Particles are like flavors.
It’s not much use having an espresso shot of hazelnut or vanilla if you don’t have a coffee to mix it with.
Furthermore, while vanilla coffee and hazelnut coffee are both still coffees, they’ve also become …
I became a vegetarian in high school but that all changed about two days after arriving in Japan. I realized that it would be a sin to spend an entire year in the country without trying sushi, so I did.…
Nothing could’ve prepared you for this.
Your grandmother, all 93 years of the woman, is balanced upside down on a solid ivory pedestal. Her mouth is at the base of the pedestal and her elbows are swaying back and forth …
Let me set the scene: Japanese class, second semester. Small university in the middle of nowhere. A meter of snow.
The semester had just started, so my 10 classmates and I were arranged in horseshoe formation around the teacher, who …
“Blasphemy” is the word Vera chose to describe the fact that I’d only just finished Harry Potter at the age of 24.
The impact of this strong word was notably lessened by the fact that she pronounced it as “blas-PAY-me” …
It’s an unremarkable weekday evening and a salaryman is collapsed in the aisle of a dilapidated discount department store.
He is, for some reason, sobbing.
A concerned customer service representative approaches him to ask what’s wrong, to which he replies:…
The first time I walked into a コンビニ (こんびに) — convenience store in Japan, I was greeted with an enthusiastic いらっしゃいませ！, a phrase that I assumed must mean “hello.”
I began repeating the word back to cashiers when I entered …
Struggling to begin reading in Japanese? So did I.
In fact, my first attempt at reading a real book was a complete failure.
I’d gone out to eat Ramen with a friend after class. We stopped at a bookstore on …
“… I think that your Japanese is good enough to understand how you should address a professor. Please reword this email before I forward it to the department head.”
This is the last sentence of an email I received after …
I’m about to explain the Japanese volitional form to you and once I’ve finished this post let’s reward ourselves by going out to eat 石狩鍋 (いしかり なべ) — Ishikara Nabe, a super delicious hotpot dish from Hokkaido.
Actually, I’m …
