If you’re learning Japanese, odds are you have considered working in translation. After all, there were 45 Japanese companies on the Forbes Fortune 500 list as of 2022, and many of them–and their suppliers, clients, and other stakeholders–need bilingual employees! So what’s it like working at a Japanese company as a translator? I’ll share with…
Learning Japanese Helped Me Learn 5 Other Languages. Here’s How.
Many people are surprised when I tell them that I know six languages: English, Japanese, Spanish, Mandarin Chinese, Bengali, and Swahili. (I’m also working on my seventh, Korean.) This is especially so since none of my languages are in the same language family (like Spanish, French, and Italian would be). Plus, they’re some of the…
The Most Common Counters – How to Count in Japanese, Part 2
In a previous article, we learned how to do basic counting and introduced the concept of “counters.” Remember that counters are like what differentiates a “piece” of cake from a “whole” cake in English, and Japanese has a lot of them. I also introduced the general counter ending in -つ (-tsu) in the previous article….
How to Find the Best Flights to Japan: Google Flights, Skyscanner, or Kayak?
If you are looking to travel in Japan, you have many options for finding the best deals. This of course applies to flying to Japan from another country and flying between cities in Japan. Google Flights, Skyscanner, and Kayak are three of the most popular search engines for flights, and I have used all of…
Shunga: Ancient Japanese Pornography, or Something Else?
Today I’m going to talk about shunga, or Japanese erotic art, with hundreds of years of history. Now, before I begin, bear in mind the nature of this highly sexual topic. By modern Western standards, this content might not be safe for work or family-friendly, although any explicit images I’ll link and tag with “[click…
Is Duolingo Good for Learning Japanese? Yes and No.
Duolingo is probably one of the most popular language-learning apps out there. It’s definitely a wonderful app, and I mostly used it for learning Swahili before I went to work in Tanzania. I had actually never used it much for Japanese before, since initially the course was aimed at beginners. However, I was surprised when…
How to Stay with a Japanese Host Family
If you’re going to Japan for study or travel, you may want to consider staying with a Japanese host family. Staying with a host family can be a wonderfully immersive way to learn more about Japanese culture and share your own. However, it might not be for everyone. Having lived with three host families before,…
The 2 Anki Add-ons All Japanese Learners Should Use
We at Kokoro Media have written about Anki quite a bit. It is one of the most popular spaced-repetition flashcard apps out there and practically made for learning Japanese. (Even the name comes from Japanese: 暗記 anki means “memorize”!) Anki is the only flashcard app I have used extensively and stuck with. One of the…
Tokyo Not for You? Try a Smaller Metropolis
I’ve lived in three different cities in Japan, and to be honest with you, Tokyo has been by far my least favorite. Do I think Tokyo is a bad city? Of course not. However, I do think it has a conditionality to enjoy it–more on this later. On the other hand, I have enjoyed more…
The Best Online Dictionaries for Japanese Learners
Whether you are a new learner of the Japanese language or already at an advanced level, a good dictionary (or dictionaries) is a must! We have come a long way from paper dictionaries and portable electronic dictionaries. Now, many of us use dictionaries online, on our web browsers, e-reader and tablets, Nintendo DS, or computer…