Most people know that geisha, kimono and haiku are Japanese words, but did you know that typhoon, tsunami and tofu are also Japanese words? Here are a few other Japanese words we hear in our everyday lives: shiitake, karate, karaoke and Pokemon. Let’s have a look at the meanings of these words.
Japanese is called an agglutinating language because new expressions can be made by connecting existing language elements together. Japanese is written using kanji and each kanji represents one or more ideas. Thus Japanese nouns are often created by putting two or more kanji together and the new word’s meaning is related to the combination of these meanings.
Tsunami for example is written with the kanji for harbor and waves, tsu and nami since in the past the waves arrived without warning and did most damage in harbors.
Another natural force, the typhoon, is also made with two kanji. This is pronounced taifuu in Japanese and is written with kanji for tai and fuu. The first kanji means standing and the second means wind. Despite having high wind speeds, typhoons travel quite slowly so the meaning can be imagined from the combined elements – a typhoon is a wind that seems to stands in one place for a long time.
Typhoons can be very destructive and every year thousands of trees are toppled by them. It’s not all bad news though because typhoons can lead to fresh, wild shiitake mushrooms! In the wild, shiitake mushrooms are generally found on the decaying trunks of fallen Japanese oaks. Shii-take literally means oak-mushroom. Take means mushroom and shi is a type of Japanese tree related to oak trees.
Here’s another food from decay – tofu. Tofu breaks down into tou-fu meaning beans-rot. It might not sound appetising but tofu is actually soured soy-bean milk so “bean rot” is a pretty accurate description.
Tofu can be part of a healthy lifestyle and doing karate can really improve your fitness too. As a pure martial art, karate has the meaning of empty-hand. “Kara” means empty and “te” means hand.
The kara in karaoke also means empty but “oke” is a Japanese abbreviation of “orchestra”. So karaoke means empty-orchestra. It might seem a strange name to English speakers but the idea seems to fit – an orchestra without humans.
Pokemon is our last example. Foreign words are often absorbed into the Japanese language and reused in strange and unfamiliar ways, like the word orchestra in karaoke. Pokemon comes from POcKEt-MONster.
I hope this article has helped you make a little more sense of Japanese words and made learning Japanese seem a little less monstrous!
By: James Penman
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Filed under Reference And Education by on Nov 20th, 2010. 
Are you looking for the answer to the question “what is the best way to learn Japanese”? If so, keep reading, because you are in the right place. In this article I’m going to help you! Here are three tips that will help you learn Japanese in the best way possible.
1. Language classes and handbooks don’t work
If you are looking for the best way to learn a language, then don’t take classes and don’t learn from a handbook. Really, these are the least effective methods to learn a new language. If you want to learn quickly, then learn on your own. It’s way cheaper and multiple times more effective.
2. Have fun
The best way to learn something is to have fun while doing it. Have fun with Japanese: read manga, watch anime, speak with native Japanese speakers, watch Japanese movies. All of these methods are very fun and that’s why they are very effective.
3. Travel or move to Japan
Okay, this is the most effective way to learn a language. If you live in a place in which your target language is spoken, then you have dozens of opportunities every day to learn and practice your target language. If you really want to learn Japanese and if you can travel or move to Japan, then do it. Make Japanese friends and practice on a daily basis!
These three tips will greatly help you learn Japanese. All you need to do is to take action and put them to use. Don’t forget that the best way to learn Japanese is to immerse yourself on a daily basis. You should spend most of your time using your new language, not studying it. Good luck and have fun!
By: John Doey
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Visit Language Learning Tips and sign up right now to get your FREE e-book and FREE lessons on learning languages quickly and effectively and learn Japanese even in a year or two.
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Filed under Reference And Education by on Nov 19th, 2010.
The following article includes pertinent information that may cause you to reconsider what you thought you understood about learning Japanese. The most important thing is to study with an open mind and always be willing to revise your study methods to improve your understanding of the language if necessary.
It seems like new or newly renovated information is discovered about something every day. The topic of Japanese language is no exception.
If you are a speaker of English, or any other European language, you will find that Japanese is somewhat different, some considering this different language an impossible language to learn and although this may seem so for the beginner, I can assure you that it is more than possible. It just takes time… and effort.
