Learn Japanese Pod » Japan

Japanese Headbands (Hachimaki　鉢巻）

admin — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 13:12:44 +0000

日本のハチマキには大抵気合いを入れる言葉が使われていて、外国人の観光客の間では大変人気です。ハチマキには「必勝」とか「合格」とか「闘魂」など伝統的なものが書いてあるけど、逆に最近の不景気を反映するフレーズをハチマキに入れたらどうかな～ってふと思った。たとえば、「絶望」とか「諦める」とか「凹む」とか「もうええねん」とか。。。

In Japan, Hachimaki (headbands) are usually worn with words symbolizing effort or perseverance printed on them. They tend to be quite popular with tourists. Traditionally words such as “victory”, “success”, “fighting spirit” are written on them. However, as a reflection of these hard economic times I thought it might be interesting to make some new ones with words such as “Hopelessness”, “I give up”, “I’m down” and “I’ve had it!”.

典型的なハチマキの言葉

Typical words written on Hachimaki

闘魂 - tōkon – Fighting spirit

必勝 - Hisshō – Victory

神風 – Kamikaze – Divine wind

一番 – Ichiban – Number one

日本 – Nippon – Japan

合格 – Gōkaku – Success

禅 – Zen – Zen

忍者 – Ninja – Ninja

祭 – Matsuri – Festival / Celebration

万歳 – Banzai – Cheering / hurray ! (lit.1000 years)

祝福 – Shukufuku – Welcoming in good luck

Fun Friday at the A to Z Cafe in Omotesando

admin — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 06:39:06 +0000

[podcast]http://media.libsyn.com/media/japanese/ff100319.mp3[/podcast]

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Today’s Fun Friday edition of Learn Japanese Pod was recorded at the A to Z cafe in Omotesando in Aoyama. I was joined by Jim and Sandra of Japandra fame.

The walls of the A to Z cafe are adorned with drawings by the artist Yoshitomo Nara and they even have a mock up of his studio.

In the podcast we talked about Sandra’s latest article for Japan Pulse Blog which is about Twiwari. It’s an ingenious scheme where businesses post discounts for services on Twitter.

We also talked about the renovation of Kabukiza and old theatre in Higashi Ginza which has daily Kabuki shows popular with fans and tourists. This led us on to the topic of the Tokyo Marathon as Jim took part and ran past Kabukiza. We gave a shout out to Joseph Tame who podcasted his marathon run. We mentioned Run Keeper which is a great iPhone app and time keeper for athletes.

Other points mentioned in the podcast:

Tokyo International Anime Fair
Tokyo Kawaii Exhibition @ The Design Festa Gallery
Daniel and Yuki
El Gringo and News From The Other Side
Dan Morales of How to Japanese
K-Pop boys
Smart FM
Kotoba iPhone App
Run Keeper iPhone App
Anki
Learn Japanese Pod Forums

Hay Fever in Japan “花粉症” (Kafunshō)

admin — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 14:59:38 +0000

It’s February which means the hay fever season is upon us. Every year at this time, thousands of tons of cedar pollen swirls around Japan making life miserable for millions. The number of sufferers depends on who you ask but estimates range from 10% to 20% of people in Japan and that’s a lot of runny noses.

Business has been quick to cash in by providing a wide range of products designed to alleviate symptoms. These include antihistamine tablets, face masks, nose sprays and goggles which account for 20 billion yen in annual sales.

Why does Japan have so much cedar?

Between the 50s and 70s, around 4.5 million hectares of cedar trees were planted in an attempt to meet the growing need for construction materials. However, it eventually became more economical to import lumber from abroad making the cedar plantations obsolete. Even today as the forests mature the amount of cedar produced increases as do the number of hay fever sufferers. Apparently, even the monkeys are suffering. The cedar looks as if it is here to stay as government plans to reduce the plantations are not ambitious or well funded.

In the mean time the only course open to most people is to by whatever is on offer at the pharmacy and check out the pollen maps of Japan. Weathernews.jp has an excellent pollen map of Japan updated in real time. I’ll definitely be referring to it in the coming months. Wish me luck and plenty of chainsaws…

Some useful links:

Tackling The Cedar Blight

General Facts on Hey Fever (Japan Times)

Hay Fever in Japan (What Japan Thinks)

Environmental Ministry Pollen Map

Tokyo Weekender on NHK

admin — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 13:55:35 +0000

This is a video segment about the Tokyo Weekender Magazine which I am involved with. It’s a magazine for the foreign community living in Tokyo and has been going for about 40 years.

