Painful bloopers in Japanese can be valuable learning experiences
While working on the island of Guam in the early 1970s, I had regular business dealings with the expat Japanese business community — basically a good-natured crowd who were used to hearing locals mangle their language on a daily basis. One day, while visiting the ...
Taking things to the wire with 'girigiri' and 'suresure'
Introducing the proper uses of two similar expressions — ぎりぎりand すれすれ . ...
Japanese translators forced to grab the Trump bull by the horns
A look at how the U.S. president-elect's words have been relayed in Japanese may help explain the source of uncertainty and concern here about his election.
With 'bun,' get your share in Japanese — or as much as you put in
Introducing some expressions using 分 (ぶん), which means "share," "part" or "portion."
U.S. music legend Bob Dylan is the first songwriter to win the Nobel Prize in literature in the award's 115-year history.
Strength and tradition draw women back to sumo world
Let's face it, where else are we going to watch a lot of large, near-naked men wrestle each other in a tiny dirt arena?
Articulating the unknown, unreliable or just plain dodgy with 'ayashii'
Introducing some uses of the adjective あやしい, which means "dubious" or "strange."
Pepper, SoftBank Corp.'s humanoid robot, has started work at a bank and a life insurer in Taiwan.
Why you won't learn natural Japanese from dubbed foreign TV
It seems that in Japanese dubbing there is always something found rather than lost in translation — something that wasn't in the English original and is not part of regular Japanese either.
Using 'kiri' in Japanese to leave it at that
Introduce some uses of きり, which is used to set limits on things.
The University of Tokyo ranked 39th in this year's Times Higher Education list, making it the fourth best institution of higher learning in Asia.
Getting quite a lot across with 'kanari' and 'daibu'
Introducing the use of two adverbs, かなり and だいぶ, that show the degree of something. ...
