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August 15, 2024
 

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BILINGUAL

Japan Times
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Mar 2, 2015
Turning things into people using suffixes
The physical impossibility of turning things into people is something language does with great ease. If you're from Rome you are a Roman, if you do political science you are a political scientist, and if you're into Star Trek, you are a Trekie. All you need is the right suffix and everything is possible....
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Feb 23, 2015
Any attempt to scale Japan's mountain of rules is doomed
In England of the distant past, the word "doom" was a legal term, referring to a judgment imposing a punishment. Some etymological sources suggest it has common roots with the Sanskrit "dharma," a deeply complex word that can refer to customary social duties or divine law, depending upon the religious...
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Feb 16, 2015
Exercise your intuition as you untangle chaotic headlines
Being somewhat 背が高い (se ga takai, tall), I shamelessly confess my height advantage — I stand about 188 cm — has facilitated my ability to 盗み読み (nusumi-yomi, literally "theft-read," meaning to read over other people's shoulders) on public transport.
Japan Times
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Feb 9, 2015
Plumbing the delicious depths of February with ume
Traditionally, Kisaragi (如月, the old name for February) was considered a month of hope — a chance to wipe the slate clean and start over. Before the nation switched to the Western calendar, it was the month for ushering in Oshōgatsu (お正月, New Year) and marked a time when everyone took it...
Japan Times
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Feb 2, 2015
'Ka' can help you sound less like Mr. Roboto
Knowing how you sound in Japanese is very difficult. For the first few months of study, perhaps even the first few years, the best you can hope for is to imitate sensei (先生, teachers) and tomodachi (友達, friends), geinōjin (芸能人, celebrities) and kishō yohōshi (気象予報士, weather...
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Jan 26, 2015
From laundry detergent to foreign tourism: The heavyweights of consumption in 2014
Toward the end of every year, the media, advertising agencies, think tanks and other organizations look back on the "hit products" whose successes helped define consumer preferences over the previous 12 months.
Japan Times
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Jan 19, 2015
What's worth getting excited about in 2015?
A general sentiment of self-restraint, bukkadaka (物価高, the high cost of living) and enyasu (円安, the weak yen) culminated in an Oshōgatsuyasumi (お正月休み, New Year's holiday) where more people stayed put and fewer traveled to exotic overseas destinations.
Japan Times
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Jan 12, 2015
The No. 1 way to master ichi is by taking one step at a time
Welcome to the first month of the new year, which in Japan comes with the very straightforward name ichigatsu (一月) — literally, "month one".
Japan Times
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Jan 5, 2015
The myths and misery of translating Japanese video games
Given ever-expanding access to the culture of Japan, people worldwide have many different reasons for studying the Japanese language these days. But I don't know if job opportunities for non-Japanese have expanded as rapidly. Many folks probably fall back on the same set of options as always: eigo kyōshi...
Japan Times
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Dec 29, 2014
To shine or to die: the messy world of romanized Japanese
One of the also-rans in the competition for the best buzzword of 2014 was the little word "shine." It stirred some discussion this summer when it appeared as a one-word heading in the blog of Prime Minister Abe's just-established Kagayaku Josei Ō en Kaigi (輝く女性応援会議, Council for Supporting...
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Dec 22, 2014
The annual pain and pleasure of punished comedians
Japan is a country of traditions. You take off your shoes when you go indoors. You rinse your body before entering the bath. And you sit around the house with family on Ōmisoka (大晦日, New Year's Eve) and do nothing but watch television and eat food before going to the jinja (神社, shrine) at...
Japan Times
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Dec 15, 2014
Buzzwords of 2014: from killer drugs to robotic refusals
Once again, the massive reference book 「現代用語の基礎知識」("Gendai Yōgo no Kiso Chishiki," "The Encyclopedia of Contemporary Words") is on sale. This annual publication that tracks additions to, and changes in, the Japanese language and various world developments over the previous year...
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Dec 8, 2014
Going backward to get ahead with studying Japanese
In his book "Making Sense of Japanese: What the Textbooks Don't Tell You," translator and Japanese literature scholar Jay Rubin notes that the Japanese language "works backward."
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Dec 1, 2014
Reality took the shine off Abe's hopes for women in 2014
So this is what I heard: This past year, women were supposedly kagaiteiru (輝いている, shining) in Japan — and their sheen is part of a national policy to value and honor the Japanese female. Excuse me for saying so, but "Usssooo! (うっそおお!, That's a lie!)" As my friend Naoko likes to...
