While the first two parts of Prime Minister Hatoyama’s speech (see Part 1 & Part 2) were mostly uplifting and aspirational, I found much of the more meaty areas of economics and foreign policy in his speech to be full of plattitudes and naive rhetoric. This article will focus on economics, and while Hatoyama named [...]

Today marks a full two months since Guyjin.me got off the ground, and we also achieved 10,000 hits earlier today. Also, some time tomorrow I expect to write the 100th post for this site. Thanks for all of your continued support over the last couple of months. I continue to be surprised by [...]

Here are the top 10 non-news programs for the week of October 19 – October 25:

Week of Oct 19 to Oct 25

(Program, Channel, Time & Date, Rating)

1. Anime: Sazae-san, Fuji, 18:30-19:00, Oct 25, 21.7

1. Variety: Nep League, Fuji, 19:00-19:54, Oct 19, 21.7

3. Variety: Sho-ten, NTV, 17:30-18:00, Oct 25, 20.9

3. Drama: Tenchijin, NHK, 20:00-20:45, Oct 25, [...]

In Monday’s speech to the Diet, Prime Minister Hatoyama again addressed the issue of yuai, or ‘fraternity’, which he returns to again and again. He spoke of a lady that he met in Aomori, who’s son had been unable to find work and ultimately lost his life. Hatoyama described how the woman held on to [...]

Yesterday Prime Minister Hatoyama gave a lengthy (very lengthy….) speech to open the 173rd Session of the Japanese Diet. His remarks were light on details, but outlined the man’s thinking on some of the most important issues facing Japan. This article is the first of [...]

A recent Yomiuri survey showed that 7% fewer people were reading books compared with a year earlier. The survey asked respondents whether they had read a book in the past month, and 53% responded that they had not. This was almost as high as the mark of 54% in 2002.

Intuitively, it may be [...]

Japanese Box Office: Oct 17 to Oct 23

(Rank, Movie Name, Weekend Box Office (US$), Cume (US$) (Note: US$1=89.69 yen))

1. Kaiji: Jinsei Gyakuten Game, $2,607,146, $11,046,324

2. The Rebirth of Buddha, $1,809,491, $1,809,491

3. Fast & Furious 4, $1,190,308, $6,559,160

4. My Sister’s Keeper, $840,016, $4,278,084

5. The Proposal, $686,518, $853,130

6. The Final Destination, [...]

Last week I wrote about using “Desu” & “Masu” when you start out learning Japanese, and this created a lot of discussion about what are the best methods for learning. I stand by my methods, because I know from experience that they have worked for me. But there is certainly more than [...]

Here are the top 10 non-news programs for the week of October 12 – October 18:

Week of Oct 12 to Oct 18

(Program, Channel, Time & Date, Rating)

1. Variety: Sho-ten, NTV, 17:30-18:00, Oct 18, 20.2

2. Drama: Aibou Season 8 Premiere, Asahi, 20:00-21:48, Oct 14, 19.4

3. Anime: Sazae-san, Fuji, 18:30-19:00, Oct 18, 19.0

4. Drama: Tenchijin, NHK, 20:00-20:45, [...]

Yesterday I came across a BBC website which contains ‘Essential Phrases‘ for learning Japanese. I’ve linked it here, but you probably won’t find it particularly useful. Not least because of the fact that they have mangled some of the simple translations that they have on the site. The most aggregious of these [...]