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.

↓Click icon below for categories of this blog from late February 2014 to present.

  • Categories
    Categories Displays a list of categories from this blog.

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.


Japanese onomatopoeia The Japanese language has a range of onomatopoeia, some of which are familiar but others not so much. They are often broken down into 3 categories :- Giseigo, Giongo, and Gitaigo. Giseigo is the most familiar one to English speakers – it is imitating sounds people and animals make (bow wow). Giongo is a wider range of onomatopoeia which includes sounds that things make (the...
Last modified on Continue reading

Japanese numbers Japanese numbers come from the Chinese language and follow the traditional Chinese counting. So large numbers follow a grouping of 10,000. There are Kanji characters for the numbers and these are often used in everyday life. Learning these Kanji is essential to gaining a good understanding of many aspects of life in Japan. Imoto sensei, one of the teachers here at JOI online sch...
Last modified on Continue reading

Japanese double words Learning Japanese can be a hard journey. But along the way there are often moments when you feel it was worth the struggle and enjoy the experience it brings. One such moment has to be the learning of double words. These are fun way to communicate and interestingly, they create an immediate bond with the speakers. Don't believe me? Give it try next time. And read this blog ...
Last modified on Continue reading

Learning Japanese from reading and listening When learning the Japanese language, or any language for that matter, reading and listening is indispensable. There are many recommended methods of doing this, and here in this blog, veteran Japanese language teacher, Itaya sensei explains how best to do some in her opinion. Read this blog (preferably out loud) and listen to Itaya sensei read the Japa...
Last modified on Continue reading

Japanese Enkai Etiquette Japanese office workers and friends often have drinking parties at Izakaya or Japanese pubs. These are a great way to get to know people in Japan in an informal setting, and also enjoy some Japanese cuisine. But even though these are informal gatherings, there are some rules of etiquette that should be followed and these can trip up a first-timer , whether they are peopl...
Last modified on Continue reading