If you are thinking of studying this language you will find that you will have a huge advantage right from the word go. This advantage comes from the long lived obsession that the Japanese people have with English. Many foreign words, the majority of them of English origin are in use in Japan. They are used commonly everyday and have become a part of everyday Japanese language. However, the problem that a learner of Japanese commonly faces is the inability to understand these words when they are heard. That is because these words are often corrupted to the point where they are no longer recognizable by a native speaker of English. This corruption is not limited to just foreign words and you will soon see that the Japanese like to shorten any words that are long, even their own names.
Foreign words being used in Japan can be learned really easily and quickly. Quicker than anyone would have thought. That just leaves the learner with the task of learning an extra few thousand words to increase their Japanese vocabulary.
Here are a few examples of some English words that have been shortened. They are common words and are used daily in Japan.
The word ‘building’ has been shortened to ‘biru’ – pronounced like the name Bill. It is most commonly used in conversation, but it is not commonly used in literature. The Japanese word ‘tatemono’ is preferred.
Another example are the word(s) ‘ballpoint pen’. These words have been shortened and are now known as ‘boru pen’. If you were to ask a Japanese person for a Ballpoint Pen, many of them would not know what you were asking for. This is a good example of the corruption of English words. Young Japanese people do not even know that the word was once English.
By: Lucas Uren
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Filed under Reference And Education by on Nov 19th, 2010.
Are you one those want to learn to speak and write in Japanese? Or is it more important than that, do you need to learn to speak and write in Japanese? In this ever changing global economic world by learning to speak Japanese could be one of the best career moves you could make. By learning to speak Japanese it can be a good first step in learning other Asian languages especially Chinese and Korean.
The Japanese language and several other Southeast Asian languages are a very analytical language system and is strongly dependent on the function words instead of using extensive tone to show the linguistic properties.
Now if you wish to learn Japanese easy and quickly, you can use several methods or a combination of more than a few techniques that will be mentioned. To start off, you can try to make use of audio tapes; books, CDs, pictures for word association, online games intended to teach Japanese, flash cards and so on. You may also download some Learning Japanese Software which is interactive in nature as well as being audio base.
You can also expect to learn to speak and write in Japanese through these software programs because it normally offers audio lessons that are MP3 and iPod compatible. This means that you can bring your lessons anywhere you go. Software programs also include conversation practices; games, listening comprehension exercises, culture lessons, progress tracking, online quizzes and vocabulary.
Aside from that, other ways to learn to write and speak the Japanese language, especially for beginners, would be to study the three types of scripts in Japanese. These would include katakana, kanji and hiragana. In addition, you can learn the combination of all three when used in writing. Katakana when applied is meant to mean words of foreign origin; names of foreign places and foreign names. When using Kanji it is setting blocks of meaning which includes verbs, stems of adjectives, and nouns in contrast to Hiragana which shows grammatical relationships ending in adjectives, verbs, and particles.
You need to know the fundamental basics when you are trying to learn the Japanese language; vocabulary relating to the Japanese education system as well as the characteristics of Japanese grammar. With the latter, you need to study the nouns and verbs in addition to knowing how they pertain to gender and numbers.
Note that in order to successfully learn Japanese, both orally and in its written form, you would also need to study the word order in Japanese sentences. Apart from that, always practice Japanese greetings as well as useful expressions which are used during daily interactions. These would generally include “thank you,” “pardon me,” “I’m sorry” and “excuse me.”
If you are a beginner, you should also focus on Japanese lessons geared towards learning the basics of first introductions wherein you need to learn how to address others when you first meet them. After practicing all of these lessons, the next phase is an easy step when you are learning the Japanese language.
By: Daniel L Lowe
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Read more on Effective Ways to Learn To Speak and Write Japanese…
Filed under Reference And Education by on Nov 17th, 2010.
Are you looking for some tips on how to learn Japanese quickly? If so, keep reading, because you are in the right place. In this article I’m going to show you three tips that will greatly help you learn Japanese quickly. Here they are!
1. Stop wasting time and make learning a priority
I don’t believe people who say that they don’t have time. The problem isn’t the lack of time, the problem is the lack of priorities. What do you want to do: learn Japanese quickly or watch TV for a few hours? Stop wasting your time and develop a habit to learn and practice Japanese for a few hours daily.
2. Interact with native speakers
The best way to learn a language quickly is to move to a place in which your target language is spoken. If you can’t do it, then you should interact with native Japanese speakers in your city. If there are no Japanese speakers, then look for them online and speak with them on Skype.
