Hungry for Words: Mostly Japanese

How many nights until New Year's (Oshougatsu)?

2009-12-17T17:13:59+01:00

In Japan, while Christmas is a popular commercial holiday, it's not even an official national holiday (schools are still in session for example in most areas). The big holiday of this time of year is the New Year's period (お正月 o-shougatsu), including January 1st itself and the days following it. O-shougatsu can either mean New Year's Day itself, or the holiday period after it up to the 7th day after New Year's Day. Most people get at least the first three days of the new year off work and school, and many get the whole week off.

The New Year period really starts around this time of year. The busy end-of-year period is called 師走　(しわす　shiwasu), which literally means the master (or teacher/elder - 師　shi) runs around - meaning that it's such a busy time of the year that even the elders are not still. Shiwasu culminates on New Year's Eve, called 大晦日　（おおみそか oh-misoka). Housewives in particular are busy, since tradition dictates that the house must be made clean from top to bottom, and the New Year's feast all prepared, before the new year can be welcomed. (My mom used to lay out new underwear and pyjamas for us every New Year's eve, so we could greet the new year with pristine underpants I suppose.)

A song that kids have sung since it was introduced in the early 20th century that looks forward to New Year's Day is もういくつ寝るとお正月　(もういくつねるとおしょうがつ　mou ikutsu neru to oshougatsu), which means "How many nights (to sleep) before it's New Year's?" This simple song was written by a songwriter called Rentaro Taki, who tragically died in 1903 at the young age of 23, but wrote a lot of songs that are still sung to this day. This is his most popular. The lyrics go like this:

もういくつねるとお正月
お正月には　凧あげて
こまをまわして　遊びましょう
はやくこいこいお正月

もういくつねるとお正月
お正月には　まりついて
おいばねついて　遊びましょう
はやくこいこいお正月

How many nights to sleep until it's New Year's?

On New Year's Day (or during the New Year period) let's fly kites

and play by spinning tops

Come come fast, New Year's

How many nights to sleep until it's New Year's?
n New Year's Day (or during the New Year period) let's bounce a ball
and play with a shuttlecock
Come come fast, New Year's

Here's a video of someone singing it reasonably painlessly:

The first verse lists two play activities that are typical 'things that boys do', flying kites and spinning tops, while the second verse lists two typical girls' activities, bouncing a mari or decorative ball and playing hanetsuki, a form of shuttlecock (the precursor of badmington), using highly decorated paddles called hagoita (羽子板） and shuttlecocks called oibane (追い羽根）made of a hard wooden ball and colorful feathers.

Parody versions

This is such a well known song that parody versions abound -- rather like they do for Jingle Bells. Basically the first line stays the same, and the two following lines are changed.

This version was the standard us us kids used to sing over and over, driving our parents nuts:

もういくつねるとお正月
お正月には餅食って腹を壊して死んじゃった
はやくこいこい霊柩車

How many nights to sleep until New Year's?
At New Year's (someone) ate mochi, got sick and died
Come come quickly funeral car!

初売り　(はつうり　hatsu uri) is the first sale of the new year; many stores these days open up on the 1st, hoping to lure in shoppers who are bored of lounging around at home. Here's a "hatsu uri reality check" kind of parody version:

もういくつねるとお正月
お正月には初売りで余計なものを買っちゃた
はやくこいこい給料日

How many nights to sleep until New Year's?
At New Year's (I) bought stuff I didn't need at the Hatsu uri sales
Come come quickly, payday!

お年玉　（おとしだま otoshidama) is a small money gift given to children on New Year's Day. Japanese kids look forward to getting otoshidama in the same way kids in the West look forward to Christmas presents under the tree. (Christmas presents are exchanged in Japan, but on a much smaller scale.) First, an otoshidama parody version from a kid's point of view:

もういくつねるとお正月
お正月にはお年玉たくさん貰ってWii買うぞ
はやくこいこいお正月

How many nights to sleep until New Year's?
At New Year's I'm getting a lot of otoshidama and buying a Wii
Come, come fast New Year's!

While kids love getting otoshidama, adults of course feel the financial pinch, especially if they are obligated to give to many nieces, nephews, grandkids, and their own children. So here's the "otoshidama woes" adult point of view version:

もういくつねるとお正月
お正月には姪が来て甥来て孫来てすっからかん
はやく帰れよガキどもよ

How many nights to sleep until New Year's?
At New Year's the nieces come, the nephews come, the grandkids come...and I'm broke
Go home quickly you brats!

