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Peter Backhaus
Japan Times
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Aug 13, 2018
Japanese surnames: Among the usual suspects, you're bound to find some curveballs
How many Japanese surnames are there anyway? It's a tricky question, because the total depends on how you decide to count them.
Japan Times
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Jul 23, 2018
Wherever you go in Japanese, you'll always find your 'tokoro'
The word 'tokoro' can be used to pin down a place in space, time or in a more abstract sense.
Japan Times
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Jun 4, 2018
To be 'iru' or 'aru'? That is the question
To be or not to be? What Hamlet did not know (and likely didn't care about too much at the time) is that Japanese ways of 'being' make a categorical difference between animate and inanimate objects.
Japan Times
LIFE / Language
May 7, 2018
In Japanese, many 'ands' make hard work
There's a lot to consider when making connections in Japanese.
Japan Times
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Apr 9, 2018
Musical vocab in Japanese can be a maddeningly multilingual minefield
A basic grounding in German, English, Italian and Heian Period poetry could be useful for those interested in reading and talking about the mechanics of music in Japan.
LIFE
Apr 9, 2018
Musical vocab in Japanese can be a maddeningly multilingual minefield
A basic grounding in German, English, Italian and Heian Period poetry could be useful for those interested in reading and talking about the mechanics of music in Japan.
Japan Times
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Mar 19, 2018
In written Japanese, it's punctuation, but not as we know it
Needless to say, Japanese has its own set of punctuation marks, and a number of special rules regarding their usage.
Japan Times
LIFE / Language
Feb 19, 2018
Reading the Roman alphabet in Japanese isn't as easy as ABC
It was a long journey from the cobbled streets of ancient Rome to the windy coasts of Japan, but when they finally arrived, they were here to stay: the 26 letters of the Latin alphabet. Better known here as ローマ字 (rōmaji, Roman letters), or just アルファベット (arufabetto, the alphabet),...
Japan Times
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Jan 8, 2018
Put your money where your mouth is
The Japanese money vocabulary is quite expansive, amazingly complex and certainly deserving of closer inspection.
Japan Times
LIFE / Language
Dec 11, 2017
The Japanese fondness for conditionals
Japanese seems to have developed a very special fondness for conditional constructions.
Japan Times
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Nov 6, 2017
The can'ts and don'ts of Japanese society are writ large on its signage
Any relaxing walk through an urban Japanese setting will reveal that warnings and prohibitions are a common feature of the landscape.
Japan Times
LIFE / Language
Oct 2, 2017
In some Japanese sentences, it's all relative
An example of relative clauses: 'The article that I'm about to read doesn't look very interesting.'
Japan Times
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Aug 28, 2017
Nani-tte nan-nano? Knowing what's what in Japanese
The kanji u4f55 has two slightly different readings, and these seem to make it mean substantially different things.
Japan Times
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Jul 10, 2017
In Japan everything counts in its own way
When emails first hit Japan in the mid-1990s, these were counted in u901a (tsu016b), the common classifier for letters. However ...
Japan Times
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
May 29, 2017
Things you need to know about 'mono'
The Japanese word for 'thing' has some quite surprising qualities.
Japan Times
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
May 1, 2017
Pessimists' grammar: No way around 'no'
Words can be like people. Some will always look on the bright side, while others take a more pessimistic view of things.
Japan Times
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Mar 27, 2017
It's not 'broken' but 'being fixed': semantic games in Japanese when stuff fails
The Japanese language offers a number of words and expressions that help convey bad news in a less painful way.
Japan Times
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Feb 27, 2017
Folding and unfolding Japan's ubiquitous 'tatami words'
Japanese has this amazingly amazing capacity to form words through the simple process of repetition, or what linguists call reduplication.
Japan Times
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Jan 16, 2017
Shiritori: a simple game that's great for practicing your Japanese vocab
It's a game that can be played anytime, anywhere. All you need is two players, some rudimentary kana knowledge — and a lot of words.
Japan Times
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Oct 31, 2016
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.
Two of America’s biggest debt holders are dumping Treasurys
The U.S. Treasury building in Washington. Investors in Japan and China sold a pile of U.S. debt in the last quarter, just before the U.S. presidential election.
Ishiba aggravates his own political failures with diplomatic faux pas
Prime Minster Shigeru Ishiba is greeted at the APEC summit in Lima by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Friday. The Japanese leader was criticized for remaining seated while meeting several world leaders at the event.
Japan's 3.31 million visitors in October set monthly record
Kiyomizu Temple in Kyoto in December 2023. Famous autumn leaf colors contributed to increased tourism demand last month from many markets across Asia, Europe and North America, the Japan National Tourism Organization has said.
Japan ranks last in romance satisfaction for second straight year
In a survey of 31 countries, Japan ranked last in terms of those who felt loved, with just 51% of respondents saying so.
Ruling coalition and DPP strike last-minute deal over economic policy
DPP policy chief Makoto Mahaguchi speaks at the party's policy gathering in Tokyo on Wednesday.
Japan, U.K. and Italy discuss inviting more countries to joint fighter project
A new concept model of a next-generation fighter jet to be jointly developed by Japan, Britain and Italy is on display in Farnborough, Hampshire, in July.
Haruki Murakami's 'The City and Its Uncertain Walls' gives deep deja vu
For “The City and Its Uncertain Walls,” translated into English by Philip Gabriel, Haruki Murakami confronts the ghosts who won't leave him alone.
Japanese expats in Asia find community through rugby
The Taiwan Fivewoods celebrate their victory at the 2023 Asian Japanese Rugby Cup in December of last year.
In Fukushima, a weekend of prose, poetry and translation
Aomori-based writer JJ Carter presented on tabletop gaming as creative inspiration for building characters and narratives.
For Dr. Nakamats, aging is just experience in action
Though he didn't win the recent gubernatorial election in Tokyo, the 96-year-old Dr. Nakamats' run was seen as inspirational in Japan's aging society.

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