Mixing It Up With Japanese Wordplay

There are two words in the English language that can stop you dead in your tracks: burn out.
No matter how much you love something, there’s always the risk of doing too much too quickly and getting sick and tired of it. This is especially true when learning a language (like Japanese), which can seem like a daunting task (although really, it’s not).

Photo by Harshad Sharma

Fortunately, there’s a lot you can do to avoid burn out. There’s the obvious strategy of taking some time off, but you always run the risk of not picking it back up again.
Probably the best way to deal with the ever-looming threat of burn out is to mix it up a bit. Instead of slaving over the same workbooks and grammar dictionaries, try looking at Japanese from a different perspective.
One way to use Japanese but not worry about if you’re getting the grammar and keigo right is wordplay. It’s fun, lighthearted, and a great way to use Japanese without killing yourself over it.
And in terms of variety, there are lots of different kinds of Japanese wordplay that will get you back in the swing of things.

Palindromes

Palindromes are words or phrases that are read the same from front to back; “race car” is a very simple palindrome, but there’s also the classic example of “A man, a plan, a canal: Panama.” They’re the kind of things you learn about as a kid and have fun with for a time, but don’t really use much.
After reading Lisa Katayama’s post about 70^s seaweed commercials, I realized that I hadn’t really thought about palindromes in Japanese.
The seaweed commercials came from a company called Yamamotoyama (山本山), a name that’s read the same forwards and backwards, up and down. After hearing the name read from front to back and in reverse, making it almost impossible to get “Yamamotoyama” out of your head.
In Japanese, palindromes are called kaibun (回文). They can be a little bit tricky for English speakers because Japanese uses characters, not letters; so Yamamotoyama might not look like it’s a palindrome (after all, isn’t Yamamotoyama backwards “Amayotomamay?”), but it makes more sense in Japanese.

Photo by Patrick Brosset

But single words like Yamamotoyama are child’s play when it comes to kaibun; after all, kaibun literally means “circular sentence.” Take a look at some examples of kaibun (taken from this site):

Japanese	Romaji	English
私の皺	Watashi no shiwa	My wrinkles
夏まで待つな	Natsu made matsuna	Don’t wait till summer
食いに行く	Kui ni iku	Go to eat
留守に何する	Rusu ni nani suru	What will you do when I’m out?
安い椅子屋	Yasui isu ya	Cheap chair shop
竹薮焼け爛	Takeyabu taketa	The bamboo grove burned
塀のあるあの家	Hei no aru ano ie	That house with a fence

Babigo

Everybody had fun using Pig Latin (or Ubbi Dubbi) as a secret code as a kid, but it turns out that the Japanese also have a language game that mixes up letters and words to confuse the hell out of everybody.
It’s called babigo, and the premise is surprisingly straight forward: after every character, you say ba, bi, bu, be, or bo depending on what the vowel was.

Photo by Andrei Niemimäki

For example, “sushi” becomes “subushibi,” and “origami” becomes “oboribigabamibi.” The basic premise is simple, but it adds up to be really confusing!
You can read my post all about babigo here.

Numbers

Last, but certainly not least, there’s probably little the Japanese love more than some good ol’-fashioned number-based wordplay.
The concept is called goroawase (ごろ合せ), and it’s simple: every number in Japanese can have multiple readings, if you really stretch it. So 4 can be read as yon, shi, foo, or any number of other ways. You can use those multiple readings to make different words out of numbers.

Photo by artnoose

This helps people make up mnemonics to help people remember phone numbers and other important numbers. Even the brand-spankin’-new Tokyo Skytree was built to be a specific height so that the numbers would mean something.
More about goroawase in Koichi’s post from last year, which you can find here.
So if you feel like you’re stuck in a rut with Japanese, give some of this wordplay a try and see if it helps you mix things up a bit!

article source:www.tofugu.com/2012/06/13/mixing-it-up-with-japanese-wordplay/

What’s The Name(s) Of Your Country In Japanese?

Say you go to Japan for the first time, and you’re introducing yourself to some people. You learned how to say your name in Japanese and how old you are, but then you’re asked where you’re from. You freeze and realize that you have no idea how to say your country’s name in Japanese.
A big part of hammering out identity in Japanese is knowing where you’re from. It’s one of those basic, essential pieces of information (like your name and age) that gives people an idea of who you are. And since people won’t necessarily be famililar with the town or city you’re from, it’s best to start with your country and work your way down from there.