There are a lot of other parodies around, but I've kept it just to the PG-rated ones ^_^.

Do you know any other parody versions? If you know any Japanese people, ask them if they have any!

The Great Buddha's Nose Snot

2009-11-19T02:39:23+01:00

I am a big fan of the BBC television show QI, hosted by Stephen Fry. QI has an amusing Twitter account where they dispense nuggets of obscure and informative trivia. Recently they tweeted this:

Yes this is indeed true. The Japanese name for it is 大仏様の鼻くそ　(だいぶつさまのはなくそ　daibutsusama no hanakuso). Sold at the gift shops in Nara and online, the company that makes it describes it as a puffed rice snack, coated on the outside with brown sugar, with size brown sugar kompeito candies rattling around inside. The puffs are made to look like The Great Buddha's nose snot, and the kompeito are supposed to bring you luck. Yum.

Not only is the Great Buddha's nose snot available in snack form, so, apparently, is a gorilla's.

(photo by umbrajp)

While The Great Buddha's Nose Snot sounds rather dry, the Gorilla's Nose Snot is more, let's say, sticky. It's made primarily with kuromame amanatto, or black beans cooked in sugar.

As a matter of fact, there are different words for nose snot in Japanese depending on its state. I've often heard it said that the Inuits (Eskimos in non-PC parlance) have lots of words to describe snow, because they live with it all the time. In Japanese there are lots of words to describe stuff that is produced by your body, as I talked about previously. Which may mean that Japanese people are generally comfortable about their bodies, or at least find them humorous.

For nose (鼻　はな　hana) snot, there are two main states:

鼻水　はなみず　hanamizu - runny, watery snot (mizu is water)
鼻糞はなくそ　hanakuzo - solid snot (kuso is a rather rude way of saying poo or feces, so this is literally 'nose poo'.)

In manga and anime you will often see a character dozing off with a 鼻風船　(はなふうせん　hanafuusen), literally 'nose balloon', protruding from his nose. This is rather viscous snot with air trapped inside; in manga it's a shorthand way of depicting that someone is sleeping, often while snoring too.

When I was growing up, I was often warned to stop putting my finger up my nose to scratch out my snot (you know, as kids do. You mean you didn't....?) If I kept doing this, I was told, my nostrils will grow huge, and I'll look like a piggy. I must have believed this because I did stop putting my fingers up there for exploration. Japanese girls are somewhat obsessed with having cute little noses - a 'piggy nose' (ブタ鼻　ぶたばな　butabana)　is considered to be very unattractive. In manga and anime shorthand, an ugly girl is often depicted with a butabana.

Back to the snot snacks. Both the Great Buddha Snot and the Gorilla's Nose Snot are derived from traditional Japanese sweets that are sadly no longer that popular amongst kids. The re-purposing of these traditional sweets with names that would make a kid giggle and try it, is a rather ingenious way of introducing them to their cultural food heritage, I think.

Himono onna: Dried fish woman

2009-11-11T18:18:01+01:00

Hi! I'm back! The first draft of my bento cookbook is in, and I now have a bit more time for other writing. So many people asked when this blog would be back...so here it is. I hope you'll continue to enjoy it.

So, today's word is another zokugo (俗語　ぞくご）or slang word that is popular recently:

干物女　ひものおんな　himono onna

You may already know that onna （女　おんな）means woman. Himono (干物　ひもの）means any kind of dried food, but it usually means a dried or semi-dried fish. Himono are often eaten for breakfast, and are a popular breakfast item at traditional inns. Here's a grilled horse mackerel or aji (鯵あじ）himono.

Photo by yskfj

So, what is a himono onna or dried-fish woman? It means an unmarried woman, usually in her late 29s to 30s or older, who has given up on love and sex, and is content - or resigned to - live on her own. A himono onna generally regards all that lovey-romantic stuff as too much of a bother, or mendokusai （面倒臭い　めんどくさい). In fact, mendokusai is her first motivation, or un-motivation, for everything. She's stopped trying to impress the opposite sex, doesn't bother dressing attractively and goes around in the most comfortable clothes possible, including going sans bra or no-bura (ノーブラ). She may also stop paying too much attention to things like personal hygiene, or at least stop bothering with makeup, going more than once or twice a year to the hairdresser, doing her nails, and things like that, except when she goes to work. Anticipating the possibility that she will have no children to take care of her in her old age, she may be saving up a lot of her money, buying her own apartment or house (until recently it was practically unheard of for a single woman to buy her own place) - or she may be spending money on herself at will.