The other day, NHK came, filmed around the office and followed Kelly the editor of the magazine on her rounds. I’m in the video for about 2 seconds trying and failing to not look like a complete idiot speaking Japanese.

Some of the Japanese in this isn’t too challenging so this might be good practice for you budding students of the language. NHK was also kind enough to provide subtitles for our interviews so there is some reading practice for you too.

Enjoy.

Japanese Language Learning Links and Resources

admin — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 15:42:30 +0000

Character and Writing:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_writing_system – A Wiki article on historical development of Japanese writing system
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoiku_kanji – List of kanjis to be learnt in elementary school with the pronunciations and meanings.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joyo_kanji – List of kanjis to be learnt up until high school with pronunciations and meanings.
http://brng.jp/50renshuu-s.pdf – printable practise sheet for hiragana and katakana
http://kanjisite.com/html/start/index.html – Kana and kanji – preparation for JLPT.
http://members.aol.com/writejapan/index.htm – katakana/hiragana and some kanji writing tutor (with stroke order animations)
http://nihongo.isc.chubu.ac.jp/komor…kanji2056.html – 2056 kanjis with stroke orders indicated by live-action video
http://kakijun.main.jp/ – Kanji stroke order database (more than 4000 characters listed)
http://hesjapanese.com/ – Kana lessons with sound and animation files
http://kanjisite.com/html/start/jlpt/4/all/index.html – JLPT kanji levels
http://www.jlpt-kanji.com/ – Another web page that helps you when it comes to kanjis for the JLPT.
http://www.kanjistep.com/ – Very cool page for kanji beginners, includes writing order, meanings, etc.
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~kanji/ – kanji stroke orders
http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/jouyoukanji.html – printable list of the jōyō kanji as well as a some other commonly seen ones, arranged in the order they are learnt in Japanese schools.
http://www.polarcloud.com/kanji – printable kanji flashcards
http://homepage2.nifty.com/Gat_Tin/kanji/honji.htm – Variant forms of Chinese characters; from China, Taiwan, Japan and Korea.
http://www.realkana.com/ – practice the reading of random characters from your selected list
http://www.flickr.com/groups/brush_calligraphy/ – Flickr group to help decipher calligraphy works

Online Lessons/Tutorials:
http://www.learn-japanese.info/ – Easy to follow grammar lessons, some vocabulary. Nice for starters.
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/columns/0002/ – The excellent Daily Yomiuri Online “Pera Pera Penguin” articles.
http://www.ichiban.narod.ru/nihongo/nihongo.html – Various tutorials and phrase books in Russian.
http://www.nhk.or.jp/lesson/ – Japanese lessons by NHK Radio available in 17 languages
http://www.sf.airnet.ne.jp/ts/japanese/cover.html – Teach yourself Japanese – Basic Japanese with a linguistics approach.
http://www.thejapanesepage.com/grammarpage.php – One hundred “watered-down, understandable, bite-sized grammar helps”.
http://jplang.tufs.ac.jp/account/login – JPLANG provides e-learning materials for learning Japanese, developed by a TUFS team.
http://www.trymango.com/language_program.php – for beginners, lots of audio, free but with a registration
http://www.basic-japanese.com/ – 34 free lessons and tools
http://www.manythings.org/japanese/ – free-to-use online study materials
http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Pagod…/1jp/main.html – conversational topics and grammar references
http://www.japanese-online.com/ – Free lessons on particles and sentence structures: audio files available for conversation examples.
http://homepage3.nifty.com/i-yasu/bk-les.htm – 市川保子’s lessons by grammatical topics, compiled from Q&A: Japanese
http://homepage3.nifty.com/i-yasu/bk-les-e.htm – the English version of the above
http://www.pantomime.org/nihongo-tusin/note.html – frequently asked questions about Japanese: Japanese
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Japanese – textbook project by Wiki volunteers
http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~sg2h-ymst/yamatouta/intro/dousikatuyou.html – grammar of Classical Japanese: Japanese

