My impression of the French I’ve been taking French lessons at Alliance Française de Singapour for some time now and I have sadly not been making much progress. Maybe I’m just getting too old for it but this foreign language thing seems a lot harder than it used to be. Either that or I am [...]
As you may or may not have noticed, there are two new banners in the random rotation. Don’t try refreshing this page because I’m using WP-Cache so the banner changes only after the cache expires. Instead you can view the new banners (rei.gif and zettai.jpg) using the direct link. I’m sure everyone knows and loves [...]
You hear it in anime and drama all the time, often without realizing it. It is the bane non-native Japanese speakers (or at least one of the numerous). It lurks in the shadows as it descends upon you with such suddenness and ferocity that leaves you confused and speechless. It was invented by the Japanese [...]
Okay, so I’m just a little overdue for the next Japanese lesson chapter. It will come soon, I promise. Really. Anyway, I’m going to spend a little time today talking about the difference between hentai and ecchi and why Hentai, as we use it, is really an English word. There’s nothing NSFW. Really. Okay maybe [...]
Finally, a new chapter! Sorry it took so long, but I’m lazy. :( This time I’ll introduce Japanese adjectives. Adjective is pretty simple in Japanese so this chapter will hopefully be clear and not as confusing as kanji… Please make sure you’e read the previous chapters first before continuing as I won’t be explaining the [...]
I came across an interesting passage about the origin of the word 黄昏 (tasogare) today. It’s not enough for a proper lesson chapter and I have no idea what topic to dump it under, so I’ve decided to create a brand new section: Japanese Titbits! How exactly does this differ from Katamari, I have no [...]
In Japanese, 塊まり katamari refers to a lump or a mass of substance, made famous by the hit PS2 game Katamari Damacy about an alien prince trying to roll the entire planet up into a ball. Don’t ask. Today’s lesson will not focus on any particular topic. Instead, we will take a look at some [...]
Wait a minute… didn’t I mention in the previous chapter that this time I would be highlighting some interesting quirks about the Japanese language instead of a formal chapter? So why is today’s chapter on kanji? Well, let me just assure you that kanji is one of the craziest things about Japanese. Wars have been [...]
Now that we have studied how verbs are grouped in Japanese and the various tenses of the polite (丁寧 teinei) form, it’s time to put some of them to use. I’m going to assume that you have read the first lesson and understood everything in it. And yes, this week’s theme is Tamaki Kousaka from [...]
So we finally reach the start of lesson one. Defining the terms took longer than I expected… Please make sure that you have read through the basic term definitions in Chapter 0 before continuing. I assume that people who read this blog are, more often than not, fansub watchers. So for the first lesson today, [...]
Instead of preparing for the finals of the speech contest tomorrow, I have decided to start a series of lessons to introduce some aspects of Japanese grammar to the those who are interested in learning about this curious language we all know as “moonspeak”. This is not intended as a lesson to teach Japanese to [...]
I missed the notice sent three days ago by the Japanese Association, Singapore informing me that I qualified for the semi-finals of the Japanese Speech Contest 2006, which was determined based on an original script submitted sometime ago. Woohoo, now I just have to send in a recording of myself and soon I’ll be on [...]
Time Warner Digital Cable
Want your link here?Contact me!
