Easy Japanese Books

A friend of mine and I often find ourselves spending too much money every time we visit the bookstore. We sometimes go together with the intention of stopping each other from buying more than we should, but we still end up buying a lot of stuff. Tonight we again went to the bookstore. Instead of [...]

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JLPT Strategy

For those looking to take the JLPT this year, I’d like to suggest an early start. Last year, I started to study in about June, and very quickly regretted it. There were too many things to study, and there was too little time. I tried to study as much as I could, but as it [...]

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Japanese Incompetence

Recently on the news, there have been reports about requiring Japanese ability for certain visas. I just read today that the law could be passed pretty soon. As I am an avid fan of Japanese, I have no problems with this new law, in fact, I welcome it wholeheartedly. The reason I do, is simply [...]

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Kanji Books and Fake Kanji

I like studying Kanji. It reminds me of my college drawing class, where we had to balance letterings and drawings, make them fit into boxes and stuff. When I started to learn Japanese, my teacher told me that if I wanted to be respected by the Japanese, I had to write Kanji (and Hiragana and [...]

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Japan Bloggers

I have a mixi account. I don’t have a lot of contacts but I blog there nearly everyday, about random stuff mostly but I use it mainly to practice my Japanese writing. I use a nickname and I use an avatar for a picture. Nothing personal is ever published, I get feedback from my Japanese [...]

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The Japanese Language Proficiency Test

Tomorrow is the big day! As a lot of us are heading to the test centers for the JLPT, I’d like to say Good Luck to everyone!

頑張って！ファイト！必ず勝つ！
Japanese Test-taking Tidbit:
A hachimaki (鉢巻) is a stylized headband (bandana) in the Japanese culture, usually made of red or white cloth, worn as a symbol of perseverance or effort [...]

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漢検 - The Kanji Kentei

Three times a year, Japanese students can take a Kanji Aptitude Test (漢字能力検定試験 Kanji Nouryoku Kentei Shiken). This test is a measure of Kanji ability; being able to basically read, write, know the stroke order and recognize the different combinations of Kanji characters that form words. There are 12 levels: 10 being [...]

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How well do you know Japan?

I was reading this Japan Times article. It reminded me of quizzes I gave to my Japanese students. They were big hits. Later on, I’d quiz my Japanese friends and they’d all call me kuwashii (詳しい, used to describe a person who is knowledgeable about something/s). Although this observation is far from accurate, we all [...]

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Self-Study Japanese Books

I relied on these books for a long time. I used to study by myself at home after work and sometimes on weekends. They’ve been a great help!
BEGINNER LEVEL
These were the books I started learning with. What I did was, I outlined all these textbooks in separate notebooks, that way I practiced [...]

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Studying Japanese

I’ve been studying Japanese for the better part of a decade now. I enjoy it a lot and encourage a lot of people to do so, too. Learning Japanese has helped me understand the culture a lot more. Most Japanese people, especially the non-English speakers, tend to share more about their customs and traditions when [...]

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