Japanese

It’s often been noted that book learning does not always translate into real-world skills. However language immersion alone doesn’t work for most people. If so, how do you start from zero and progress to fluency? The best tactic is to get a mix of both defined learning and contextual practice. The overall benefits Japanese tutoring …

How Japanese Tutoring Leads to Fluency Read More

You may have heard that Japanese is among the hardest languages to learn if you’re coming from an English speaking background. In fact, the US Department of State places Japanese in the “super-hard languages” category. Hearing that, you might be wondering if it would even be worth it to start learning Japanese. However, there are …

Is Japanese Hard to Learn? Really…? Read More

Sometimes when learning a language, you can feel like you’ve hit a wall. It’s incredibly frustrating when you feel like you can’t make progress. Fortunately, there are things you can try to do to overcome this situation. There are various reasons you may feel like you’re in a rut. Your strategy for getting out of …

Feeling Stuck In Learning Japanese? 8 Ways to Escape Your Language Rut Read More

So, you’ve decided that you want to learn Japanese. At this point, you have probably heard about the Japanese basics that await you: multiple alphabets, a different grammar structure, and unfamiliar pronunciation. These are difficult to tackle on your own.  Lessons with a Japanese tutor are a proven way to get started on the right …

What to Expect at Your First Japanese Lesson Read More

If you want to start learning Japanese, or have already started and want to know what tools are out there to help you get to the next level, you’ve come to the right place! These resources are organized into categories based on essential aspects of the Japanese language – aspects such as grammar, pronunciation, listening, …

A Huge List of Japanese Language Resources Read More

There are dozens upon dozens of languages out there that you might learn. Duolingo alone offers forty different language courses. When faced with so many options, you may be asking yourself: which language should I learn? While all languages have their merits and their advantages, here are five reasons why Japanese should be your choice.  …

5 Reasons Why Japanese Should Be the Next Language You Learn Read More

Even if you are only just now looking into how to learn Japanese, I guarantee you that you already know some Japanese words. Have you done karaoke with your friends? Have you added tōfu to your vegetarian dinner? Is your child learning karate? All of these words and more have been adopted into English as …

Gairaigo & Wasei Eigo: Understanding Japanese Loanwords Read More

Formal and casual situations often call for different ways of speaking. While in English we may change the words and phrases we use in formal vs. casual situations, Japanese has rules to define formal and casual modes of speech.  When people learn that there are different modes of Japanese they often have some questions. What …

Formal vs Informal Speech in Japanese Read More

It’s relatively simple to memorize a list of vocabulary words, but can be much more difficult to actually use those words in sentences. However, in order to “know a language”, creating and understanding sentences are vital skills. You cannot have conversations or follow a narrative without them. Japanese sentence structure is quite different from that …

An Easy to Understand Guide to Word Order in Japanese Read More

So, you’ve learned both sets of kana (hiragana and katakana) and gotten the basics of the Japanese writing systems down. Now what? The infamous kanji come next in how to read Japanese. Yes, the characters that look like Chinese at first glance rather than Japanese.  While there are several thousand characters (hold on, stay with …

Kanji, Explained Read More