Japanese Sound Effects

Posted by in Books, Culture, Language on 11. Oct, 2007 | 9 Comments

じゃじゃん〜♪ A book compiling a lot of Japanese Sound Effects is available on J-List. The Japanese words for the sounds that animals and other things make were always something that interested me, but never something I took the time to study seriously. My current job in technical translation doesn’t bring many across my desk either… [...]

Read Big Issue Japan, Study Japanese

Posted by in Language, Society, Tokyo on 10. Oct, 2007 | 7 Comments

Maybe you have seen a magazine called The Big Issue [Big Issue Japan] being sold on the streets of Tokyo, Osaka, or other big cities in Japan. This magazine is one of the study materials that I most consistently use to work on my Japanese. The front cover of the Big Issue usually has a [...]

Like the autumn sky

Posted by in Culture, Language on 07. Oct, 2007 | 2 Comments

女心と秋の空 [Himeji Castle, taken last year November. ] Speaking of autumn… Here is a nice Japanese phrase I just learned. 「女心と秋の空」- onnna gokoro to aki no sora This means that a woman’s heart (feelings towards a man) is like the autumn sky (easily changing). It is said that in Japan the weather in autumn is [...]

Vegetarian Restaurants in Japan

Posted by in Food on 05. Oct, 2007 | 3 Comments

I ran across the webpage for Vegetarian Festival that will be held in Kyoto October 21 at Okazaki Park in front of Heian Shrine. The webpage lists a ton of Vegetarian restaurants, as well as environmentally focused NPO’s and the like. The participating restaurant and organization list should be useful for anyone trying to keep [...]

Translate Manga for Manga bucks

Posted by in Culture, Language, Media on 04. Oct, 2007 | 11 Comments

Manganovel Corproation and Toshiba Corporation are using what seems to be a form of “crowd sourcing” and “Web 2.0″ to get Manga fans to translate Manga for them. [source article on Yahoo News Asia] The web based service is called “Manganovel” and allows readers to download manga in Japanese to read, and then post their [...]

Super Kawaii Characters

Posted by in Books, Culture, Society on 02. Oct, 2007 | 3 Comments

I just about this book, HELLO, PLEASE! Very Helpful Super Kawaii Characters from Japan, when reading an article in Kansai Time Out. There are few things that strike me here. First of all, Customs-kun is on the cover!!! Remember Customs-kun? I met him on my visit to the Yokohama Customs Office! He was Very Helpful [...]

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