3. Immerse yourself
Live through Japanese on a daily basis. Many people believe that they can learn a language without immersing themselves in it. They are wrong. It’s impossible to become a fluent speaker quickly if you are only learning in a class. Immerse yourself in Japanese: watch movies, listen to music, read books.
That’s it – three tips on how to learn Japanese quickly. Note that it doesn’t mean that you can learn Japanese overnight or in a few weeks. It will probably take you a few years to become fluent, but it all depends on you. If you put these tips to use and practice daily for a few hours, you can become fluent even in a year or two. Good luck!
By: John Doey
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Visit Language Learning Tips and sign up right now to get your FREE e-book and FREE lessons on learning languages quickly and effectively and learn Japanese even in a year or two.
Filed under Reference And Education by on Nov 17th, 2010.
There are a series of actions that need to be performed before being able to speak any language proficiently and finding the best course of action to take can sometimes be very unclear. It will become clearer once you can sit down and make a list of all of your alternatives. Then you must ponder over your list and consider your alternatives.
If your ‘learn Japanese facts’ are out of date, how will that affect your actions and decisions? You want to learn Japanese fast right? Make certain you don’t let the important facts about how to learn Japanese slip by you.
Japan is one of the worlds power houses, economically driven and wealthy to boot. It is a beautiful country and culturally defined and it is natural for anyone to want to take the time to learn Japanese as a second language.
If you take the time to learn this amazing language the opportunities are endless. There can be huge rewards for any person that can speak Japanese fluently and such individuals can get high paying jobs with Japanese corporations like Sony, Toyota, Mitsubishi, and more… There are too many to mention here.
There are many things that a learner of Japanese needs to know about the Japanese language, here are some of the things that I have learned.
Japanese is a phonetic language. The phonetic alphabet can be learned in just a matter of days and provides the foundation of all that comes there after. Japanese people are obsessed with English and have incorporated many English words into their language. Many of which are used or can be heard daily. This makes it a whole lot easier for a student of Japanese to increase their vocabulary exponentially. Japanese can be mastered in as little as two years. Provided that the student is willing to put in the effort.
In time, as you learn to remember and speak Japanese, you will learn many useful facts about their unique culture and why it is so diverse. Their history is also very unique and it is pretty long, too. Not as long as China’s history, but it comes close. An understanding of Japan’s history and how their language was created will give you a better understanding of the Japan of today.
By: Lucas Uren
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Filed under Reference And Education by on Nov 17th, 2010.
Getting straight to the facts – Learning a second language is not considered easy. You can still learn a second language fast online, though. There are many options available, one of them is to go to university and study Japanese as a whole. That is not a valid option for many of us, especially if you have already seen the best part of your learning days come and go.
The next best option is to learn Japanese online via one of the many Japanese education programs. They are easily found!
Why do you want to speak Japanese?
I wanted to learn Japanese because I wanted to visit this amazing country. That was 13 long years ago. I did visit Japan, too. I went there in 1998…. and guess what? I am still here. I can speak Japanese, too. However for me that was not so much a result of my own efforts, but simply a result of living in Japan, hearing, seeing, smelling and living the language everyday for the past 13 years.
The good news for you is that you can learn Japanese in a lighthearted way. There is a program called Rocket Japanese that is doing just that – teaching Japanese in a lighthearted way.
Their whole system is designed to be fun, interactive and above all effective. They will teach you to not only speak Japanese, but to understand it in a genuinely contextual manner.
Rocket Japanese is utilizing breakthrough learning techniques to take the complete beginner through a series of 31 sequential lessons that are designed to do none other than get the student speaking Japanese. It includes audio lessons, games, quizzes, and one on one tutoring and is truly dynamic.
They are even offering a full money back guarantee to all users. If within eight days you are not able to speak Japanese (use what you have learned) they will refund your money in full.
So if you really want to kick start your Japanese, consider studying with the Rocket Japanese language program.
A little known Japanese fact – The Japanese language is considered to be one of the most difficult languages in the world to learn. Fortunately for anyone that can speak English, the Japanese people have made it very easy to learn Japanese fast. This comes from the English obsession that Japanese people have and it works in your favor.
By: Lucas Uren
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Filed under Reference And Education by on Nov 17th, 2010.
The Japanese Keigo is how Japanese people politely speak with people in other classes of Japanese society. Keigo, in a broad sense, means “polite language”, and is usually referred to in English as “honorifics”. Knowing a little bit about Japanese keigo can impress your Japanese teacher or friends, and is essential to being polite the right way in Japan.