Japan Times
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Nov 24, 2014
Japanese language group puts compound verbs in one place
If nouns are the bones of a language, verbs are the blood that keeps it moving. The thing about Japanese is that there are so many of them that it is close to impossible to know them all, particularly if we include combinations of two single verbs. The good news is that the National Institute for Japanese...
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Nov 17, 2014
Double up on your kanji to avoid homonym mixups
Although the Japanese and Chinese languages differ considerably in their syntax and pronunciation, one characteristic they share, along with use of kanji, is lots of homonyms. Mathews' Chinese-English Dictionary, for example, lists 70 characters with the pronunciation shih (or shi, when transcribed in...
Japan Times
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Nov 10, 2014
Widening income gap has everything to do with the price of eggs
When it comes to okane (お金, money), the Japanese have always been a little ambivalent. For one thing, what do we call it? The character for kane (金) does mean cash but it can also mean gold, metal and many other things that glitter. People also refer to money as oashi (お足, literally: "reverent...
Japan Times
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Nov 3, 2014
Paradox of politeness: humbling and exalting at same time
Each year in fall, the Bunkachō (文化庁, Agency of Cultural Affairs) publishes the results of its annual opinion poll on the linguistic state of the nation, officially called Kokugo ni Kansuru Yoron Chōsa (国語に関する世論調査, Survey of the National Language). This time, the survey...
Japan Times
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Oct 27, 2014
In the long shadow of an aged and enraged population
Here's an astonishing fact: the crime rate among Japan's elderly is on the rise. And among an rapidly aging population with long life expectancy, that's a problem.
Japan Times
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Oct 20, 2014
Subtle humor of haiku's cousin senryū is on a roll
"Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit," philosophizes the long-winded Polonius in Shakespeare's "Hamlet." That's also a fitting description of senryū — a form of short poetry defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary as "a three-line unrhymed Japanese poem structurally similar to haiku, but...
Japan to revise consumption tax exemption for overseas tourists
Tourists walk through Nakamise shopping street near Sensoji Temple in Tokyo in April
Japan's tourism industry hit by cancellations after megaquake alert
A beach closed due to a megaquake alert in Hiratsuka, Kanagawa Prefecture, from Friday to Thursday.
Focus shifts to incoming typhoon as Tropical Storm Maria dissipates
Newly formed Tropical Storm Ampil, which is forecast to approach eastern Japan this weekend, is seen on the left side of this satellite image.
Kishida to step down in September in bid to show ‘LDP has changed’
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida speaks during a news conference Wednesday at the Prime Minister's Office in Tokyo.
Publisher finds surprise audience after translating history textbooks
Yamakawa Shuppansha president Takeshi Nozawa holds the publisher's textbook on Japanese history — used in high schools across Japan — alongside the new English version in Tokyo on May 23.
Economic security is about strengthening and sustaining growth, former minister says
Former economic security minister Takayuki Kobayashi says changes in the international balance of power, along with deepening economic interdependence, have led some countries to attempt to use their economic power to impose their will on others.
Ice bandanas, convenience store breaks: Running under Japan’s summer sun
Blistering heat is becoming a fixture of summer in Japan, but a few tweaks to your routine can make your outdoor runs bearable — if not enjoyable — until cooler temperatures return.
Japan issued its first-ever megaquake alert. What does that mean?
Naoshi Hirata (center), chairman of a committee tasked with evaluating the risk of a Nankai Trough earthquake, speaks at a news conference in Tokyo on Friday.
France brings down the curtain on its Olympic party with Tom Cruise and Leon Marchand
Fireworks are set off during the closing ceremony of the 2024 Paris Olympics at Stade de France in Saint-Denis on Sunday.
Japan fuels U.S. LNG boom even as climate targets and impacts loom
Flaring at the Cameron LNG export terminal in Hackberry, Louisiana. Flaring, a common sight at LNG plants, is a controlled burning of gas for reasons ranging from depressurizing equipment to disposing of gas that can’t be used. The practice is a "waste of money" and negatively impacts climate change and human health, says the International Energy Agency.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

Sociologist Gracia Liu-Farrer argues that even though immigration doesn't figure into Japan's autobiography, it is more of a self-perception than a reality.
In search of the ‘Japanese dream’
By Thu-Huong Ha

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Azabudai Hills, Tokyo’s green new downtown ‘village’
Azabudai Hills, Tokyo’s green new downtown ‘village’

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