Today’s Grammar Point: ～から～まで “Aから” means “from A” or “since A” and it can be used for both time and place.…
Beckoning Cat Day
It seems Japanese people like to set “xxx Day.” There is a day for almost everything, anything. Apparently today is…
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…
Take and Bring
On Monday this week, I talked about verbs, いきます/きます/かえります, which can be used with another verb stem and the particle…
Katakana letters
Some Katakana letters are similar to one another. Especially these 2 pairs are confusing. "シ (shi) and ツ (tsu)," and…
ドライバー
I think it is reasonably easy to figure out ドライバー is katakana transliteration of "driver". And that can mean a…
Go and See
いきます きます かえります These verbs mean “to go,” “to come” and “to return” respectively and they can be used in…
Harvest Moon
Next Monday, 24 September, is 中秋の名月（ちゅうしゅうのめいげつ ）and is a Moon viewing day in Japan. Aristocrats in the Heian Period (the…
Yesterday, today, tomorrow…
Learn yesterday, today, tomorrow and associated phrases together with “every day” “every week” etc.
“will” in Japanese
As you may already know, Japanese does not have a future tense, so when you want to say something like…
Hiragana Fonts
Today’s blog is about Fonts we use in Japanese. When you are reading this blog, you realize the letter “a”…
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…
Diplomatic way of saying “I don’t like…”
What would you say if you are asked なっとうがすきですか (do you like nattou?)? If you like it, then you…
Respect-for-Senior-Citizens Day
Up until 2002, 15 September was the annual Respect-for-Senior-Citizens Day in Japan. The law changed and since 2003 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…
Frequency Expressions
If you get asked, よくコーヒーをのみますか。(Do you drink coffee often?), how would you answer that? I would say: はい、まいにちのみます。(yes, I drink…
Donburi
Last week, I talked about “Udon”. Today I will talk about another popular lunch menu, “donburi”, though most of the…
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.
Cooking verbs
Last week I talked about “yaku/yakimasu” as a most common cooking verbs. Today, I will introduce other cooking related verbs.…