In Japan, there are sharply divided social classes. The basic idea of Japanese keigo is that people should speak with each other differently, based on whom they’re talking to. For instance, a Japanese college student would address his/her professor in an especially respectful way, whereas the professor wouldn’t have to be as formally polite when talking to the student.
There are two basic types of keigo: one is for referring to others politely, and the other is referring to “you and yours” in a humble way. As strange as it seems, you try to “degrade” yourself while putting others on a pedestal.
General times to use the polite kind of honorifics are when addressing a boss at work, a professor or teacher, or someone who is older than you. If you are talking to these people and referring to yourself or people associated with you, you should use the humble honorifics.
Many times, using Japanese keigo is just a matter of slightly changing around normal Japanese verbs into either a more respectful or more humble form. But with a few really commonly used verbs, there are completely different keigo versions that you pretty much just have to memorize.
For all you Japanese speakers out there, an example of changing around a normal verb into a polite keigo is this: you have the verb suwaru (to sit), and to make it keigo, you would say o-suwari ni narimasu.
On the other hand, the polite keigo version of a really common verb like taberu (to eat) is meshi agarimasu. And it’s the same with humble keigo, too; there is a way to change the normal Japanese verbs, as well as a handful to memorize.
But it goes a step beyond that. In English, there is basically one way to refer to somebody’s son, for example. It’s just “my son” or “your son”. In Japanese keigo, you refer to your own son in a humble way, but you refer to someone else’s son in a more respectful way.
There’s a lot to learn about Japanese keigo, and it’s strange to think that you’re supposed to speak about yourself degradingly, but if you take the time to pick up the basics, you’ll get more respect than you can handle.
By: Philip Rozek
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Filed under Reference And Education by on Nov 16th, 2010.
When you ask somebody what are the top languages that they would love to learn, one of the most common always happens to be Japanese. When you ask them what they are waiting for, they will probably tell you that it is too hard for them to learn. Is it possible to learn Japanese easily? Of course! Just follow a couple of these pointers and see for yourself.
The different alphabets that you get with Japanese and all the different sounds that you will have to make, remove any ideas that Japanese is like English. So why treat it as though it was English? Stop looking for similarities. Things like grammatical gender or number make learning a new language difficult. You will thus be happy to learn that Japanese does not have these and you can go ahead and relax.
Any language that you pick to learn can be difficult. The grade of the difficulty however will all depend on the way that you approach learning the language. Considering that Japanese has different alphabets, cramming them is not the best approach to learning them. The simplest method you should apply is to relate each of them to different images. You can also even make up stories for the different words and characters.
One other thing that goes for Japanese and everything else that you need to achieve perfection in is practice. Always repeat what you learn and speak it out loud with repetition system software like Anki. This is one of the only ways that you can be sure you are going to master the Japanese vocabulary. Make sure that you keep at it and don’t give up to easy because a lot have given up just when they were about to ***** it wide open. Use these tips and you will come to see that learning Japanese is more than within reach.
By: Jackie Reyno
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Filed under Reference And Education by on Nov 15th, 2010.
There are so many people out there who would agree if asked that Japanese is one of the languages that they would really love to learn. A majority of them however are not doing it because they believe that it is almost impossible to learn Japanese. Need to learn Japanese easily? Here are a few pointers to show you how.
There is practically no similarity between English and Japanese so you better stop looking for it. They are absolutely different alphabets and pronunciations that may even come across as weird to you.
This does not mean that the language has to be any harder than English. As a matter of fact, there are things like grammatical gender or number that Japanese does not have that make languages difficult to learn.
Learning a new alphabet will always be a challenge to anybody but with the right techniques and the 3 following rules, you will be well on your way to mastering the Japanese language.
The first thing that you have to do is believe that you will be able to learn Japanese and it will not be as difficult as everybody believes it to be. It all lies within you how the journey to mastering the language will be. If you have already decided to take a defeatist approach to it then that’s just what will happen; you will be defeated in your endeavors. Believe you can do it then go for it!
The best way to learn Japanese and many other languages is to associate their alphabets with different images that will help you remember them. You can even associate them with stories.
The next rule which is one of the golden ones as well is repetition. Repetition is the only way that you are going to learn the language and have it stick in your head.
Take the right approach and you will find that learning Japanese can be as easy as a b c.
By: Jake Langston
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Filed under Reference And Education by on Nov 14th, 2010.