Japanese language & culture blog

As you may’ve noticed, the NihongoUp site was going through some massive changes during the past two months. Well, I think that the site finally reached a state when it can be safely announced to the general public. I’ll leave the “beta” notice in the header for a little longer (primarily because the site still isn’t fully compatible with Internet Explorer), but overall, there shouldn’t be any major bugs or missing features. Nevertheless, I’m still working hard on getting everything in the best shape possible so if you have any suggestions or feature requests, please let me know.

For a general overview…
Read more » The new NihongoUp is live!

Many people think that there were historically no horses in Japan, but that’s far from reality. I couldn’t find any central place with information about Japanese horse breeds and thus, after lots of research, I decided to write an article on this topic, and this month’s Japan Blog Matsuri theme—Nature and Japan—finally incited me to publish it. I hope that you’ll enjoy this post, especially if you’re interested in equestrianism.

There is a total of 8 horse breeds native to Japan and despite the fact that all of them are ponies, they played an important role in the Japanese history, being used for work, pleasure, and in combat. Unfortunately, all of them are very rare, and except for the…
Read more » Japanese horse breeds

Hiragana (平仮名) and Katakana (片仮名) are the two Japanese syllabaries collectively called kana. A syllabary is a set of symbols representing syllables, however, this isn’t entirely true in this case. Japanese language (as well as kana, for that matter) is based on morae (sg. mora)—units of sound used in phonology.

Every word in Japanese is written with the same number of kana characters as there are morae in the word in question, yet it doesn’t necessary have the same number of syllables. For example, the words Tōkyō (to-o-kyo-o, とうきょう), Ōsaka (o-o-sa-ka, おおさか), and Nagasaki (na-ga-sa-ki,ながさき) all have four moraeand are written with four kana characters, yet they have two, three, and four syllables respectively. It is  crucial to understand this difference, the…
Read more » Japanese scripts: Kana (+ cheat sheet)

Michael Gakuran is well known for his Gakuranman blog full of fun, yet thought-provoking comments on Japan, haikyo excursions and amazing bioluminescent creatures of the undersea. Having studied Japanese for over 8 years, passed the JLPT 1 exam, and won an all-England Japanese Speech Contest, Gakuranman is an example of how motivation leads to great results!

What made you go to Japan? Did you learn Japanese before or after you got there?

I first started studying Japanese in 2002 as part of a GCSE course at my school in the U.K. My friend had introduced me to anime and manga a…
Read more » Interview: Michael Gakuran

Japanese language has one of the most complex writing systems in the world; not only does it use thousands of Chinese characters, but it’s also the only language where four different scripts can appear together in the same sentence. In this series, I’m going to explain the difference between these scripts, why and how they should be used, and the best way and order in which to learn them.

Rōmaji (ローマ字), commonly known as latin alphabet outside of Japan, is never used by native Japanese speakers to write full sentences, yet it’s widely used all over Japanese media. The Latin script has a modern, in vibe to it…
Read more » Japanese scripts: Romaji

I am honored to have been given the opportunity to host May 2010 Japan Blog Matsuri, and amazed by the number and quality of this month’s entries. The global theme was How-tos and there are few subjects that weren’t touched in the following articles. Please read on, and you’ll certainly learn something new and useful.

How to split a bamboo

A nata (なた, 鉈) is a special implement used to split bamboo. The blade is thicker on the back side and tapers down to the sharp edge. The thicker end serves to help separate the bamboo when it starts…
Read more » How to Japan

As you may’ve heard, NihongoUp Blog was recently nominated in the Top Language Blogs 2010 competition over at Lexiophiles. I’m now honored to announce that Japanese language & culture blog was selected, among 495 nominees, second-best in the Language Technology category, and 30th best language blog overall!

The selection…
Read more » Second-best Language Technology blog

Within minutes of entering Japan, virtually all tourists encounter the phrase “Irasshaimase!” (いらっしゃいませ！), meaning “Welcome to the store!” or “Come on in!”.

Konbini Man illustration by Junko Nonoue.

The phrase “Irasshaimase!” is a more polite version of irasshai, an imperative form of the honorific verb irassharu which means “to be/come/go”.  The phrase was originally used by marketplace sellers trying to bring customers closer to their particular stall. Over time it has become a standard greeting used at almost every retail establishment in Japan. Shop employees yell it from outside stores, inside stores, at checkouts, gas stations, sale stands, and anywhere else the opportunity presents itself. Irony is swept to the sideline as customers are…
Read more » Irasshaimase!

NihongoUp 1.3.0 is finally here and besides bugfixes it also brings a long awaited JLPT 2 kanji mode! As always: Most of the updates are based on your suggestions, so please continue leaving feedback at the NihongoUp feedback page

Every country in the world has it’s heights and lows, and gets involved in scandals on international level, yet some of these always get an especially bad publicity after these events. One such example is Japan. The Land of the Rising Sun has a very positive, almost legendary image among general public and thus even the smallest of mishaps entice a tsunami of negative press. Let’s look at some of the Japan’s biggest blunders and how they were perceived across the world.

2009–2010 Toyota recalls

While not the biggest in history, Toyota’s vehicle recall of it’s best selling car, Camry, and six other 2004–2010 models because of an unsecured floor mat is by far the most closely watched of all…
Read more » 5 epic fails and controversies involving Japan