The Newer, Easier Way

Fortunately most of the time, it’s pretty to easy to say your country’s name in Japanese, because it’s more or less a straight transliteration, “America” becomes “amerika,” and “Canada” becomes “kanada”. Kinda makes sense, right?
And if you know your Japanese alphabets, then it becomes even easier. Country names (with the exception of a few Asian countries) are all written in katakana, the special Japanese alphabet specifically for foreign words (among other things).
I rounded up the 15 countries (minus Japan) where the most Tofugu readers live to give you an idea what their names look and sound like in Japanese:

Country Names In Katakana

Japanese	Romaji	English
アメリカ	amerika	United States
イギリス	igirisu	United Kingdom
カナダ	kanada	Canada
オーストラリア	oosutoraria	Australia
フィリピン	firipin	Philippines
ドイツ	doitsu	Germany
シンガポール	shingapooru	Singapore
マレーシア	mareeshia	Malaysia
ブラジル	burajiru	Brazil
フランス	furansu	France
オランダ	oranda	Netherlands
インドネシア	indoneshia	Indonesia
インド	indo	India
スウェーデン	suueeden	Sweden
メキシコ	mekishiko	Mexico

Seems simple enough, right? Most of the time, it is. However, you might also see your country’s name in kanji, the complicated Chinese characters used in the Japanese language.

The Older, Harder Way

Why are there two different ways to write the name of a country? The reasons are mostly historical. As Japan was first getting exposure to the world outside of East Asia, it tried to use as much kanji as possible for foreign words, or gairaigo (外来語).
The Japanese did this by writing words out phonetically using kanji. So some older, foreign words like “tobacco” have a kanji reading (煙草).
As time went on, a few things happened: the Japanese got flooded with new words from the outside, and the Japanese language got simpler and more standardized. For those reasons (and more), the Japanese began to write foreign words in katakana. This made them easier to read, and made it very clear that they were foreign words, not Japanese.
Nowadays, it’s preferable to write foreign words (like your name) in katakana, so it’s pretty rare to see country names written in kanji. The nice thing is even when you do see the names of countries written in kanji instead of katakana, they’re pronounced the same way.
Take a look at those same countries, but with their names written in kanji:

Country Names In Kanji

Japanese	Romaji	English
亜米利加	amerika	United States
英吉利	igirisu	United Kingdom
加奈陀	kanada	Canada
豪斯多拉利	oosutoraria	Australia
比律賓	firipin	Philippines
独逸	doitsu	Germany
新嘉坡	shingapooru	Singapore
馬来西亜	mareeshia	Malaysia
伯剌西爾	burajiru	Brazil
仏蘭西	furansu	France
和蘭	oranda	Netherlands
印度尼西亜	indoneshia	Indonesia
印度	indo	India
瑞典	suueeden	Sweden
墨西哥	mekishiko	Mexico

One of the big disadvantages is that while the kanji match the reading of the word, the meanings get really wacky. 亜米利加 reads as amerika, but the meaning is kind of bizarre. Put together, the kanji have a weird combination of meanings, including “rice.” Which, y’know, isn’t exactly what you think of when you think of America.

Photo by Traveller_40

America – land of rice?!

Other countries have weird meanings too. One of the characters in Germany’s kanji name means “alone” (poor, lonely Germany), one of India’s kanji means stamp/seal, and England’s kanji means good luck or congratulations.
Again, not a whole lot to do with what these countries are all about. Like writing your name, this is another instance where you can try and be super cool and use kanji, but it’s much easier and less confusing to use katakana.
Now when you get that oh-so-important question – “Where are you from?” – you won’t be caught with your pants down. Now you just have to navigate the rest of the conversation.
Edit: Some commenters have rightly pointed out that “igirisu” is kind of a strange term. It’s a transliteration of the Portugese word for “England,” but refers to the entire United Kingdom.
Other people have made a good point that the kanji names of countries are still sometimes used in official and formal capacities.
 article source:ww.tofugu.com/2012/06/15/whats-the-names-of-your-country-in-japanese/

Four Kanji One Idiom

For the longest time I’ve run across all kinds of Japanese idioms that follow the same sort of pattern, not even realizing that they were an actual “thing.” They’d be like this:

• Four kanji.
• Meanings of the individual kanji don’t really have much to do with the idiom on a whole.
• Probably comes from some story – in fact, if you don’t know the story it’s hard or impossible to derive their meaning.

While there are other types of idioms in Japanese, idioms like that follow the above pattern are known as yojijukugo (四字熟語), aka “four-character compounds” or “four-character idioms.” What’s interesting to me here are the constraints. You only have four characters to convey what it is you want to say. In fact, these four characters are usually meant to represent an entire story (presumably filled with morals and lessons and other educational things like that). I’ve always thought that constraints like these breed creativity (kind of like the constraints of boxy kei-cars), and I wouldn’t say yojijukugo disappoints.
The thing is, we do this in English too (though the constraints are much looser). Ever heard the idiom “A wolf in sheep’s clothing”? It comes from multiple stories and fables. It doesn’t literally mean a wolf is wearing sheep’s clothing. That would be a smart wolf. No, it’s an idiom representing a story you’re already supposed to know, which then gives you the context and allows you to understand the meaning of the idiom on a whole.

