archivejapanese

Learning kanji is tough. The unfamiliar shapes. All the different ways to read a single kanji. And what's more — there are over 2,000 of them to learn?! Unfortunately, there's no shortcut around these hurdles. And I'm not gonna lie, learning kanji does take time and energy no matter what...

Hiragana and katakana are literally the ABCs of Japanese. They're the most basic types of Japanese characters and essential parts of the Japanese language. Learning these two types of characters is often the very first step to learning Japanese, too. Being able to read hiragana and katakana is amazing because...

Even in situations when Japanese people are quite positive that something is true, they typically hold back on expressing claims. Similar to how one might use a layer of wrapping paper to hide what is really within a package, when speaking Japanese, Japanese speakers regularly encase their assertions in language...

Japanese words that even the most proficient learners of the language find the hardest to pronounce can be, ironically, the ones borrowed from their own native tongue. My wife, who's originally from the United States and now is a fluent speaker of Japanese after living in Japan for 15 years,...

How do you describe what you just did in Japanese? Maybe you just brushed your teeth, or you just bought a car. How can you describe those past activities that have just happened? Well, you've got two great options: ばかり and ところ. Say you want to tell someone that you...

Learning to differentiate the subtle nuances between 〜ている, 〜てある, and 〜ておく might be one of the biggest headaches for Japanese learners. Not only do they look similar, but they can all serve a similar purpose, too: these grammar patterns describe a situation created by some intentional action done in the...