Goroawase (語呂合わせ) is a type of Japanese wordplay. It is especially common for numbers to read differently from their original readings. Each number has several fixed readings, and the readings corresponding to the numbers are derived or associated with Japanese, Yamato Kotoba(old Japanese), Chinese (mahjong terms), English, etc. We, Japanese, use them in everyday life, …
If you live outside of Japan, it may not be easy to get manga written in Japanese. Did you know that these days, Japanese amateur creators are posting their manga on Twitter? Many of the manga on Twitter is high quality, and in some cases, they became so popular on Twitter that they actually published …
In Japan, there are many proverbs (諺 [Kotowaza]) that teach life lessons and the way human beings should be, which have been handed down from generation to generation. Do you have a favorite Japanese proverb? If you don’t, pick one here. 雨だれ石を穿つ “Raindrops make holes in the stone.” 急がば回れ “If you’re in a hurry, take …
What kind of teaching materials do you use to learn Japanese? Is it a textbook, a reference book, animation, drama, or movie? They are very good teaching materials, but some of the Japanese expressions that appear in them are not commonly used in daily life. A great way for you to learn more natural Japanese is …
In studying the Japanese language, you may be having a hard time learning 漢字(kanji). There are three types of characters in Japan: hiragana and katakana, each with 46 characters, and kanji, with approximately 50,000 characters. A single kanji character has multiple readings, and even Japanese people have trouble remembering them. If possible, you want to …
Japanese writing is not that easy, …right? Actually, Japanese writing is difficult even for Japanese children. In elementary school, they learn to write naturally through composing practices over and over again. In this article, we introduce a writing checklist that elementary schoolers actually use. You can use this list to check your Japanese writing, too!(The …
Japanese Writing Checklist for Beginner and Intermediate Read More »