Yojijukugo’s Chinese Origins

Like many things (especially kanji things), the yojijukugo have Chinese roots and origins. The Japanese yojijukugo can be traced back to the Chinese Chengyu, which are essentially the same thing but Chinese. In fact, many of the Yojijukugo idioms just copypasta straight from the Chinese version. There are some slight modifications in the readings to make them more Japanese.
Also like the Chengyu, the yojijukugo characters (the kanji, not characters in a story) often represent individual ideas and morals that are in the story that they come from. This is why it’s often so hard to derive meaning straight from the idiom without knowing the story first; they are kind of like mnemonics that help you to remember the story (and therefor help you to remember a lesson as well). Ancient mnemonics, anyone?
Now the Japanese yojijukugo idioms aren’t all copycats. While many (probably most) of them do come from a Chinese original, there are many Japanese-only yojijukugo as well. These would be things that come from Buddhist scripture, Japanese proverbs, and old Japanese stories. Just like the chengyu, though, you still need the stories to understand the yojijukugo’s meaning.

Some Common Japanese Idioms

The thing is, there are a ton of these. I’ve found counts ranging from 5,000 to over 20,000. That’s obviously way too many to learn. Here is a database of 3,400 of them (still too many), though if you scroll through you’ll see that the most useful ones are marked with a ##. Still, this only narrows the list down to around 400 “useful” yojijukugo, and that’s too much all in one sitting.
Instead, I found a list of presumably some of the most common and liked ones. This way if you have an itch to learn them you can start with the ones that will get you the most mileage first, then only after that learn the other 19,980 (I’m sure there’s an idiom for how you’d feel if you had to learn all of these… maybe 四面楚歌?).

一期一会いちごいちえ – “Once In A Lifetime Opportunity”

一石二鳥いっせきにちょう – “Killing two birds with one stone”

初志貫徹しょしかんてつ – “Achieving one’s original intention”

以心伝心いしんでんしん – “Without any need for words”

一所懸命いっしょけんめい - “With utmost effort”

温故知新おんこちしん - “Learning from the past”

花鳥風月かちょうふうげつ – “The beauties of nature”

臥薪嘗胆がしんしょうたん - “Going through thick and thin to attain one’s objective”

質実剛健しつじつごうけん – “Unaffected and sincere”

十人十色じゅうにんといろ - “To each his own”

晴耕雨読せいこううどく - “Living in quiet retirement dividing time between work and intellectual pursuits”

清浄潔白せいじょうけっぱく - “Pure in heart and with a clean conscious”

切磋琢磨せっさたくま - “Cultivate one’s mind by studying hard”

天真爛漫てんしんらんまん - “Simple and innocent”

日進月歩にっしんげっぽ - “Steady progress”

不言実行ふげんじっこう - “Actions before words”

粉骨砕身ふんこつさいしん - “Work oneself to the bone”

悠々自適ゆうゆうじてき - “Living a life of leisure with dignity”

臨機応変りんきおうへん - “Playing it by ear”

For some of these you can see where the word came from. For example, 十人十色 literally means “ten people ten colors.” You can see where “to each his own” comes from when you look at that. Others are a lot less obvious and require you to know the story behind it, just because the meanings of the kanji are just jibberish without context.
For your convenience I’ve also whipped together an Anki deck for this list of idioms. You’ll need the “Japanese” plugin on Anki to use this deck, though I imagine most of you using Anki for Japanese already have this.

Download Yojijukugo Deck

Of course, there are a ton more idioms like the ones listed above. You’re only seeing the tip of the iceberg (or should I say 冰山一角?). There are thousands and thousands more idioms out there, but I wouldn’t say they’re worth learning. You have to set your priorities if you want to move quickly… some things are more important than others. While learning some of the most common yojijukugo is going to be very helpful to you, attempting to learn all of them is something that should be done post-fluency. It’s just not something that’s worth your time otherwise, though I could see how learning them might be fun.

article source:www.tofugu.com/2012/06/19/yojijukugo-japanese-idioms/

How Romaji Can Ruin Your Day

When you first start learning Japanese, you most likely start out with romaji. Romaji is using an alphabet you already know to write and read Japanese.
And when you get started out, romaji is great! “Pff, I don’t need to learn kanji,” you might think, “This romaji stuff is easy!”
Slow down there, sparky! Romaji might be easy for a while, but it’s just a matter of time before romaji becomes a huge headache for you.

The Downsides Of Romaji

I hate to burst your bubble sport, but there are a lot of problems with romaji that nobody tells you about when you first start learning Japanese. Romaji definitely has its place in learning the language, but it won’t be too long before romaji starts making your life hard.
The most obvious thing is that romaji doesn’t really help you read any Japanese text, and nobody is going to turn it all into romaji for you (no matter how nicely you ask).
Even if that somehow doesn’t doesn’t deter you, it just gets worse from there. Oh, does it get worse.