According the the Japanese Wikipedia entry on himono onna, she may also:

Be very late replying to emails, because it's too much of a bother (mendokusai).
Eat snacks and simple meals standing up at the kitchen sink
If she forgets something in her house after she's put her shoes on (remember that in Japan, one always removes ones shoes when entering the house) she may go and get it on her knees, shoes in the air
Stop plucking, waxing or shaving her body hair during the winter
Is not afraid of going to a traditional pub or izakaya (居酒屋　izakaya) on her own
Has stopped having 'heart-quickening moments' (i.e., romantic moments or getting excited about anything)

All this may sound like a misogynistic put-down of unmarried women, but in fact many women have embraced the term themselves. There are blogs out there by himono onna. This one in particular, called The Himono Onna's Household Budget Book or "Himono Onna no Kakeibo" (干物女の家計簿 - see more about kakeibo) - is very funny and cute. The blogger illustrates her posts with the most adorable drawings, where she depicts herself as a fat, clumsy seal or azarashi (あざらし) stumbling through life. In her profile, at the left of the page, she says she's 30, an OL (office lady), and her annual income is 3.64 million yen (US$40,520), and her savings are an impressive 4.57 million yen (US$50,854).

I'm rather dessicated myself...

Here's why I'm busy...

2009-09-15T05:57:33+02:00

Just a quick note: I'm not going to shut down this blog forever entirely! I might bring it back in a different form, but it will be back. Also, this is why I'm sort of busy these days. In the meantime, I've been getting a lot of nice messages from people who are enjoying the archives. I hope you'll continue to do so. ^_^

Yaruki: The will to do it

2009-08-29T13:14:26+02:00

It's still pretty hot here during the day, and I find myself dozing off a lot. I have to mentally slap myself around a bit to get some motivation going.

Which brings us to the word that is the subject of this post: やる気　(yaruki やるき). やる気 means 'the will to do' something. It could also be translated as 'be motivated to do' something. It's a noun that combines the verb やる, to do, and 気, feeling or emotion.

やる気がある　（やるきがある　yaruki ga aru) = (you, or the subject of the sentence) has the will to do something

Usage example:

今日はやる気があるから、勉強がはかどる。　(きょうはやるきがあるから、べんきょうがはかどる　　kyou wa yaruki ga aru kara, benkyou ga hakadoru.
- Because I'm motivated today, my studying is going well.

When used as a question, the meaning changes a bit, to "do you want to do (something)?"

Usage example:

アルバイトやる気がある？　（あるばいとやるきがある？　arubaito yaruki ga aru?) -- Do you want to work part time (or take that part time job?) (see more about arubaito)

やる気がない　(やるきがない　yaruki ga nai) - (you, or the subject of the sentence) doesn't have the will or desire to do something/can't get up the motivation to do something.

Usage example:

今日は暑すぎて、何にもやる気がない。(きょうはあつすぎて、なにもやるきがない。　kyou wa atsusugite, nani mo yaru ki ga nai) -- It's too hot today, I don't have the will to do anything.

やる気を出す　(やるきをだす　yaruki o dasu) - (you, or the subject of the sentence) gets (or attempts to get) motivated.

Usage example:

やる気を出して、ジョッギングする。(やるきをだして、じょっぎんぐする　yaruki o dashite, joggingu suru)
- (I will) get my ass in gear and go jogging.

やる気が出ない　（やるきがでない　yaruki ga denai）- (you, or the subject of the sentence) can't get the motivation going to do something.

Usage example:

作文を提出しなければいけないのだけど、なぜかやる気が出ない。（さくぶんをていしゅつしなければいけないのだけど、なぜかやるきがでない。　sakubun o teishutsu shinakereba ikenai no dakedo, nazeka yaruki ga denai）
- I have to hand in an essay, but for some reason I can't get motivated.

やる気 is a difficult thing, if you lose it or can't get it going.

Which brings me to the subject of this blog. I haven't really been updating it properly for a while now, partly because I have been really busy, but I am now officially going to take a break. There are plenty of good resources out there for learning Japanese online, and I don't think I have the 時間　(じかん　jikan - time）or やる気　to get this site up to being a full fledged learning resource. I may relaunch it as a kind of commentary blog with some language thrown in - which it sort of is anyway. I have also been thinking about a full Japanese blog - if I decide to do that, I may just not have the time for the commentary with Japanese blog. We'll see.

