You know you’ve been in Japan too long when… From a Western Perspective

Posted by harvey in Books, Culture, Humor, Society on 31. Mar, 2009 | 4 Comments

Those who enjoyed the previous post will likely enjoy this as well. You Know You’ve Been in Japan too Long… by Bill Mutranowski.

You Know You’ve Been in Japan too Long…
And here is another unpublished list of “You know you’ve been in Japan Too Long When…” jokes from a Western perspective.
A few gems…

- you no longer [...]

You know you’ve been in America too long when… From a Japanese Perspective

Posted by harvey in Culture, Humor, Language, Society on 29. Mar, 2009 | 18 Comments

You know those, “You know you’ve been in [place] for too long when…” jokes?
Kayo from Osaka Life found some “You know you’ve been in America for too long when…” jokes written by Japanese people.
These jokes are an excellent insight into the cultural differences between the United States and Japan. If you don’t understand why a [...]

Read The Kanji – a JLPT Kanji study app

Posted by harvey in Gadgets, Language on 28. Mar, 2009 | 6 Comments

I just found out about Read The Kanji this morning. Guess how I found out about it? Via Twitter! Twitter is awesome, I’m telling you…
But, this post is about Read The Kanji (which is also awesome), not Twitter.
Learn JLPT 1 Kanji, or Start With Hiragana
In Read The Kanji you select what you want to learn, [...]

JapanNewbie now on Twitter

Posted by harvey in About, Gadgets on 25. Mar, 2009 | 3 Comments

Hey everyone!
I finally decided to jump on the Twitter bandwagon. I literally just signed up last night, so I really haven’t done anything yet, but if you’d like to “follow” me, look for me on Twitter as ‘JapanNewbie’.
I decided to go with the name ‘JapanNewbie’ because well, Harvey was taken, and I think I’ll keep [...]

Download 101 Common Japanese Idioms

Posted by harvey in Gadgets, Language, Media on 22. Mar, 2009 | No Comments

The Japan Shop is offering a 52 mb download that includes text and audio explanations of 101 Common Japanese Idioms for the ridiculously low price of $2.50. This download will be $2.50 for a limited time only, after which the price will be $5.00.
As always with The Japan Shop downloads, you get your data in [...]

Maborosi

Maborosi

Posted by harvey in Media, Movies on 20. Mar, 2009 | 7 Comments

I have been watching a lot of Japanese movies recently because my university library happens to be huge. I recently watched this movie: Maborosi (幻の光 in Japanese).
As I said, I have seen a lot of Japanese films, and I enjoy most of them. However, Maborosi was really, really, slow.
It’s beautiful… but slow. The cuts are [...]

Japanese Grammar Quiz

Posted by harvey in Books, Language on 17. Mar, 2009 | 5 Comments

Are you confident in your Japanese language skills? Try this pretty tough online grammar quiz and see what you still need to learn.
Japanese Grammar Quiz 文法クイズ
After you submit your answers it will tell you what you got wrong, and explain what the correct answer should be.
It’s all in Japanese, so this is only useful [...]

Cat Nabe

Posted by harvey in Food, Humor on 16. Mar, 2009 | 1 Comment

Silly cat videos. You can make cat nabe (鍋=hot pot) just by placing nabe on the ground and waiting for the cats to climb in.

It’s more effective if you line up a lot of nabe.
Man, cats are silly.
In case you want to know what Nabe are really supposed to be used for…

Yum… kimuchi nabe…
- Harvey

  • Photos on flickr