Photo by Monty VanderBilt

You might have heard of a homonym before, words that spelled the same but mean something completely different. There are a ton of these in Japanese that are usually easy to tell apart because they’re written with different characters; but with romaji, you don’t get that same privilege.
For example, when you see the word “hashi” written out in romaji, you can’t tell what it means on its own. Does it mean bridge? Chopsticks? The stunningly handsome writer and editor extraordinaire from Tofugu? With romaji, you have no way of knowing.
And possibly the worst thing of all is – are you ready for this? – there’s more than one type of romaji.

Different Types of Romaji

As if romaji didn’t have enough problems, there are tons of different types of romanization, and there’s not really a standard way. This can be super confusing, because you’ll see Japanese words romanized in different ways.
Just take the the Japanese word 大きい – how do you write it in romaji? Oki? Ookii? Ôkî? Ōkī? All of these are pretty much equally acceptable.
In fact, there are quite a few systems of romanization: Hepburn, Kunreishiki, Nihonshiki, Waapuro, JSL . . . the list goes on. It gets even worse when people start using variants on the major systems.

Some romanization systems use little hats (called a circumflex) on top of their vowels (lîkê thîs), but others use the lines (macrons) on top of the letter (līkē thīs). Some systems flat out disagree over what characters sound like. じ is romanized as “ji” in one system and “zi” in another.
The Japanese government uses on type of romaji (Hepburn), but the major standards organizations (ANSI and ISO) both recommend another type of romaji (Kunreishiki). Textbooks use pretty much whatever they want. It’s all a big mess.

Just Call The Whole Thing Off

In the end, romaji is really just a tool to help you bridge the gap between your native language and Japanese. It’s not perfect, but romaji has its purpose. Sooner or later though, the problems of romaji are going to catch up with you and you’ll have to transition over to entirely Japanese.
Fortunately, it’s easy to shed those training wheels and get on that big kid bike. Learning to read Japanese can be a lot easier than people think. Once you’ve got your basic hiragana and katakana down (which you can learn here), you’ll forget that you ever even needed romaji in the first place.
What can I say? I’m proud of you, kiddo. Just remember to wear your helmet.

article source:www.tofugu.com/2012/06/21/how-romaji-can-ruin-your-day/

And This Year’s “Kanji Of The Year” Award Goes To…

Did you know that every year the Japanese Kanji Proficiency Society chooses a “Kanji of the Year”? They choose a character that best represents the events of that past year through a national ballot where of course, the kanji with the most votes wins. Then, it’s announced on Kanji Day (December 12) at Kiyomizu Temple (a very beautiful place I recommend that you go if you’re visiting Japan for the first time).

Winning Kanji Of Years Past

Although perhaps it would be interesting to try and come up with the next kanji of the year before it happens, I think it’s more interesting to take a look at years past. It’s a look at Japan’s history through kanji, sure, but it’s also a way to see what was on everyone’s mind that year. If you had to pick one word to describe the whole years past, what would you end up choosing? By looking at that, you’ll be able to see what was important and what wasn’t.
Some years were definitely pretty obvious. Some years were kind of surprising. Here are all the years in order, starting at 1995 (when this ceremony first began) all the way to 2011. We can only speculate what 2012′s kanji will be (let’s do that, too!).

1995 – 震 (Quake)

Photo by mah_japan

Talk about a year to start this thing. In 1995, the Great Hanshin Earthquake rocked Japan, taking the lives of over 6,000 people and clocking in at a 7.2 magnitude. At the time it was the second worst earthquake in Japan during the 20th century, causing $100 billion in damage.
On top of this, 震 was chosen because of the uneasiness felt during this year due to the Subway Sarin Incident where members of Aum Shinrikyo released Sarin gas into the subway trains during rush hour. Certainly a shaky year, to be sure.

1996 – 食 (Food, Eat)

Despite how nice this kanji must seem (Japanese food is so good, right?), the kanji for “food” or “eat” was chosen in 1996 due to the outbreaks of food poisoning from E. coli 0157. 6,000 infections occured and three people died. Many children were hospitalized from E. coli infected school lunches. The cause of the oubreak was said to be from white radish sprouts shipped from one particular farm.

1997 – 倒 (Collapse, Defeat)

倒 has two meanings, and we’ll see both of them come to play with this year’s kanji.
First, this is was the end of the Japanese economy. Corporations went bankrupt. Banks went under. Everything collapsed.
Second, the Japanese soccer team beats others in its region to get into the 1998 FIFA world cup. This is the other 倒 meaning (defeat), so at least not both of the big stories were bad this year!