In the meantime though, it's going on a break for a couple of months. If you want to be informed of its status, please follow me on Twitter, where I'll continue tweeting in Japanese sporadically. And my bento and food sites will continue as normal, sort of. I have a big deadline to meet in a few weeks also...which I'll explain somewhere eventually.

取りあえずはここまで。又いつかね！

Terminal illness and cancer in Japan

2009-08-20T11:30:49+02:00

This morning, I got some very bad news from my mother. One of my uncles has advanced pancreatic cancer (膵臓癌　すいぞうがん　suizou-gan), and the whole family was called to the hospital so that the doctors could brief them on his condition.

This may not seem so unusual to you, but it is a fairly new development in Japanese society. Until about 20 years or even 10 years ago, the norm was for doctors to not tell the patient, and sometimes not even the patient's family, about a terminal illness or an illness that has some kind of stigma attached to it, such as AIDS or other sexually transmitted disease. Cancer especially was considered to be an illness that should be hidden. The reasoning behind this was that telling a patient that he or she had such a grave illness would be detrimental to the patient's wellbeing. Ignorance is bliss, as they say. It also reflects the doctor-patient relationship as it used to be, where the doctor told the patient what to do, and was an authority figure. Even now, a doctor is addressed in the same way, [last name]-sensei, as a teacher or other figure to be held in esteem is, and a medical doctor is talked about as an お医者さん　(おいしゃさん　o-isha-san), with the honorific o.

This has, as I've already mentioned, been changing in recent times. Now patients have way more 'rights' in the Western cultural sense, and demand more information. A patient is told right away about any illness that was detected. And more people are likely to bring on malpractice suits if they are unhappy with the care they received. However in some areas of the country (especially away from the big cities) the custom of withholding information from the patient still persists. (See this study for example.) If you're a non-Japanese person living in Japan, you may run into some problems getting information out of your doctor. This isn't necessarily (or should I say, not just) because you're a gaijin or even a problem of language; it's just the way things have been for a long time.

Some medical vocabulary:

Cancer - 癌　がん　gan
Illness - 病気　びょうき　byouki
Terminal or advanced/late stages of illness - 病気の末期症状　びょうきのまっきしょうじょう　byouki no makki shoujou. Terminal illness is 末期症状の病気　まっきしょうじょうのびょうき　makki shoujou no byouki.
Medical doctor - 医師　いし　ishi or 医者　いしゃ　isha. In conversation, お医者さんおいしゃさん　o-isha-san
Hospital - 病院　びょういん　byouin (sounds very like bi-you-in 美容院　びよういん　which is a hair salon, so be careful!)
Ambulance - 救急車　きゅうきゅうしゃ　kyuukyuusha

When to use -chan or -san, and other ways to address people in Japan

2009-08-04T14:18:43+02:00

(Yes I know, I know, I will try to post more frequently.)

In Japanese conversation, the suffixes -san and -chan are used regularly when addressing other people - e.g. "Sato-san", "Kobayashi-san", "Mayumi-san", "Taro-chan"*. These are sort of the equivalant of 'Mr.' 'Mrs.' 'Ms.' etc. in English, but not exactly the same. If you have been studying Japanese for any length of time, you probably already know that there are some rules as to when to use -san or -chan, but just in case, here they are.

Use -san as the default

Whenever you are addressing someone, unless you become very close to them, you should always use -san. As a matter of fact, unless you are told otherwise by that person, you should always address them by their family (last) name + san. For example, if you met Taro Yamada**, you would call him Yamada-san unless he tells you to call him by his first name, Taro. Then, you would call him Taro-san unless you became very close friends with him.

For older people or people above you in station, use -san or their title/station

Any person older than you should always be addressed with a -san. However, if that person has a specific relationship to you, then you often use their title instead. For example, your teacher (先生　せんせい　sensei) is usually addressed as [their last name]-sensei; using =san would be regarded as being disrespectful. Native-speaker language teachers often tell their students to call them by their first names, but even then the natural inclination of a Japanese person is to attach a -sensei to that, e.g. Eric (Erikku)-sensei. Writers and other people held in high regard are often called -sensei too, even if they're not teachers.

People above you in a company are usually addressed by their title only, omitting their name entirely - unless you are talking about them in the third person. For example, let's say your division head (課長　かちょう　kachou) is called Hiroshi Suzuki. To his face, you would address him simply as kachou. When talking about him to someone else, you might refer to him as Suzuki-kachou.

