This past Tuesday (November 23rd), North Korea launched an artillery attack on a South Korean island, killing two military personnel and two civilians and wounding many others. North Korea claimed it was retaliation for a South Korean military drill that…
All this month (and probably a little into next month), we’re going to be taking a closer look at the Christmas season in Japan as well as New Year’s, which is way more important than Christmas in Japan. Although we’ve…
There are many ways to use the particle ga that we have not yet covered on this site. Today we’ll study how to say you like or dislike performing an action, as well as how to say you are good…
Adding deshou to the end of a sentence in Japanese turns the sentence from a statement of fact to a statement of probability. For example, here’s the difference between a sentence that states a fact versus the same sentence that…
Japanese “gals” — tough girls — may not be afraid to swear! As we’ve discussed in previous entries, politeness and courtesy is extremely important in Japanese culture. Just not speaking to someone with the correct conjugation of verbs could prove…
Continuing from last week’s look at the typical Christmas meal in Japan, this week we’re going to take a closer look at the way the holiday is usually celebrated in Japan. In the West, with a number of notable exceptions,…
In the West, we have Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast and The Little Mermaid, thanks largely to European writers who regurgitated local folklore. The Japanese are of course familiar with these fairy tales as well, but they have their own,…
In a first for the “Places” entries about Tokyo, we’re looking at an entire special ward of Tokyo: Shinjuku. This ward is the home of Shinjuku Station, not only Japan’s but the world’s busiest train station. You’ll also find the…
“Japanese game shows,” perhaps more accurately referred to as Japanese variety shows, are fairly famous around the world as a genre. Known for their over-the-top wackiness, Japanese variety shows have inspired spin-offs in other countries, such as America’s I Survived…
As we previously discussed, America’s pastime, baseball, has quite a following in Japan. It’s fitting, then, that the second woman to play baseball professionally in America is a Japanese import: 18-year-old Yoshida Eri. Yoshida, nicknamed “Nakkuru Hime” “(“Knuckle Princess”), actually…