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July 16, 2024
 

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BILINGUAL

LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Sep 8, 2010
Despite the big spender image, Japanese actually love to save
There's this image that the Japanese are drop-dead, go-all-out kaimono-chūdokusho (買い物中毒症, shopaholics), despite whatever the latest dreary news bulletin on the global recession says. While that may be true, it's also a fact of our collective lives that the Japanese hate spending, with...
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Aug 18, 2010
Why not give the oyaji gyagu a rest when in Rome
Perhaps it was the jisaboke (時差ぼけ, jetlag) or a lasagna-induced food coma, but it took time for my mind to register the scene before my eyes — a cosplaying gladiator speaking Japanese in front of the Coliseum in Rome. The Italian sentry — garbed in a feathered helmet, crimson cape...
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Aug 11, 2010
Death lingers throughout Japan's hottest month
August is the month of death in Japan, what with commemorations marking the 1945 atomic bombings (原爆記念日, genbanku kinenbi) of Hiroshima (the 6th) and Nagasaki (the 9th) coming early in the month, the shūsenkinenbi (終戦記念日, end-of-war memorial day) on the 15th and the Bon holiday...
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Jul 28, 2010
A linguistic guide to the dog days of summer
With the exception of Hokkaido, Japan heralds the arrival of summer when the 気象庁 (Kishocho, or Japan Meteorological Agency) declares 梅雨明け (tsuyu ake, end of the rainy season).
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Jul 21, 2010
Kanji for ‘big' will expand your Japanese skills
Every year on Aug. 16, at exactly 8 p.m., the first in a series of five giant bonfires is lit on a mountainside overlooking the city of Kyoto, signaling the moment when ancestral ghosts return to the spirit world after visiting relatives on Earth during the three-day O-bon festival. The largest and most...
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Jul 14, 2010
World Cup rekindles lost pride in being Japanese
Soccer star Hidetoshi Nakata, a former member of Japan's national team, told the media in the weeks leading up to the World Cup: "Wārudo Kappu no koto wo kangaeru to Nihonjin de aru koto wo saininshi ki suru (ワールド・カップのことを考えると日本人であることを再認識する,...
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Jun 30, 2010
Mastering the gentle art of arguing in Japanese
"I'd like to have an argument, please."
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Jun 23, 2010
A veteran plumbs his path to Japanese fluency
On a trans-Pacific flight to Narita several months ago, I struck up a conversation with a passenger who was upbeat about living in Japan. After six months, he told me with a self-satisfied grin, he had "just about got all the hiragana down pat."
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Jun 16, 2010
The value of seemingly empty Japanese phrases
Japanese is often considered an indirect and ambiguous language, and that's because it is. The national character, too, often appears passive and indirect to non-Japanese. As a result, it can be tempting for newcomers to take a lead from Frank Sinatra and do things "My Way," and generally this works...
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Jun 9, 2010
A land of harmoniously secretive married couples
Japanese people have become more kojinshugi (個人主義, individualistic) and aware of their personal identities than they were 20 years ago, according to recent media reports. True, members of the younger generation have no problem addressing each other by first name (and this happens even among casual...
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
May 26, 2010
Dealing with sincere and sesame forms of flattery
It's been many years since I've heard anyone remark to me,「日本語がお上手ですね」("Nihongo ga ojōzu desu ne," "Your Japanese is good").
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
May 12, 2010
Teishokuya: cheap eats that never go out of style
Times will change, empires will rise and fall, but thankfully some institutions are set, if not in bronze, then at least in good old concrete. By this I mean the backstreet teishokuya (定食屋, diner), specifically the tasty one in my neighborhood. At lunchtime the place is crammed with businessmen...
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Apr 28, 2010
Learning how to arrange a date in Japanese
Whether it's a romantic engagement or dinner with friends or colleagues, making an appointment (約束, yakusoku) is a vital part of everyday language in Japan as much as anywhere else. The grammar involved isn't too taxing, though the vocabulary extends as far as your interests. Meeting for coffee (コーヒー,...
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Apr 21, 2010
New JLPT format: boon for some, bane for most
For students trying to leap the cavernous divide between Level 3 and Level 2 of the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT) (日本語能力試験), a new test being held for the first time on July 4 breaks the task into two smaller, more manageable hops. Other students, though, might find that progress...
