若い is closer to “youthful” than…
short
The English words, “short,” has 2 equivalents in Japanese. 背（せ）が低（ひく）い: “short” as opposed to “tall” and 短（みじか）い: “short” as opposed…
おおい
多い（おおい/ooi） means “a lot” and it is an いadjective, but 多い is never used in front of a noun. If…
Me – how boys and men call themselves
While girls and women call themselves 私（わたし or わたくし）most of the time (apart from regional variations), men call themselves differently.…
water
Many people know “water” is called 水（みず） in Japanese but the word 水（みず） indicates that it is not heated. Once…
Plastic Bags=プラスチックのカバン？
It has been a while since free “single-use plastic bags” have disappeared from big supermarkets in NSW, Australia. Apparently, “plastic…
Seasons
It is really springy in Australia now and the norther hemisphere is in autumn / fall. The basic 4…
Days of the week
On Wednesday, I talked about the 6-day-week, but of course, in everyday life the “7-day-week” is more important. Let’s…
i-adjectives and na-adjectives
The other day one of my students asked me if there are more i-adjectives than na-adjectives or vice-versa. I don’t…
Yesterday, today, tomorrow…
Learn yesterday, today, tomorrow and associated phrases together with “every day” “every week” etc.
ソフトクリーム
ソフトクリーム が たべたい です。 ソフトクリーム が だいすき です。 What is ソフトクリーム? It is “Soft Cream”, so what? It is…
Flavour vocabulary
These are basic vocabulary but not many textbooks have them in a list. delicious おいしい おいしい oishii awful まずい まずい…
パンツ
Today is Katakana Tuesday and today’s word is パンツ. Yes, it is the katakana transliteration of the English word,…
りんご、リンゴ、林檎 and ringo – 4 scripts in Japanese
The Japanese language used 4 different types of scripts – Hiragana, Katakana, Kanji and Roomaji. This post explains when to use which.