Reading Material:
http://www.genpaku.org/ – Collaborative translation project. Usufruct granted by acknowledgement.
http://www3.cnet-ta.ne.jp/p/pddlib/ – Public domain documents including an encyclopaedia, a biographical dictionary and Japanese laws
http://www.aozora.gr.jp/ – Collection of copyright-free works. A lot of texts have phonetic guides in hiragana.
http://hukumusume.com/douwa/ – listen and read fairy-tales
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/20683 – Oku no Hosomichi by Matsuo Bashō
http://eloise.cocolog-nifty.com/rodoku/ – Japanese classics in text and audio files
http://ikeda-hideo.hp.infoseek.co.jp/library_e.html – text and audio files of early modern Japanese literature
http://www.gutenberg.org/browse/languages/ja – Japanese reading materials in Project Gutenberg
http://www.esuj.gr.jp/cgi-local/Docu…d=list&lang=jp – Contemporary Japanese opinions with English translations
http://jpn.scripturetext.com/matthew/1.htm – Japanese Bible translation with cross references to other translations: courtesy 電網聖書

Pronunciation:
http://forum.wordreference.com/showp…52&postcount=9 – IPA explanations and tools, compiled by WR’s own timpeac.
http://www.paulmeier.com/ipa/charts.html – sound files for IPA symbols as revised in 1996
http://ipa4linguists.pbwiki.com/ – instructions for setting up your computer to display IPA symbols
http://www.siskiyous.edu/NCTA/Japane…iles/index.htm – sound files for Japanese syllabary and verb conjugations.
http://www.ehow.com/how_2151706_impr…unciation.html – Quick tips of phonemes (aimed at English speakers)
http://www.voiceblog.jp/ted606/ – Recitations including classic literature (texts may be found in Aozora Bunko)
http://www.voiceblog.jp/kiyo22/ – Recitations by a voice actor (texts may be found in Aozora Bunko)
http://www.env.kitakyu-u.ac.jp/corpus/texts/index.html – audio samples from very non-structured interviews

Web Services:
http://webcat.nii.ac.jp/webcat.html – Searches library catalogues in universities and research institutions.
http://ci.nii.ac.jp/ – Searches journal articles by the title.
http://www.ndl.go.jp/ – Home page of National Diet Library.
http://www.google.co.jp/ – Google Japan with Web services in Japanese.
http://www.yahoo.co.jp/ – Yahoo’s Japanese portal.
http://podcastle.jp/ – Nascent technology for transcribing and searching podcasts.

Media:
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/ – News from NHK, Japan’s public service broadcaster.
http://www.tv-asahi.co.jp/ann/news/web/index.html – TV Asahi News is another good listening resource with transcripts. Enjoy!
http://www.rikai.com/perl/Home.pl – Generates small vocabulary bubbles for Japanese news text.
http://www.nhk.or.jp/rj/index_j.html – live streaming of NHK Radio Japan
http://news.tbs.co.jp/ – News site of TBS, a commercial network.

Dictionaries:
http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/cgi-bin/wwwjdic.cgi – Commonly known as Jim Breen’s dictionary, supports a verb conjugator.
http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/cgi-bin/wwwjdic.cgi?1R – search for kanjis by combinations of stroke counts and radicals
http://www.jisho.org/ – WWWJDIC spin-off with more user-friendly interface
http://www.online-dictionary.biz/english/japanese/ – another WWWJDIC spin-off
http://dico.fj.free.fr/traduction/index.php – French-Japanese / Japanese-French dictionary.
http://www.alc.co.jp/ – A bidirectional English-Japanese database with a search box for looking up more natural expressions.
http://www.yamasa.cc/members/ocjs/ka…nPage?OpenForm – A bidirectional English-Japanese dictionary and kanji guides
http://dic.yahoo.co.jp/ – Online dictionaries offered from Yahoo! Japan Dictionary. Includes Ja-En, En-Jp and Jp-Jp.
http://dictionary.goo.ne.jp/ – Online dictionaries offered from Goo, another Japanese search engine. Includes Ja-En, En-Jp and Jp-Jp.
http://www.excite.co.jp/dictionary/ – Online dictionaries offered from Excite. Includes En-Ja, Ja-En, Jp-Jp, Ch-Ja and Ja-Ch.
http://www.englishjapaneseonlinedictionary.com/ A Romaji English <> Japanese dictionary.
http://www.trussel.com/f_nih.htm – Jeffrey’s Jp<>En Dict. Kana and Romanji input. Display results in Romanji and Kanji
http://www.j-talk.com/nihongo/search/kanjisearch.php – Kanji-English Dictionary
http://www.dictjuggler.net/tamatebako/index.html – 類語玉手箱 is an on-line Japanese thesaurus: Japanese
http://www.matsu-kaze.net/mk/kanji/ – Kanji (教育漢字)-English Dictionary by romaji input.
http://www.saiga-jp.com/kanji_dictionary.html – Kanji Dictionary, with stroke order, English meaning, On-yomi (phonetic reading), Kun-yomi (native Japanese reading), irregular pronunciations (e.g.一日 = ついたち), example sentences, and audio files.
http://www.languageguide.org/nihongo/ – thematic picture dictionary with audio
http://www.nihonjiten.com/ – Collection of numerous Japanese dictionaries
http://www.hikyaku.com/dico/onmyog.html – kanji dictionary and themed lists

