One of My Favorite Kanji
In English the etymology for poetry is Greek. It comes from "poiesis" meaning maker (kind of boring). Or It comes from the Latin "poeta," used as a general term for creative literature (amazingly boring).
詩 (し - shi) means poem or poetry. Of course I like poetry so automatically I'm a fan of the kanji, but my fondness isn't as superficial as that. 詩 is 言 and 寺 stuck together. 言 means "say" and 寺 means "temple." It is a beautiful combination.
All things considered, 詩 wins first Read more [...]
A Brief Explanation of Why People Use Kanji and Not Just Hiragana
Kanji were created long before Hiragana. Kanji come from China. When they were imported the Japanese added their own pronunciation to them, which is one reason why Chinese and Japanese sound different. Japanese Kanji have at least two pronunciations the On-yomi and Kun-yomi. The on-yomi is the Chinese reading and the kun-yomi is the Japanese reading.
Hiragana was used by women because most of them weren’t taught to read Kanji. This was the only way they could write and read. And some women wrote Read more [...]
The Difference Between くれる and もらう
When you look in a dictionary くれる and もらう seem to be the same on the surface. This one had me completely perplexed, it was like a horrible riddle, wrapped in an enigma, swaddled in a punch to the kidney. After looking for a while I finally was able to hunt down an answer about the difference. Today I verified my understanding with my boss. Turns out it's not so bad.
The main difference is where the emphasis is placed. One places emphasis on the giver, the other places it on the receiver. Read more [...]
iKnowing is Half the Battle: One of the Japanese Learning Websites
I've tried a long list of websites for learning Japanese. The tendency is usually either towards expensiveness or sparseness. And even those that I've seen which are expensive don't seem to have all that much to offer. Even JapanesePod101.com, one of the sites I've heard recommended the most, doesn't seem to offer much more than something that lightly compliments other language learning tools.
But thanks to Tofugu I've been able to hit a few gems. The biggest gem being iKnow.
iKnow is clearly Read more [...]
Minna no Nihongo (みんなの日本語 – Japanese for Everyone)
After buying too many Japanese books I've finally settled on one. The publisher thinks their book is pretty great too:Minna no Nihongo is a great book for learning Japanese. If I stopped taking lessons I would still use the book and learn from it, but I'd have to look elsewhere for answers to the things I want to know that book doesn't cover. Read more [...]
