Learn Japanese Online - JOI Teachers blog

Learn Japanese vocabulary, Kanji and phrases with this free blog with a YouTube video for audio learning, vocabulary lists and English Translation !
Every week, a professional Japanese teacher posts a new blog .

Previous blog archives from 2006 - mid-February 2014.

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Japanese language

The Japanese language or Nihongo, is a complex language with 3 writing methods (hiragana, katakana and kanji) as well as idioms, proverbs, and local dialects, and linguistic idiocynracies. The Japanese teacher blogs in this blog category goes into some of these aspects in detail.


Imported words in Japanese Gairaigo are loan words or imported words into Japanese of foreign origin. Many of them come from English and Chinese but there are some words from other European languages too. In Japanese these words are usually written in the katakana phonetic script, but some have Kanji readings attached to them which are often known as 'ateji'. In this blog for language learners,...
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Japanese old sayings and proverbs There are countless Japanese proverbs. Some come originally from Chinese ancient texts, and others are translations of universal proverbs that have origins in Europe or Shakesperean wisdom. Yet, some other Japanese proverbs are derived from the unique Japanese culture, Zen Buddhism and just old adages that ring true even over the stretch of time. Many Japanese ...
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Japanese alphabets The Japanese language is often known as being one of the most difficult languages to learn since it has not one but three different alphabets — hiragana, katakana and kanji — which can be differentiated both by the method of writing them, and their uses. In this weekly blog from one of the Japanese teachers at JOI, Itaya sensei, she explains some great language learning tips t...
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Japanese counter words When you are learning Japanese for the first time, one of the things that you first stumble upon is the variety of counter words. As you progress to learn more advanced Japanese, these words just seem to increase. The words often change grammatically depending on the numbers proceeding them, and they can alter according to the size or shape of the thing being counted. Lear...
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