Archive for 'Vocabulary'
Those Pesky Particles! Posted by eriko1 on Jan 14, 2021
As a non-native English speaker, my biggest foe is the article (冠詞 kanshi). Yes, those “a” and “the” devils. When you ask native English speakers, they always say – if you refer to an item the first time, use “a” and after that “the”. Well, life is not that simple especially in English that is full of exceptions (例外reigai). I…
New Year’s Cards (年賀状） Posted by eriko1 on Jan 5, 2021
明けましておめでとうございます。（A happy new year. Akemashite omedetogozaimasu) Let us start the 2021 blog with the Japanese declining tradition (伝統 dento)- New Year’s Cards called 年賀状(nengajo). It is a postcard with New Year’s greetings. You can purchase 年賀状 from your post office with a lottery number printed on them. In the New Year, numbers are drawn on…
A Month Even A Priest Must Run – Part ２ Posted by eriko1 on Dec 18, 2020
Last time (https://blogs.transparent.com/japanese/a-month-even-a-priest-must-run-part-1/) we talked about celebrating Japanese New Year in the past. But times have changed. Many services are open, such as conbini (convenience stores コンビニ) and fami-res (ファミレスfamily restaurants) like Thanksgiving Day in the US now. I am sure that the magic of a quiet New Year’s Day must have been lost. And the younger…
A Month Even A Priest Must Run – Part 1 Posted by eriko1 on Dec 11, 2020
The month of December is the most important month for us Japanese. December is called “師走”(shiwasu). There are many theories about where this name originated from. But the most popular and common one, and you hear it on TV all the time when the month of December starts, is that this is “a month that even a…