Specialised Vocabulary and Phrase Books:
http://wikitravel.org/en/Japanese_phrasebook – Survival Japanese for Travellers.
http://www.geocities.co.jp/SilkRoad-…ei/jinmei.html – list of typical nanori; special kanji pronunciations for personal names
http://www2s.biglobe.ne.jp/~suzakihp/index40.html – Japanese family names; click on 1.苗字検索 in the left pane.
http://yubin.senmon.net/ – A database of Japanese place names, searchable in kanji and hiragana.
http://gogen-allguide.com/ – etymology dictionary: Japanese
http://coe21.zinbun.kyoto-u.ac.jp/djvuchar – Chinese characters from Tang inscriptions; search by CJK allomorphs/scripts [説明書]
http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~ax2s-kmtn/ref/old_chara.html – Tables to match old and new kanji forms.
http://homepage2.nifty.com/TAB01645/ohara/ – Dictionary of Japan-made kanjis. Entries are provided as image files. Japanese
http://hougen.atok.com/ – User-driven database for regional dialects
http://ryukyu-lang.lib.u-ryukyu.ac.jp/ – The Ryukuan language phonetic database; Nakijin, Shuri-Naha, Amami, Miyako dialects
http://sanabo.com/words/?=index – Yojijukugo (four-charactered idioms) with definitions, usages and English translations.
http://nihongoup.com/blog/japanese-color-names/ – Japanese colour names cheat sheet
http://hiramatu-hifuka.com/onyak/onyindx.html – Pronunciation dictionaries compiled by topics.
http://www.saglasie.com/tr/chemical/ – Names of chemical substances in Japanese and English; database
http://www.ffcr.or.jp/Zaidan/mhwinfo…25684600083647 – list of aromatic bases: Japanese and English
http://www.tradmedicine.com/term/syoyaku-db.html – list of crude drugs: Japanese and scientific names
http://zokugo-dict.com/ – Slang with definition and usage.
http://home.alc.co.jp/db/owa/s_htsrv_tdy – Glossary of colloquial expressions
http://home.alc.co.jp/db/owa/s_sit_browse – Themed list of conversational phrases
http://home.alc.co.jp/db/owa/s_kaydic?ctg_in=1 – Glossary of loan words and Japanese English
http://home.alc.co.jp/db/owa/s_kaydic?ctg_in=2 – Glossary of yojijukugo or four-character expressions
http://home.alc.co.jp/db/owa/s_kaydic?ctg_in=3 – Glossary of proverbs and clichés
http://home.alc.co.jp/db/owa/s_kaydic?ctg_in=4 – Glossary of onomatopoeias and mimetic words
http://home.alc.co.jp/db/owa/s_kaydic?ctg_in=5 – Glossary of Japanese culture and news
http://www.geocities.jp/tomomi965/index.html – Proverbs and clichés with synonymous and antonymous expressions.
http://crlao.ehess.fr/japonais-coree…eDesIndex.html – Dictionnaire terminologique de linguistique japonaise/日本語言語学専門用語和仏辞典
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~wbaxter/etymdict.html – Mandarin, Middle Chinese and Japanese pronunciations; PDF
http://www.schei.com/dictionary/ – English/Japanese Japanese/English Aviation Dictionary 和英・英和航空学辞典
http://e-words.jp/ – Dictionary of information technology terms: Japanese
http://www.geocities.jp/ps_dictionary/a.htm – 英語－日本語電気専門用語辞書
http://www5.synapse.ne.jp/sio/siof1/…dic_E_top.html – Financial Dictionary (EN <> JP)
http://engeinavi.jp/fen/ – 園芸ナビ　花の園芸用語辞典 (JP <> EN)
http://www.e-bridge.jp/eb/tcontents/…edic.php?job=0 – 橋梁の英和・和英辞典 (JP <> EN)