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Apr 14, 2010
What the nation's girl sports managers offer Japan
One of the best-selling books of the past month is called "Moshi Kokoyakyuno Jyoshi Manejyaga Drucker no Management wo Yondara"(「もし高校野球の女子マネージャーがドラッカーのマネージメントを読んだら」"If the Girl Manager of a High School Baseball Team Read Drucker's...
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Mar 31, 2010
Take your taimingu when translating loan words
The English translation of the manga "Death Note" by Tsugumi Ōba has sold millions of copies around the world — with barely a mention anywhere of the glaring translation error in the title and throughout the work: "Death Note" should in fact be "Death Notebook."
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Mar 24, 2010
Get the sukūpu on crime terms in Japanese
Sometimes I'm asked how I came to be interested in crime in Japan. I guess it began in my early days here as a student and lowly paid salaryman in the late 1960s.
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Mar 17, 2010
You can count on the tales behind number-kanji
When giving talks on Japan in elementary school classrooms in the United States, I chalk the kanji 一, 二, and 三 on the blackboard and ask the children to guess their meanings. "One, two, three!" they shout, easily intuiting three kanji introduced to Japanese schoolchildren in the first grade. Japanese...
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Mar 10, 2010
Wait long enough and daikon legs get fashionable
Bridget Jones said a woman starts to feel her age when the fashion of the times comes full circle and she witnesses the ghostly resurrection of all the stuff she wore in her youth.
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Feb 24, 2010
Confucius says reading on will help your Japanese
I remember the first kanji I ever wrote. In fact, I still have them — a Chinese aphorism roughly equivalent to "seeing is believing." In 1964, I awkwardly copied them out of a book on linguistics from my high school library in North Carolina. I was about to turn 17 and could not possibly have imagined...
Who needs AI when you have Hatsune Miku?
Over the first six months of 2024, a handful of songs using Vocaloid singer Hatsune Miku’s voice have enjoyed widespread attention, underlining a global interest in the character and the technology she represents.
Bloodied Trump survives assassination attempt at political rally
Former U.S. President Donald Trump is surrounded and evacuated by Secret Service agents at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on Saturday. Trump was rushed off stage at the rally after shots rang out.
Shooter came within inches of killing Trump, but left few clues as to why
An aerial view shows the stage where Republican presidential candidate and former U.S. President Donald Trump had been standing during an assassination attempt the day before, and the roof of a nearby building where a gunman was shot dead by law enforcement, in Butler, Pennsylvania, on Sunday.
Yen’s woes seem too big for even a BOJ hike this month to solve
The Bank of Japan headquarters in Tokyo
How to beat Japan’s summer heat in ways better for the planet
Tenugui towels hang up to dry at a dyeing company in Sakai, Osaka Prefecture, on May 8. The durable and versatile tenugui, which many people have in their homes, can be used in many ways to cool one’s body.
How to beat Japan’s summer heat in ways better for the planet
Tenugui towels hang up to dry at a dyeing company in Sakai, Osaka Prefecture, on May 8. The durable and versatile tenugui, which many people have in their homes, can be used in many ways to cool one’s body.
After Trump shooting, U.S. presidential race might take a violent turn
United States Secret Service Counter Snipers stand guard on a rooftop during a campaign rally for U.S. President Donald Trump in Avoca, Pennsylvania, in 2020.
No AC this summer? No problem (for me).
Think air conditioning is a requirement for a Tokyo summer? Think again.
She’s paying ¥1 million to help behind the scenes at the Paris Olympics
Mai Tarumi, who previously volunteered at the postponed Tokyo Olympics in 2021, has a travel budget of ¥1 million for her trip to volunteer at the Paris Games.
How to tweak your diet when temperatures spike
Most people think of hydration as a strictly liquid-based concept, but eating foods with high water content is an essential part of making it through a Japanese summer unscathed.

Podcast

You can often see generations of families enjoying performances together at Fuji Rock Festival.
Japan’s summer music festivals are feeling the heat in more ways than one

Longform

Akiko Trush says her experience with the neurological disorder dystonia left her feeling like she wanted to chop her own hand off.
The neurological disorder that 'kills culture'
By Tomoko Otake

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Exploring Japanese culturevia Tohoku’s festivals
Exploring Japanese culturevia Tohoku’s festivals

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