1998 – 毒 (Poison)

Photo by shawnzrossi

Sixty-seven people get sick from eating poisoned curry. Out of those people, four die. It turns out that Masumi Hayashi put poison into a pot of curry at the 1998 Summer Festival in Sonobe, Wakayama. She used 1000 grams of arsenic, apparently enough to kill up to 100 people (luckily that didn’t happen). She’s currently petitioning for a retrial and the court’s decision is pending.

1999 – 末 (End)

Photo by bayasaa

It’s the end of the century! Happy 2000 everyone! Y2K for everyone!

2000 – 金 (Gold)

I love… gooooolllld. And 2000 was the year for it! No, this wasn’t the year that Japan got into Cash For Gold schemes – out of all the years up to this point, this is definitely by far the most clever.
Ryoko Tamura (Judo) and Naoko Takahashi (marathon) won gold medals in the Sydney Olympics.
Kim Dae Jung and Kim Jong-Il have a North-South Korean presidential summit. Not only was this a big step forward at the time, but both of their names start with Kim. What’s the kanji for Kim? It’s 金, gold!
Last, the centenarian twin sisters Kin and Gin pass away. Their names sound like “Gold and Silver.” I guess Gin-san gets the short end of that stick.
Overall a pretty nice year, I’d say. Don’t worry, we’ll revert back to the negative in 2001.

2001 – 戦 (War)

Photo by DVIDSHUB

The 9/11 attacks occur and America goes to war in Afghanistan, then later Iraq. A lot of people get involved and the war effects a lot of the world. I had tickets to the Mariners game being held at the Tokyo Dome in 2001. Because of all this they canceled and I never got to see them play in Japan. First world problems, you know?

2002 – 帰 (Return)

Photo by Joseph A Ferriss III

North Korea had been kidnapping Japanese citizens. This year, five of them returned home. The whole situation was quite a big deal for Japan. It still comes up again and again even today.

2003 – 虎 (Tiger)

Photo by EO Kenny

The Hanshin Tigers win the Central League pennant after an 18 year drought. This is like when the Red Sox finally won the world series, except the Hanshin Tigers didn’t actually win the Japan Series, they just were the best in their league. Apparently it was a big enough deal for this year’s kanji to be just for them, though, so who am I to judge? Maybe they’ll do better now that the curse of Colonel Sanders has been lifted.

2004 – 災 (Disaster)

Photo by Abode of Chaos

When you choose the kanji for “disaster” to sum up your year, things can’t be doing too well.
There’s the Mihama nuclear power plant accident where hot water and steam leaked from a broken pipe, killing four workers and injuring 7 others. Before Fukushima this was considered Japan’s worst nuclear power accident.
There was also the Chuetsu Earthquake, a 6.8 magnitude earthquake that killed 39 people and caused 3,000 injuries. For the first time in history the Shinkansen train derailed, though luckily there were no injuries here.
Lastly, Mitsubishi Motors tried to cover up some known defects in their cars. When they were found out, they had to recall 163,707 cars with problems that included failing brakes, fuel leaks and malfunctioning clutches.
Not a great year for things going right.

2005 – 愛 (Love)

Photo by amanderson2

Ah, love! Much better! The 2005 World’s fair was being held in Aichi Prefecture (愛知県 … includes the kanji “love” in it).
As if that weren’t enough, Princess Nori marries Yoshiki Kuroda (Nori and Kuroda, sitting in a tree…♫).
Then, to take the cake, Ai Fukuhara (once again, has love in the name) plays table tennis in China… I suppose she was one of the highest ranking table-tennis player in the world at the time, but table tennis? Really? I guess it just helps to round out a year filled with love.

2006 – 命 (Life)

This year is both good and bad. You can create life… but it can also be taken away. We’ll see examples of both before 2006 is over.
On September 6, 2006, Prince Hisahito is born. He’s the third child of Prince and Princess Akishino, and their only son. This was kind of a big deal because he was the first male child born in the Imperial House since his father.
But, as I mentioned, it’s not all about new life. This was the year where the Japanese started thinking more about suicide. A member of the Imperial Guard killed himself. Children killing themselves due to bullying begins to reach the media. Lastly, hit and run accidents from people driving while intoxicated is on the rise. Life comes and goes, and this year represented both the coming and the going.

2007 – 偽 (Deception)

Photo by jvyyuie

The movie Inception came out 2010. The year of deception was three years earlier.
Scandals arise over political funds and faulty pension records. The Shijingshan Amusement Park in China gets some scrutiny for using both American and Japanese cartoon characters, including Shrek, Hello Kitty, Doraemon, and Bugs Bunny. It pretty much looks like Disneyland when you look at it. Last, and probably the most deceptive, food products are given new labels with new expiration dates so that they’re no longer expired and can be resold. Yuck.

2008 – 変 (Change)

Obama (Change we can believe in)! New Japanese prime minister! Economical and ecological change (this is when things started getting “green”). So much is changing in 2008.

