Hokkaido wildlife
Hokkaido in the northern Japan is one of the places in the country with the most national parks. You can find various animals and plant life much of which is native only to this island.
In this blog, Japanese teacher Sayuri Itaya introduces one of the smallest and cutest animals in Hokkaido. It is so cute, it is featured in many Hokkaido products recently.
Listen to Itaya sens...
Japanese school lunches
There is a lot written about Japanese school lunches. It is one way in which this country’s systems are being emulated around the world The nutritional content is well-balanced and the portions are equal.
Yet during the pandemic, there have been some interesting changes to the meals. In this blog for Japanese language learners, Japanese teacher Chie Eguchi tells us of som...
Japanese monsters
When people mention Japanese monsters, many think of the giant movie monsters like Godzilla. But there are many monsters, demons, ghouls and ghosts that can be found in ancient Japanese literature and folklore.
It would be no surprise then that there is a monster that is related to the current pandemic. But not in the way you would imagine. This monster comes to prevent or redu...
Japanese writing system and Chinese characters
The Japanese word kanji which means Chinese characters is taken from the meaning "Han characters". It forms a vital part of the Japanese writing system which also includes Hiragana alphabet and Katakana characters too.
There are a multitude of Chinese characters used in Japanese and it would not surprise you to know that some are uniquely formed by ...
Japanese school trips
Japanese school trips are a big part of the educational life in Japan. Often a whole year of students travel with a handful of teachers to either some famous tourist destinations or to some theme parks or go abroad. It is one of the most memorable parts of school life.
In this blog by a Japanese language teacher, Izumi Yanaka finds a nostalgic essay about that time. This en...
