What is the best way to learn Japanese? “Focus on what works best for you,” says Matt, creator of the Game Gengo YouTube channel. And when Matt says this, he means it. In the spring of 2020, armed with the fervent belief that language learning can and should be fun, Matt leveraged pandemic-induced downtime to…
Voice of Cards: One of the Best Video Games to Help You Learn Japanese
If you’ve ever attempted to play your favorite video games in Japanese, you know how frustrating the experience can be. Massive 60-hour role-playing epics from the Final Fantasy series can obliterate your motivation once you realize just how long it would take to get through them in Japanese. Other games may be simpler, but they…
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…
International Entrepreneur John Wolff and the Power of Japanese Pop Culture
It’s no secret that Japanese pop culture, especially video games, influenced me from a young age. In fact, my initial college major was computer science, chosen with the goal of creating my own games. Unfortunately, by the time I entered college, the initial era of the self-made game creator was a thing of the past….
Exploring Our Relationships with Japanese Media and Pop Culture
One of my guiding principles in life is to wear my passions on my sleeve. Hobbies, interests, and passions can propel you to amazing places in life and can push you beyond self-imposed limits. In our latest edition of Kokoro Media Unfiltered, we explore the role that Japanese media and pop culture has played in…
Iwata-san: Learning about Life and Leadership in Japanese
One of the things I love about interviewing experts and business leaders is the opportunity to learn while I work. I get to hear their experiences, process their wisdom, and share it with anyone willing to read the final product. While I was working on a recent project, a Japanese startup founder recommended a book…