2009 – 新 (New)

Photo by sillygwailo

There’s a new government in Japan. After half a century of the LDP in control, the Democratic Party of Japan grabs the reigns.
I’d say this is enough, but apparently the Swine Flu (perhaps a new type of flu that everyone’s worried about?) and Ichiro’s MLB record of nine consecutive seasons with 200 hits get thrown into the “new” category as well.

2010 – 暑 (Hot)

Photo by WhitAngl

It’s a very warm year this year. Many Japanese said their home cooling bills shot up (all that AC!).
Also, the Chilean Miners that were trapped underground for a long time. I imagine it was pretty warm down in their pit home as well.

2011 – 絆 (Bonds)

Photo by danielsakae

After the Tohoku Earthquake and tsunami, Japanese people rediscovers the bonds it has with friends and families. Although the disaster was terrible, it also brought people closer together.
Also, in the 2011 FIFA Women’s World Cup, the female Japanese team, Nadeshiko Japan, wins it all. This is said to be due to the teamwork and bonds between team members.

2012 – ??

But what about this year? We’re only part way through, but there are definitely a few patterns that can be found from the previous years.

• Sports come up a lot (soccer and baseball the most).
• Disasters come up a lot.
• Japan’s dislike for Korea and China seem to sneak their way in, sometimes (and even when they aren’t in the #1 spot, they often make it in the top ten kanji for the year).
• Really anything that’s negative seems to win out over things that are good and happy, it seems.

With that in mind, surely we’re working our way towards some kind of disaster where baseball and soccer players clash on the same field killing each other with scissor kicks and curve-balls. Then, right when you think it’s over North Korea will come in, abduct the remaining players, and then probably take them to a disputed island somewhere between Japan and China. That’s my prediction for 2012, and there’s still plenty of time to go. I can’t even imagine what kanji could represent that.
I suppose we’ll just have to see which kanji gets chosen. It won’t be for another 6 months or so, though, so you’ll have to hold on to your horses in the meantime. For now, enjoy the kanji of years past – it really gives you insight into what people were thinking about. I wish it went back farther, though I’m sure there will be plenty more to get excited about in the future.

article source:www.tofugu.com/2012/06/26/kanji-of-the-year-award/

How to Learn Japanese Without Really Doing Anything

There are many different things you can do to help with learning Japanese that really aren’t all that difficult and require little to no effort on your part. Maybe you’ve heard of some of them. Maybe you’re even doing some of them already but you just don’t know how they’re helping you. Of course active learning is always beneficial to your studies, but doing nothing but active study can get boring and monotonous after a while. That being said, let’s learn more about all the wonderful things passive (i.e. not much effort required) learning can do for you.

What is Passive Learning

When it comes to Japanese, passive learning (or at least the kind I’ll be talking about here) most often comes from listening to and consuming Japanese audio-visual media. The passive bit is that you’re not actively doing anything other than just listening to the Japanese language. You’re not taking any notes, you’re not stopping the video/audio/game to review what you heard or anything – you’re just listening to it and taking in the language as it is.

This can be done both with and without English subtitles, depending on your current level of Japanese ability, but I’d say that the more Japanese you already know, the more you’ll get out of passive learning in this sense. It’s all about consuming Japanese media and not worrying over vocabulary or anything yucky like that. Sounds great, doesn’t it?
For more about passive learning (and Japanese), you can check out this article and this article from TIME, as well as How Many Hours You Should Study Japanese A Day.

How Passive Learning Helps the Beginner

But how can passive learning benefit you if you don’t know any Japanese at all? Even before you’ve started learning the Japanese language, there are lots of easy things you can do to help you for the future. Just hearing Japanese being used gets you more comfortable with the language. Even if you don’t know what they’re saying, hearing the language over and over causes it to become less strange to you. The more you hear it, the less foreign sounding it is to your ears.
Maybe you’ll hear someone out in public and you’ll be able to realize they’re speaking Japanese (even though you might not be sure exactly what they’re saying). It might not seem like that big of a deal, but it’s definitely one of the first steps in learning the language. You just have to get comfortable with how it sounds. You gotta get used to it.

One of the biggest advantages to listening to lots of Japanese before you actually learn how to speak it is getting nice and familiar with how Japanese should sound. You get a much better handle for pronunciation, accent, and tone than if you just went into it without any prior listening experience. Whether you realize it or not, your brain is subconsciously paying attention to how Japanese sounds. This makes it much easier for you to reproduce these sounds correctly when the time comes. Well, usually at least.
This really helps out, especially by keeping you from getting into any bad pronunciation habits. If you already know how it should sound, you’ll be much less likely to get used to pronouncing things incorrectly or ingraining your personal Japanese with a bad accent because you and your brain already know what a proper accent should sound like. This is a good thing.
Before I started actually learning Japanese at college, I listened to a lot of movies, anime, and music, and I’m very confident that all this passive listening really helped me out a lot with my pronunciation and accent once I started to learn and speak the language. It might not work for everyone like this, but it sure helped me.