Use -chan for children

Anyone who has not reached the age of maturity (20 in Japan) can be called -chan, usually using their first name, by any (older) adult.

Be cautious when using -chan otherwise

With the exception of addressing children, using -chan can be a bit difficult. Keep in mind that -chan is used to imply one of the following:

as a term of endearment or intimacy
to imply that the person you're addressing with -chan is somehow below you in some way

You can safely call people you are very close to (but not your elders) as -chan - your girl/boyfriend, your close friends, your younger siblings/cousins, your children/grandchildren/nieces and nephews. But -chan is also often used to address women/girls for example, up to the age of say 30 or so (the upper age limit is creeping up). Most Japanese female celebrities for example, unless they are ancient and revered, are called -chan by their fans. (Some younger male celebrities are also.) I could say a lot about the infantilization of women in Japanese society and such, but well, there it is.

When addressing a woman though, you should avoid using -chan unless you become friendly enough, if you wish to be polite. The only women who are straight out called -chan by strangers are those who are there to 'entertain' their clients (sexually or otherwise) - such as 'club hostesses', 'maids' in anime cafes, and so on.

Sometimes, a non-Japanese person will write an email or comment to me and attach -san or -chan. Maki-san is fine, but Maki-chan makes me flinch a tiny bit instinctively. No I'm not offended if you have called me Maki-chan in the past! But hey - you didn't know any better. ^_^; This is one of those subtle things that may be a bit hard to understand about Japanese societal mores, but I hope this has helped a bit.

Notes

*- Other name suffixes used are -kun and -sama. Briefly, -kun is used mainly to address boys/young men, and by superiors when addressing subordinates in company or school situations for both genders. -sama is a very formal suffix, used in well, formal situations, or in certain anime and manga etc. as a form of affectation.

**- "Taro Yamada" or 山田太郎　(yamada taro) is sort of the Japanese equivalent of John Doe in American-English - a generic male name. (The female equivalent is "Hanako Yamada" (山田花子　yamada hanako).

To be of good heart is to do honest business

2009-06-13T09:33:39+02:00

Yes I know, another long pause between posts. But moving right along, the word today is

良心的　りょうしんてき　ryoushinteki

Before I explain what this means, let's look at how you can try to guess the meaning of an unfamiliar word from the kanji characters used. In this word, you have three characters:

良　

This character is used on its own as 良い　(よい　yoi), meaning good.

心

This is the character for こころ　kokoro, or heart.

Finally we have

的

Read as てき　teki, this is often used as a suffix to words in much the same way as the English -like, meaning 'it has the characteristics of'.

So let's put it all together. The first two characters are 良心　(りょうしん　ryoushin), which you can guess to mean 'good heart'. Attach the 的　and you have 'good heart-like'.

What it actually means in practice is: To be honest, of good value. It's most often used in the world of commerce and business. If a store is 良心的、that means it does honest business and gives good value for the money.

This word came to my mind recently when I was writing about two Japanese restaurants in Zürich in the Just Bento forums. Guess which one I considered to be 良心的!

Kareishuu: The smell of aging

2009-05-07T23:51:48+02:00

On this blog, I like to mix in some 俗語（ぞくご　zokugo) with words or phrases that have been in use for a long time. Zokugo doesn't directly translate as slang, though it can mean that: it points to words or phrases slang, words-of-the-moment, made up words or phrases, and so on.

Today's word is a zokugo of sorts that was 'invented' by a cosmetics company, Shiseido, in 2000. 加齢臭 かれいしゅう　kareishuu literally means 'the smell of gaining years', or the smell of aging. Apparently, Shiseido discovered that as people get older, especially (but not limited to) men, some chemicals that are supposed to smell rather bad to others (presumably younger people) are produced by their bodies. 加齢臭　is supposed to smell like candle wax, aged cheese and old books. Smokers and heavy drinkers are supposed to have it worse than non-smokers. Here's the Wikipedia Japan entry on it. This Japanese site urges 'Otousan' (Dads) to check themselves for this odor after the age of 40.

