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Explore Japan – Shirakawa-Go Gifu Japan Posted by keiko on Feb 6, 2014
Have you heard of the historic villages of Shirakawa-go(白川郷, しらかわごう) and Gokayama(五箇山, ごかやま)in Japan? The villages are registered as one of the UNESCO World Heritage Sites since 1995. The site is located in the central Japan, between the border of Gifu and Toyama prefectures. These villages are known for “Gassho style” houses.The gassho style is characterized…
How to introduce yourself in Japanese? Part 2 Posted by keiko on Feb 3, 2014
This is the part 2 of the “How to introduce yourself in Japanese”. I thought I would include the questions that go along with Jikoshokai (じこしょうかい、自己紹介) below this time. Please note: in Japanese, we often omit the word “Your (あなたの)”. You don’t need to add the word when asking questions. In less formal conversation, it…
How to introduce yourself in Japanese? Part 1 Posted by keiko on Feb 1, 2014
“Tell me about yourself.” This is the phrase you might hear quite often at the job interviews. In Japanese, we have a word for “introducing oneself”, which is “Jikoshoukai” (じこしょうかい、自己紹介) 自己(じこ)means “oneself” and 紹介(しょうかい)means “introducing”. If you are introducing yourself in Japanese, these are the useful expressions that you can use. 私の名前は ～です(わたしのなまえは～です。） My name…
The Bean-Throwing Festival Posted by keiko on Jan 28, 2014
Have you heard of Setsubun Festival in Japan? People in Japan celebrate what they call, the Bean-Throwing Festival, Setsubun(せつぶん、節分) on February 3rd every year. Setsubun is rather a Spring festival since this is done the day before the first day of Spring. It is not a national holiday; however, people never forget to celebrate this…
Let’s learn how to read Japanese! Part 4 Posted by keiko on Jan 24, 2014
So far, we have covered Japanese Hiragana’s(ひらがな) in Part 1 through Part 3 of the “Let’s learn how to read Japanese” series. Part 4 will be on Katakana(かたかな). Katakana is another writing system in Japanese. Katakana’s are used to express foreign language words or words that originate from other countries. I will discuss the examples below. Katakana’s…
How to surround yourself with Japanese Posted by keiko on Jan 22, 2014
You are currently living in a country where Japanese is not the main language. Besides learning Japanese by traditional method such as reading text books, how can you effectively expose yourself to Japanese to learn more? In this article, I would like to share with you how you can surround yourself with Japanese when you…
Let’s learn how to read Japanese! Part 3 Posted by keiko on Jan 20, 2014
Hi everyone. The Part 3 of the Hiragana lesson will be on what we call Yo-on(ようおん,拗音) & Sokuon(そくおん、促音). Once you master these two along with the 2 previous lessons (basic hiragana(seion) & dakuon, han-dakuon), you will be reading Japanese hiragana’s in no time. Please don’t think too hard. These are just additional sounds in Japanese…