The Tools of Passive Learning

So what’s the best way to do this passive learning? What are the best materials to make use of? Well there are tons. We have anime, dramas, movies, music, podcasts, games, and even audio books. Do you have a favorite Japanese show or movie? Watch it in Japanese with the subtitles turned off.
You’ll still be able to follow along with it since you know the story already, and your brain might even start to pick up on some common words and phrases just by watching and listening. Or, you might learn some words you heard in the show at a later date and you’ll remember when you heard them in the show which will help you to retain that information.
This also goes for video games that have a Japanese audio option. If it has that option, you should always make good use of it. It might not be as effective as shows and movies since you’ll still have to read along with that pesky English dialogue, (unless of course you can understand without it, in which case, well done) but listening to the Japanese audio is way better than listening to the English audio. Some Japanese is always better than none at all, I say.

But what about when you’re on the go? Maybe you don’t have time to sit down and play a game or watch a show. Maybe you’re in your car, on the subway, or going for a run or a bike ride. This is the perfect opportunity to make use of audio only media like podcasts, music, and audio books. For those interested, Koichi did a post about Japanese podcasts and how to make good use of them which you can check out here.
Listening to music is also good for pronunciation if you find yourself singing along with the words, even if you don’t know what they mean. Of course, it also helps out a lot if you can make out the words they’re singing. Listening to Fear, and Loathing in Las Vegas, for example, isn’t going to help you out much.

Audio books are another option I think most people forget about. Do you love Harry Potter? Get it on audio book. In Japanese. Even if you don’t know much Japanese, you’ll still be able to pick out the words you do know like Hogwarts, Dumbledore, and Voldemort. Plus you’ll be hearing them like how they’d be said in Japanese which also helps with your pronunciation, especially loan words and other things written in katakana.
Believe me, it’s more useful than you’d think. Listen to bits and pieces on your daily commute. It’ll be much more useful than top 40 tunes, I assure you. Plus it’s much less stressful than trying to follow along with some audio language lesson while you’re dealing with rush hour traffic or something. With these materials you just sit back and listen.

Best When Paired With Active Learning

Unfortunately, passive learning alone won’t get you very far. The only times I’d really recommend passive learning by itself is if you’re a complete beginner, or starting to near that elusive master level. When you’re a complete beginner, passive learning helps a lot with getting comfortable with the sounds of the language and hearing proper pronunciation and accent like I mentioned above. Then once you’re comfortable with how the language sounds, you can actually start to learn and pronounce it with confidence.
And then when you’re nearing master level, you can get away with passive learning because you already know so much of the language already. Most of the new stuff you’re just picking up in your head and making new associations that way. Your brain is automatically doing most of the work for you. Maybe every once in a while you’ll hear a new word that you need to write down and look up later, but most of the time you’ll probably be picking up things through context and intuition.

It’s really during the middle part (and it’s a very big middle, by the way) that you’ll be best off pairing your passive learning with some good old fashioned active learning. This is also the period of learning that requires the most work on your part. Some of the best ways to do this are to pick out one of your favorite shows, like a drama or an anime, and then make an Anki flashcard deck (or find one somebody else made) with all the vocabulary from the show that you want to learn or focus on.
Once you have these cards, you can actively study them, and break up your active studies by passively watching the show and hearing your hard work pay off through the words and phrases you recognize. This also reinforces your learning experience, and makes the words and phrases easier to remember since they’re linked with the show in your brain, with both the audio and the visual aspects. For more information on this, you can check out the post by Koichi that explains how to study with Japanese dramas.

Results May Vary

Okay, you got me. So you really can’t learn Japanese without doing anything, but it is true that there are a handful of easy things that can be done with little to no extra effort that are certainly helpful. Most of them help more when you include some active learning along with them, but it’s always nice to break up your active studies with some passive ones (passive ones are a lot less stressful and more fun anyway).
There’s lots of conversation online in forums and such about the potential benefits and the pros and cons of the passive approach to learning languages like this, but I think all would agree that it certainly doesn’t hurt, and some people will get more out of it than others.

One thing that is true, though, is that the more hours you put into Japanese, the more you’ll get out of it. Even if you aren’t actively studying, and you feel bad about slacking on your studies because of how much anime you’re watching, don’t beat yourself up too much. Watching anime is helping your Japanese a lot more than doing something that doesn’t involve Japanese at all (like basket weaving).
But don’t let passive learning become all that you do either. It’s nice to break up your active studies with passive Japanese exposure, but don’t let it become your only means of study. You don’t want to get yourself into a slump. If you’re at the intermediate level and feel like you’re getting into a slump or losing motivation, check out my other post on How To Conquer the Intermediate Plateau of Japanese. Maybe it can help you out.