Grammar:
http://www.jgram.org/ – Very useful web page when studying grammar for the JLPT (from 4kyū to 1kyū).
http://www.nihongoresources.com A rather successful all-in-one Japanese site. From very basic dictionary, to grammar through particles. Noteworthy: giongo (which are onomatopoeia but there’s more to it!).
http://www.guidetojapanese.org/index.html#contents – Japanese grammar reference by constructions.
http://books.google.com/books?id=l_f3b7J2zjcC – constructions compendium offered as a Google search service
http://www.jpf.go.jp/j/urawa/j_rsorc…_04_02_04.html – teaching materials by the Japanese-Language Institute
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=g…ummary_r&cad=0 – Japanese by Iwasaki is a reference in a theoretical framework

Particles:
http://www.timwerx.net/language/particles.htm – Particles overview.
http://japanese.about.com/blparticles.htm – Basic particles overview at about.com.
http://home.inter.net/kenbutler/particlehome.html – A guide to the functions of structural particles in Japanese.
http://www.geocities.jp/nihongoguide/particles2.html – Verb related particles.
http://www.maedera.com/home/jgrammar…r/jgr_part.htm – Particles from a linguistic point of view.

Software:
http://abctajpu.mozdev.org/ – A Firefox add-on to enable easy input of Unicode characters: includes kana shortcuts.
http://www.polarcloud.com/rikaichan/ – For Firefox users: Rikaichan is a pop-up dictionary – reads Japanese web-pages.
http://members.lycos.co.uk/szunvukung/kk/ – Kanji flashcard system by Peter Salvi. Uses Tcl/Tk.
http://wakan.manga.cz/ – freeware that parses Japanese text in English and Furigana and Romanji (Hepburn)
http://wakan.manga.cz/files/wakan_full_167.exe – complete download
http://nihongo.j-talk.com/parser/ – converts both Kanji and Kana into Romaji (select “Kanji to Romaji” option)
http://www.furiganizer.com/ – provides furigana to Japanese texts
http://www.popjisyo.com/WebHint/Portal_e.aspx – parses Japanese sites and provides pop-up vocabulary. Also in Chinese and Korean.
http://www.freewebs.com/horazio/freeware.htm – Pazuru Alfabet is a learning tool that helps to recognize kanas.
http://homepage3.nifty.com/jgrammar/…s/tradkan0.htm – Converts between Chinese and Japanese kanjis, old and new varieties.
http://homepage3.nifty.com/jgrammar/…s/readkan0.htm – kaňon (漢音), goon (呉音), MSC and Hanja pronunciations output
http://homepage3.nifty.com/jgrammar/…s/zen2hanz.htm – Converts between fullwidth and halfwidth forms.
http://www.physics.ucla.edu/~grosenth/jwpce.html – Japanese word processor, with a built-in IME for kana input and kanji conversion. Also supports dictionaries.
http://ajaxime.chasen.org/ – Online Web-based Japanese Input Method
http://japan.adventuresoftim.com/flash.asp – vocabulary flash cards
http://www.tagaini.net/ – Tagaini Jisho is a free, open-source Japanese dictionary and kanji lookup tool.
http://www.byki.com/ – a flashcard style system, the tool contains set lists of basic phrases for certain situations
http://nihongoup.com/ – Japanese educational game and reviewing tool (kana, JLPT kanji, vocabulary and particles)

About Japanese:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_language – Wikipedia’s general account of the Japanese language.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_verb_conjugations – Comprehensive tables for Japanese verb conjugations.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_phonology – Basic topics of Japanese phonology.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_grammar – An account of Japanese grammar with emphasis on morphology.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_particle – particles galore
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_honorifics – Japanese honorifics
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanes…ntracted_words – Japanese abbreviated and contracted words
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_sound_symbolism – Japanese sound symbolism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanes…raphic_symbols – typographic symbols
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_punctuation – punctuation marks
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_…poken_Japanese – gender differences in Japanese
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_counter_word – list of Japanese counters and phonological alterations
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_verb – conjugation paradigms of verbs and adjectives
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kambun – Kambun is the traditional conventions for translating Classical Chinese texts.
http://users.tmok.com/~tumble/qadgtj.html – Titled “A quick and dirty guide to Japanese”.
http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/kanaqadgtj.html – The quick and dirty guide to Japanese. (kana version)
http://www.alljapaneseallthetime.com/blog/ – Blog, lessons and method of learning Japanese
http://www-personal.umich.edu/%7Ewey…nime/japanese/ – tips for common but difficult expressions
http://www.kanji.org/kanji/japanese/writing/outline.htm – Outline of the Japanese Writing System
http://kimallen.sheepdogdesign.net/Japanese/index.html – fundamental differences of Japanese from European languages
http://www.classical-japanese.net/ – Translations and grammar for Classical Japanese
http://nihon5ch.net/contents/ch5/dai…08-3-part2.pdf – list of transitive and intransitive verb pairs: PDF file
http://www.guidetojapanese.org/conditional.html – concise article on Japanese conditionals
http://www.cic.sfu.ca/tqj/GettingRig…conundrum.html – an essay on different systems for Latin transcription
http://homepage3.nifty.com/park/aspect.htm – A Study of “V-te iru” in Japanese by Taeko Tomioka

