JapanesePod101.com Blog

Quick Links Welcome to Kanji Curiosity | The Basics | Glossary You know that wedding reception table where the bride and groom seat misfits who don't belong at any other table? Well, that oddball table is ours today! We'll feast on a smorgasbord of random, cool things pertaining to 中. Speaking of seating, we encountered two seat-related compounds in the last blog: 中座 (chūza: leaving before an event (e.g., a meeting) is over)      in the middle + gathering 座中 (zachū: in the room, gathering, theatrical troupe)     gathering + in the middle My definition of 座 as "gathering" may have seemed strange to you; 座 (ZA, suwa(ru)) more commonly means "seat" or "to sit." Actually, the... Show more

Mina-san, Earlier this week we announced the launch of the Dialog and Review premium clips, which I hope everyone is enjoying. Today, we are glad to announce the much anticipated release of two more essential premium features which are sure to take your writing and speaking skills to new heights. Kana Stroke Order Videos The Kana Stroke Order Videos show you the proper stroke order for all basic Hiragana and Katakana characters. The videos, which include the sound of each character, show you exactly how to write each character stroke by stroke. They are available for all active Premium subscribers on the Hiragana Chart and Katakana Chart pages in the Reference Material section of our Learning Center. Below is a sample of one of... Show more

Quick Links Welcome to Kanji Curiosity | The Basics | Glossary In the last blog, we saw how -中 is a powerhouse of a suffix. For instance, adding -中 to 日本 (Nihon: Japan) gives us 日本中 (Nihonjū: all over Japan, throughout Japan). What emphasis -中 throws on a compound! With that in mind, here's a quick quiz. What does 訪中 (hōchū) mean? One hint: 訪 (HŌ, tazu(neru)) means "to visit." Take some time to think.... Can you hear the Jeopardy music in the background? OK, time's up. It's certainly tempting to interpret 訪中 as "throughout a visit." But no, 訪中 produces a kanji gotcha! In this case, 中 means "China," so 訪中 is a "visit to China"! This raises a new question: Whenever 中 appears in a compound, does the character refer to China or... Show more

Mina-san, Marky here! As you can probably tell, JapanesePod101.com is truly a labor of love for us! We love learning and teaching Japanese and honestly, we’re having a lot of fun. But we’re always trying to think of ways to improve what we’re doing or thinking “how can we do something different?” And often the best ideas come from you all! Introducing 2 new Tracks added to the Premium Feed! The Review Track A lot of people have asked us to leave some blank space when introducing vocab so they could have some time to repeat and practice. Well, if you’ve been with us a while, you know we tried a while back. We had some good feedback about that, but it dragged the podcasts on with silence and ate up time for going through... Show more

Quick Links Welcome to Kanji Curiosity | The Basics | Glossary In last week's blog, we saw how a single 中 can change "deep in the night" (夜中, yonaka) into "all night" (夜中中, yonakajū). Despite its simple shape, 中 packs quite a punch. And with 中, you get three suffixes for the price of one! That is, the suffix -中 has three meanings. As the meaning changes, so might the yomi. Let's look at each meaning.   1. Period of Time: JŪ Let's say you have a compound expressing a period of time (a day, week, month, year, and so on). The suffix -中 (pronounced -JŪ) enables you to convey that something happened throughout that period of time. A few examples:   一日 (ichinichi: one day)一日中 (ichinichijū: all day long) 今週... Show more

Today our friend Yukako Tajima, AKA Tajee, has informed us of another useful website that can be used as a tool for Japanese language acquisition. The website World Podcasting News, still in beta, provides short audio clips in Japanese about podcasting and related topics. The audio clips are based on articles from Podcasting News, and a link to the article is available in the post. Therefore, if you read the article and then listen to the short audio clip, this may prove to be a useful tool in your quest towards mastering Japanese. We would be very interested to hear what you think of this site.

Quick Links Welcome to Kanji Curiosity | The Basics | Glossary When a Japanese friend emailed me that he likes to stay up all night, it blew me away on two accounts. First, I can't imagine wanting to stay up till dawn. I did plenty of that in college, and I'm not eager to revisit the experience. Second, look how he said "throughout the night": 夜中中 (yonakajū) Two instances of 中 in a row, each with different readings! Let's break this down to see what's going on here: 夜 (YA, yo, yoru) means "night." 中 (CHŪ, naka) means "in, inside, middle." Yonaka combines two kun-yomi (yo and naka) to mean "deep in the night." (When read as yonaka, 夜中 also means "midnight, but let's set that aside.) In 夜中中, the final 中 is a suffix... Show more

Hi everyone! Previously I introduced a game called “Fukuwarai” in my last blog. Has anyone tried it? Today, I want to introduce another useful game that you can play with your friend. I am sure that many of you have played this game with cards. It is a language version of “Concentration” (Shinkei suijaku). This is also known as memory, in which all of the cards are laid face down on a surface and two cards are flipped face up over each turn. The object of the game is to turn over pairs of matching cards. If you have the chance to play this game with your classmates, make your own cards and try with Japanese. To remember Katakana and Hiragana, for example, you can make cards with Hiragana and Katakana which can be matched... Show more

Quick Links Welcome to Kanji Curiosity | The Basics | Glossary In Japan, where they practically time trains down to the second, you might think that nobody's ever late and that the Japanese wouldn't need a word for "tardiness." Think again! Our old friend 後 (KŌ, GO, ato, ushi(ro): after, behind) provides us with a way to say that. Although 遅れる (okureru) is the main way to write "to be late," 後れる has the same yomi (okureru) and the same meaning. That's true, for instance, in this word: 手後 (teoku(re): too late, belated)     hand + after I have no idea how the breakdown (hand + after) relates to the meaning, "too late, belated," but as long as we're discussing 手後, here's a quick quiz.   ... Show more

Mina-sama, here at JPod World Headquarters we're always trying to think of more and more ways to help you learn Japanese! And now we have something very special for you! In April, we will have a very special guest with us. His name is 矢野先生 (Yano sensei) and he has nearly 20 years of experience teaching Japanese! His resume includes not only university classroom instruction, but also private and corporate instruction. He also founded the 矢野アカデミー which specializes in training Japanese teachers how to teach Japanese. It goes without saying; Mr. Yano will bring to us a wealth of expertise and wisdom about the process of learning this amazing language! But it gets better! Rather than merely introduce him to our staff, we thought it... Show more