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So I haven’t written on language learning in a while. That doesn’t mean I’ve been doing nothing. In fact, I’ve been extremely focused. I put a halt on my SRS sentences. I put down the novel I was reading. I took a break from transcribing Fight Club. I stopped […]

Warning: This post may not be suitable for adults.
Today’s Word Of The Day is うんち (unchi). That’s Japanese for poop.
Last weekend, my wife and I went to the Confectionary Exposition in Himeji, and on the way back to the car we saw this sign:

Here is what the sign says:
Everybody come and play! Come […]

Today (May 5th) is Children’s Day in Japan, and that means today’s Word of the Day is 鯉幟 (koinobori). 鯉 (koi) means “carp” and 幟 (nobori) means something like “flag”, so 鯉幟 (koinobori) translates into English as “carp streamer“.

Japanese families (who have boys) put these carp streamers up to celebrate boys. 　My wife and […]

In the summer of last year, my wife told me (in Japanese) “We need to buy a magic bottle.”
“A what?”
“A magic bottle.”
“What on earth is a magic bottle? and why do we need to buy one?”
Magic Bottle
The word in question here is 魔法瓶 (mahou-bin). The first part 魔法 (mahou) means “magic”, as in […]

My wife and I went to see cherry blossoms at Himeji castle today. On the way back we ran across this awesome sign:

What a welcoming sign! The Japanese reads お急ぎの方ご利用下さい (o-isogi no kata go-riyou kudasai), which is hilarious in Japanese but translates a little awkwardly to something like “People in a hurry, please […]

I took a two week vacation to the States and I’m back now.   My infant son got to meet his paternal grandparents, uncles, aunts and cousins for the first time.   Good times had by all.
I didn’t do any language study during my vacation, so I came home to a lot of due cards on Anki.  […]

In the past 8 months or so I have made big changes to the way I study Japanese and it has paid off big-time. I’m still evolving how I study to maximize my learning while staying interested and I thought I’d post a little update on my current study habits.
The biggest change is that […]

Do you know which months have 30 days and which ones have 31? I don’t. At least not off the top of my head. If I need to know how many days are in a month, and there isn’t a calendar around, I use the knuckle-counting method. It’s not as fast […]

Chapter 5 of Fight Club is another scene from the testicular cancer support group. At the start of the scene Thomas, one of the members, is telling the group how his ex-wife had her first child (with her new husband). In English, we usually say that a woman “has” a baby and that […]

I mentioned a few days ago that I finished my first Japanese manga, Doraemon. Normally when I read something in Japanese, I input some sentences into my SRS. I didn’t do this with Doraemon. I was 500+ cards behind in my SRS and I wasn’t ready for more. Well, now my […]