I don’t believe that passive learning alone will learn you a language, but like I said, it’s a great way to break up chunks of active study, it’s easy to do, and it’s fun. Having fun while you learn is one of the most important things you can do. Plus, some Japanese is better than no Japanese at all. So get out there and watch an anime or something!

article source:www.tofugu.com/2012/07/02/how-to-learn-japanese-without-really-doing-anything/

Hiragana42: “The Answer” To Learning How To Read Hiragana (New Ebook)

If you’re a subscriber to our newsletter (which has exclusive content and is never spammy… you should sign up!), you already know about Tofugu’s latest ebook: Hiragana42. I was debating for a long time whether to give it away or charge some yens for it, but I ultimately ended up on the “you should have this for free” side of the fence. If you’re looking to learn Japanese, you’re probably going to need to start with hiragana. If this is you, I hope you give Hiragana42 a shot. Let me try to convince you!

Why I Wrote Hiragana42

If you want to learn Japanese, the most common way to start is with hiragana. I like this method a lot. First, it sets you up to learn good Japanese pronunciation. If you learn hiragana the right way it will do wonders at making you sound more fluent, right from he get-go. Secondly, learning hiragana will make 99% of all Japanese resources and textbooks suddenly usable for you. If you don’t know hiragana you’re missing out on almost everything, which makes it very hard to learn Japanese.
So, I want people to learn hiragana. That’s a given. The problem is that I’ve never thought there was a great way to learn hiragana out there. Most Japanese classes spend at least a month learning hiragana. Even the TextFugu (our Japanese textbook) hiragana method probably takes people a week (though it will be getting a converted version of Hiragana42 pretty soon). I wanted to make something that could teach hiragana to someone in a day or two. With that in mind, Hiragana42 was born.

How Hiragana42 Works

If you’ve used any of our other Japanese-learning resources (especially WaniKani), you’ll know that Tofugu ♥s mnemonics. With kanji, you can’t use image mnemonics. They get too complicated. With kana (like hiragana), images are great. Most kana are pretty simple which means pictures are just what the doctor ordered. Combine that with some text explanation to guide you and you have something that will velcro hiragana to your brain.

“But Koichi!” you say. “There are like three other hiragana textbooks that do exactly this!”

“How astute!” I’d reply. “Did you know there are three of them because you tried them all and they didn’t work?”

“Touché, Koichi, touché. Tell me more about this ‘Hiragana42′ thing.”

“I will, but only after I drink this tea.” *sip sip*

You can’t stop at mnemonics. There is something to be said about exercises and drilling, as long as you’re doing it right. The key to memory isn’t how often you try to push something into your brain. Instead, it’s all about how often you pull that memory out. Have you ever taken an exam in school, only to find that you knew the subject better after the test was over and turned in? That’s because you were pulling information out of your brain, which essentially tells your brain: “Hey, these memories are important because [your name here]-chan is trying to use them more often. I better create better connections to it so it’s easier to recall next time!”
In Hiragana42, there are exercises after you go through 5-10 image mnemonics. There are different exercises after every section is over, but all of them make you recall the information you put into your head using the mnemonics. The mnemonics help you to get to the memory in your head so you don’t have to cheat (cheating doesn’t help you to build a memory at all – struggling to remember, then remembering something is best). As you recall more and more of the kana more and more times over the length of the ebook, you’ll be creating strong hiragana memories in your head. By the end, you’ll be ready to go out into the real world to practice, whether that’s with a Japanese textbook or a Japanese children’s book.

How Fast Can You Learn Hiragana?

If you don’t learn your kana, Awesome Santa will come down your chimney to abduct you (and leave presents behind for NOBODY, BECAUSE YOU WERE ABDUCTED)

That depends on the individual, I’m afraid. My original estimate was one week. Over the last couple weeks I’ve been letting people try it out, though. I got an email yesterday from someone saying they could read all the hiragana in two days. Another person tweeted at me saying he was able to read everything in just a few hours. Many others had similar results, though mileage will vary between individuals. 24 hours is very possible, though, apparently.

Download Hiragana42

Currently, Hiragana42 is available in PDF format. You can download it for free over in Tofugu’s Japanese Resources section (Hiragana42 is here).
I hope you enjoy it and I hope you’re able to learn a lot. Hiragana really is the gateway into learning Japanese, so if you want to learn Japanese this is the place to start.
Feel free to share this ebook as well. The point is to help as many people as possible to learn how to read hiragana so that they’re able ultimately able to learn Japanese. I think a lot of people quit when they see how different and strange hiragana is, so I’m hoping this ebook makes things easier on them.
And yes, for all those who are about to ask… eventually there’ll be a katakana version of this ebook as well. One thing at a time, though! One thing at a time…
article source:www.tofugu.com/2012/07/10/hiragana42-learn-hiragana-ebook/