| We received the above good question by email the other day, that we thought we should probably explain better, so we’ll be adding this information to our FAQ shortly,…

| On the surface, the English phrase “more or less“ looks like it should be the equivalent of the Japanese word 多少 (“tashou“, made up of the kanji for “many“…

| The latest version of the 日本国語大辞典 (Nihon Kokugo Daijiten, Shogakukan’s Japanese Dictionary, and the largest of all the Japanese-Japanese dictionaries) has over 500,000 words listed. How are students of…

| Japanese adjectives have very strict rules. There are only two kinds of adjective:1. “い” adjectives (adjectives ending in the character “i”)おいしい (oishii, delicious)青い (aoi, blue)鋭い (surudoi, sharp)These adjectives can…

| For some reason, lots of the students at GenkiJACS seem really interested in learning Japanese swear words. So, in the interests of a well-rounded education on vernacular Japanese, as…

| One of the most fun ‘features’ of the Japanese language is how foreign words are mangled to fit the limited Japanese sound-set. For example, McDonalds becomes マクドナルド (Makudonarudo, 6…

| We at GenkiJACS think Japanese is an easy language to learn to speak. (Reading and writing are a different matter, though!) Here are the reasons why. (I’ts long! I’d…