This naming tied in nicely with an existing zokugo, おじさん臭い　(ojisankusai)　or おじん臭い (ojinkusai), which means to act like an middle-aged/old man, to be a fuddy duddy. No one gets as much abuse as middle-aged men in Japan; they are supposed to be behind the times, clueless about popular culture or computers and the like, balding, overweight or pathetically thin, lewd (or 'ecchi') and yes, smelly. Younger girls scorn them unless they can get money off of them, and younger men dread becoming one of them. Even their wives scorn them, especially if they retire or are made redundant and spend too much time in her realm, i.e. their home. (Older people get a lot more respect in society than the middle aged, at least on the surface.)

The 加齢臭 industry seems to be doing pretty well in Japan, selling things like deodorants, soaps, colognes, even nutritional supplements and teas to ward off the dreaded 'smell of aging', presumably to insecure middle aged men.

The best way to learn kanji is not online

2009-04-24T10:20:13+02:00

This post is not about a particular world, but I often see people on various forums and such asking about some killer software app or website where they can learn, and memorize, kanji characters.

In my opinion, no such site or app exists, because the best, or only, way to learn kanji properly is to write each character out physically many, many, many times.

Before you scoff at the old fashioned concept of putting pencil to paper. let me explain. Kanji characters depend a lot on the stroke direction of each swash or line. (For that matter, some katakana characters do also: can you tell the difference between ソ　and ン?) Stroke order is not as important for reading comprehension, but can make a difference when you are writing kanji by hand. And I don't really know of a better way to learn these things than by writing out the characters repeatedly until you develop a muscle memory for how the characters should be written. You can't do that by typing.

If you live in an area near a Japanese bookstore, go and look for a 漢字練習帳　(かんじれんしゅうちょう　kanji renshuuchou) - a kanji practice notebook. These have pages with large grids that are perfect for practicing your kanji by hand. They're used by kids in elementary school in Japan. Of course you can always practice on any old piece of paper, but the notebooks are nice to write in.

You can use an online resource to organize your kanji study, but for practice and memorization? Do it by hand.

How I learned

In case you are thinking, "She's Japanese, how can she understand how it is for a non-Japanese to learn kanji", let me tell you how to learned all the kanji required to be learned by the 5th grade in a few months, when I was about 10!

I was born in the Tokyo area, and lived there until age 5, when my parents moved to London. I was already reading by that age (see my English Twitter page for a photo of me reading intently at around age 3 or 4...though I'm not sure if I was actually comprehending anything!), but of course mostly kana-base pictured books and such.

For the next 4 years, I attended regular schools in England and didn't learn much Japanese. Then we moved to the U.S., in the summer when I was age 10. My parents knew we'd be returning to Japan the next year, so they wanted to put me in the Saturday Japanese school.

My mother sat me down with a simple book, and told me to read. To her horror, she discovered that I could barely read at all. So, she had a correspondence course for overseas Japanese kids sent over - for grades 1 through 4. From June to September, she sat me down every day, making me go through the correspondence course. The kanji was especially difficult - she made me practice those characters, over and over and over again.

I really hated this...it was summer, and I wanted to be playing with my new friends! I remember threatening to jump out of the window of our 5th floor apartment several times. But my mother perservered. By the time September rolled around, the Japanese Saturday school was not sure that I could keep up with the other 4th grade level kids, but I could, just barely. (I hated going to that school anyway for other reasons, but that's another story.)

The next year, we did indeed return to Japan. Once again the regular elementary school near our new home wasn't sure that I was ready to jump into the 2nd term 5th grade, but they put me in anyway. I remember feeling very strange and foreign for the first few weeks, but after that I really had little problem. I could keep up fine with all the lessons. And that summer of intensive drilling by my mother was what brought me up to speed, despite all the grief I gave her. (One of these days I'll remember to thank my mom for that.)

So you see, I'm living proof so to speak that pencil-on-paper drilling really works! It's hard and boring, but really sticks.

*This post was inspired by this question on Ask Metafilter, where there are suggestions for online learning resources. I haven't tried any of them myself but maybe you'll find one there to suit you.

Hungry for Words: Mostly Japanese

How many nights until New Year's (Oshougatsu)?

Parody versions

The Great Buddha's Nose Snot

Himono onna: Dried fish woman

Here's why I'm busy...

Yaruki: The will to do it

Terminal illness and cancer in Japan

Some medical vocabulary:

When to use -chan or -san, and other ways to address people in Japan

Use -san as the default

For older people or people above you in station, use -san or their title/station

Use -chan for children

Be cautious when using -chan otherwise

Notes

To be of good heart is to do honest business

Kareishuu: The smell of aging

The best way to learn kanji is not online

More than 1000 kanji required to read a newspaper

How I learned