Links:
http://www.cs.ucl.ac.uk/staff/m.rowley/resources.html – Melita Rowley’s Japanese learning resources.
http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/japanese.html – Once again Jim Breen’s. This time his Japanese related web page. Ugly, but every link in that page is worth gold.

Corpora:
http://kokkai.ndl.go.jp/ – searchable record of proceedings of the Diet
http://teikokugikai-i.ndl.go.jp/ – searchable record of proceedings of the Imperial Parliament

Tokyo Weekender Magazine

admin — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 15:17:03 +0000

For those of you interested in Tokyo and possibly planning a trip here you should check out Tokyo Weekender Magazine.

What is it?

It’s a lifestyle magazine and website aimed at the foreign community living in Tokyo. It covers various topics including fashion, parties, events, products and a lot more. It was traditionally aimed at the expats but the website might have an appeal to a global audience who are interested in what’s happening in Tokyo.

When did it start?

It started in 1970 back in the days before the internet, twitter and even the Sony Walkman. A lot has changed since then and with the recent updates to the website it could morph into something quite different. After the 40th Anniversary watershed there is even talk of video and audio podcasts but we’ll have to wait and see.

Blogs

One really good recent feature is the inclusion of blogs written by the editorial staff. They cover different aspects of life in Japan and are updated regularly. They include:

Tokyo Designed: A blog on cool design from Tokyo and looking for interesting new products around the metroplis

Tokyo Foodspotting: This is a great little blog with information on random culinary discoveries made in Tokyo.

Tokyo In Heels: Not all blogs on Tokyo are written by nerdy men who collect plastic dolls. This is a great blog on fashion for women in Tokyo. Check it out ladies.

Some useful Links

The Tokyo Weekender Website

The 40th Anniversary Issue

The Tokyo Weekender Facebook Group

Climbing Mount Fuji

admin — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 05:49:05 +0000

iPod Video Download

Subscribe via iTunes

Last August I hung out at the Solar Cafe. It is part of the Earth Embassy, an organic farm and learning center for sustainable living located in Yamanashi prefecture. I was helping my friend Jake out on the farm as part of my attempt to escape the madness of Tokyo and relax over the summer holidays.

During my stay I met Hugo and Adam who climbed Mount Fuji. I shot this interview with them and asked them about their experiences. They also give some good advice about climbing Mount Fuji, what to do and what to avoid. I think the moral of the story is be prepared and don’t underestimate Fuji, it can be more challenging that you think.

Map of the video

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Japan Links And Resources

admin — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 06:12:54 +0000

[table id=16 /] Related posts:Japanese Language Learning Links and Resources Japan Website Links Health Insurance and Visa Renewal in Japan Related posts:

J-Slang 10: Donbiki

admin — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 23:44:36 +0000

Today’s J-Slang is…

[podcast]http://media.libsyn.com/media/japanese/jslang10.mp3[/podcast]

ドン引き

donbiki = to creep people out, to make people feel awkward or turned off

彼が痴漢で逮捕されたんだって。どんびきだよね。

kare ga chikan de taihou saretan datte. donbiki da yo ne.

They say he was arrested for molesting women. That’s so creepy. (It leaves me cold)

Donbiki is a phrase that refers to when people get creeped out or turned off by something. It’s used when something happens or someone says something that makes people feel uncomfortable and don’t know how to react.

彼が寒い冗談を言ったら皆がドン引きされていた。

kare ga samui joudan wo ittara mina ga donbiki sareteita.

When he told that terrible joke everyone was left cold.

Fun Friday: Japanese Language Proficiency Test

admin — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 15:00:51 +0000

[podcast]http://media.libsyn.com/media/japanese/ff091211.mp3[/podcast]

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Today, Karamoon and myself sat around in Yoyogi park watching Japan enjoy it’s Friday afternoon. Karamoon explained the latest developments as well as the basics of the Japanese Language Proficiency Test. Listen to the podcast to find out more about the test.