Sumimasen is another of these pesky Japanese words that is difficult to pin down with a simple translation. It means different things in different circumstances, so again, it is a word that must be experienced to be truly mastered.

There are several potential meanings for the word sumimasen, depending on the context. It can be meant [...]

There are plenty of words in Japanese that are difficult to translate directly into English. This is one of the challenges of early efforts to learn Japanese. A good example of such words, are the often confused terms ‘otsukaresama’ (お疲れ様) and ‘gokurosama’ (ご苦労様).

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 [...]

Over the next month or two, I intend to write about once a week with some of the things that have helped me as I’ve learned Japanese. I was going to call this series ‘How I Learned Japanese’, but I decided to go with ‘How I’ve Learned Japanese’, which suggests that it is not something [...]

Interesting article last week from Mark Schreiber in the Japan Times. In ‘Learn the coded language all Japanese know‘, Schreiber begins by discussing a form of ‘Japanese Pig Latin’ which he learned from some Japanese children, but the latter half of his article is the ‘meat and [...]