Blogs edited and submitted by Chiho Kamioka

Japanese modern musicians The Japanese music scene is a vibrant one with many young up-and-coming musicians and respected veterans in many fields and genres. Live music in Japan is also very popular. There are many livehouses, small venues, concert halls and large stadiums in which musicians of many different levels of skill and fame can connect with their fan bases in acoustically unique spaces...

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...

Japanese school entrance ceremonies The Japanese school year starts around the beginning of April, and ends in mid-March. At the start of the school year, it is common to have entrance ceremonies. These are formal affairs often with parents attending and taking pictures. Eguchi sensei, one of the professional Japanese teacher at JOI, writes this easy blog to help you to learn Japanese. Read the...

Japanese school lunches Japanese school lunches have been in focus in recent news and magazine articles. The level of nutrition and the culture of student participation in the serving and cleaning is usually the focal point of the news' stories. And a lot of countries are looking to Japan's example when reforming their own school lunch menus. Kamiyama sensei introduces this topic in this Japanes...

Toys in Japan Japan is well-known as a creative hub for art, fashion and technology and weird things too. So it is not surprising that you can find some imaginative toys in the country. In this weekly blog, for Japanese learners, Ishibashi sensei; one of the teachers at JOI online school, introduces some popular toys that are a little on the weird side... Listen to the video to learn Japanese l...