I have always loved reading as far as I can remember. As I kept asking, “What’s written here?” and “What’s written there?”, my grandfather decided to teach me how to read way before I entered elementary school. As a result, I was able to read what I wanted before I was five years old. It…
Manabu Goto: Improve Your Japanese with Japan’s Senior Citizens
“All we have is the knowledge passed on to us by our elders, experiences we inculcate and hardly negate. But to bridge the generation gap, one needs to adapt to the new while retaining the goodness of the old.” This quote from Indian actress Sonali Bendre best represents my conversation with Manabu Goto, founder, and…
Top Japanese Names in 2021: What Are New Parents Naming Their Children?
So much can go into picking the right name for a child. You may think of choosing a name inherited from a cherished family member or friend, a name that represents an admirable characteristic, or a name that simply sounds nice. In Japan, people consider these factors as well as the kanji used to represent…
Is Willpower Now the Most Important Trait for Achieving Japanese Literacy?
When I moved to Tokyo in 2009, learning Japanese was an entirely different experience than what we know today. Electronic dictionaries were more common than smartphone apps. Digital flashcards had yet to go mainstream, so tangible ones, homemade or prepackaged, were the primary way to learn kanji characters. Before the prevalence of handwriting recognition and…
Seeing Kanji as Color: Japanese in the Mind of a Synesthete
My mind is perhaps more colorful than yours–and I mean that in an objective sense. I have synesthesia, a condition in which one sense is stimulated automatically with another. These can come in all sorts of interesting jumbles: for me, I see color in the back of my mind with words and music, but I…
Conduct a Personal SWOT Analysis to Study Japanese More Efficiently
Long-time Kokoro Media readers know that I like to apply various frameworks to the process of studying Japanese. I especially enjoy importing concepts from the business world to do this, and in this article, I’ll explain how you can apply the SWOT framework to your Japanese studies. Read on to learn what a SWOT analysis…
How to Lower the Language Barrier When Visiting Clinics and Hospitals in Japan
As a wannabe athlete, my mind often has greater physical fitness ambitions than my body can handle. This means that I find myself visiting medical professionals in Japan more often than one might expect. Having to explain basic symptoms in Japanese usually isn’t an issue. However, more complex maladies, such as nebulous “overuse” injuries, require…
3 Video Games That Can Actually Help You Learn Japanese
Ever since I started studying Japanese over a decade ago, I often heard that playing video games in Japanese was an effective way to study the language. As appealing as that sounded, this advice rarely worked for me because: The language and narratives in the games I enjoyed were always too complicated for my Japanese…
How to Use the Eisenhower Matrix to Efficiently Study Japanese
Dwight D. Eisenhower, the 34th President of the United States, was a paragon of productivity. According to the Eisenhower Presidential Library, his two terms in office (1953 to 1961) were filled with accomplishments that shaped the U.S. and the world. Highlights include signing the 1957 Civil Rights Act, authorizing the development of the Interstate Highway…
How to Choose the Right Digital Flashcard App for Studying Japanese
Digital flashcard applications are a popular and effective way to study Japanese kanji and vocabulary. However, not all flashcard applications are created equal. Reviewing flashcards in a random or sequential order is not the most effective way to learn. You need an application that can leverage the power of spaced repetition to quiz you on…