Calling a Business in Japanese

Calling a Business in Japanese

If you are just learning Japanese or maybe even are an intermediate speaker, making a professional phone call (a call to a business or company) can be a little bit intimidating. This article contains a few tips you can use, as well as some Japanese words and phrases that should help you out.
The difficulties
Speaking on [...]

March 3rd, 2010 by Nick 

Learn Japanese Through Anime and Manga

Learn Japanese Through Anime and Manga

If you are learning Japanese there is a good chance that you are into anime or manga. At least this seemed to be the case when I studied in Japan, and also when I worked as an admissions counselor at a Japanese University. The great thing is that Japanese anime and manga can be used [...]

February 9th, 2010 by Nick 

Learning Japanese From Video Games?

Learning Japanese From Video Games?

With region codes being removed from a lot of the games and game systems, it has become easier than ever to get copies of Japanese games. The big question however, is do games make good tools for practicing Japanese?
In the past I would have generally said “not really”. Not for me at least. If you [...]

February 2nd, 2010 by Nick 

Kanjilish- Learn Japanese and Kanji While Reading English

Kanjilish- Learn Japanese and Kanji While Reading English

In the last few years there have been quite a few tools coming out to help students learn Japanese. One of my favorites is Rikaichan. Rikaichan is an add-on for Firefox that will give you the readings and definitions for Japanese characters when you mouse over them. It is a great tool for anyone learning [...]

January 26th, 2010 by Nick 

Rikaikun (Rikaichan for Chrome)

Rikaikun (Rikaichan for Chrome)

I have written about Rikaichan before and how it is one of my favorite tools for reading and learning Japanese. It allows even a someone with a basic understanding of Japanese to read like a pro. Well, for all those who use Google’s chrome, a port has been made called Rikaikun.
Since the current release of [...]

January 8th, 2010 by Nick 

Reading Japanese Words in Style

Reading Japanese Words in Style

So you finally figured out how to read and write Japanese on your computer (if you haven’t, do this right away). The problem is that the standard fonts for Japanese aren’t very good. In addition to just being plane bad looking or difficult to read, there may occasionally be characters that don’t show up. Since [...]

November 23rd, 2009 by Nick 

Great Video Series to Learn Japanese

Great Video Series to Learn Japanese

I am always on the lookout for good Japanese learning tools. With all the available channels there are a lot of different types products, but to be honest, many fall very short of really teaching you the language. But every once and a while, I happen to stumble across one that really impresses me. What’s [...]

November 18th, 2009 by Nick 

1000 Common Japanese Words for Anki or Mnemosyne

1000 Common Japanese Words for Anki or Mnemosyne

The most popular post on JapaneseWords.net has been 1000+ Japanese Words List. As the title suggests, the post contains a list of over 1000 common Japanese Words and Kanji. I am proud to announce that the list has just gotten much better.
Thanks to the hard work of Michele Romanini and his wife Bika Fujioka, [...]

November 15th, 2009 by Nick 

NihongoUp

NihongoUp

I have mentioned several times that studying Japanese should be fun. If it’s not fun then it is going to be much harder and take you longer to learn. An ideal method would be one that makes you feel like you aren’t studying at all. Over the last few weeks I have been playing with [...]

November 4th, 2009 by Nick 

JapanesePod101

JapanesePod101

So far we have covered tools for memorizing Japanese words and phrases, learning and reading kana and kanji, and of a great dictionary. Today we are going to talk about a program I used to use quite a bit when I first started working in Tokyo, JapanesePod101.
When I first started using JapanesePod101 is was basically [...]

October 14th, 2009 by Nick 
Older Posts »