You must have seen the boisterous pachinkos while you were in Japan and many of you might have been wondering if gambling is legal in Japan. You will ...

This is the question you would get from native speakers if you speak their language a lot. Every time I meet a Japanese native speaker this is one of ...

Technology and the world change so rapidly that we cannot even follow the new trends. There are almost 1.8 billion websites on the Internet currently....

Most of the immigrants in Japan arrive here as an exchange student. Their career is a topic I think about a lot these days. Not only because I'm an ex...

You can find hundreds of programs for foreign students so there are plenty of options to choose from when you want to study in Japan as an exchange st...

In addition to motivation and efforts it's extremely important to have a clear vision of opportunities you will be able to gain access to by mastering...

I’m recalling the first time I came to Japan and I saw the first Japanese text in my life. It was on one of the trains in Osaka and woman was reading ...

When you start learning a language the most important thing is to make sure that you are learning it for purpose. Why is this important? I meet many f...

As a result of our human nature, one of the first things we think about is the difficulty of learning a given language. We want to achieve the most in...

When you start learning Japanese your first step is mastering the katakana and hiragana alphabets. Many people ask me about a good and efficient way t...

Learning kanji is essential for mastering the Japanese language. 漢字 (kanji) is used along with ひらがな (hiragana) and カタカナ (katakana) in the Japanese wr...

The decrease in household number and population in the Kinki (近畿地方) (Kansai) region of Japan is more significant than in other central regions or the ...

There might be many of us interested in the real estate market of Japan. Most of us think Japan is an expensive country, which is true in general, but...

Let's see the US first. Is the US an expensive country? As for somebody who works as a shop assistant it is. For Warren Buffett it might not be. The s...

Let me talk about my personal experience in Japan, which started a couple of years ago, when I was an exchange student in South Korea. I had the chanc...

There were missions organized from Japan to China since the 7th century, but after the Tang dynasty's power started to weaken due to several civil war...

The honorific language has three forms in Japanese, namely: sonkeigo（尊敬語）, kenjougo（謙譲語） and teineigo（丁寧語）, sonkeigo said to have the longest history....

When the price of various assets in an economy rises above their actual value due to speculator activities and then, after their price reaches a peak ...

I have been living in Japan for a reasonable amount of time and many people ask me these days: How to start learning Japanese? People also ask me abou...

It won't be difficult to make a purchase if you know when and where you want to go. Most of the people, that sell train tickets in Japan speak some En...

People keep asking me if it is difficult to learn Japanese. My short answer would be yes. It is difficult because there are many characters, grammatic...

The Japanese language uses at least three alphabets. The foreign words are usually written using katakana, the hiragana alphabet is used for native Ja...

Today the JLPT is actively used in every corner of the world. The N1 means the most difficult exam and N5 is the easiest. I have started to collect th...

I have created a list of 181 Japanese words that contain N4 ( Basic ) level kanjis. Since the words usually are of more than two characters the second...

When you start learning Japanese, it is the best to study to most frequent characters obviously. The JLPT ( Japanese Language Proficiency Test ) is a ...

The JPLT (Japanese Language Proficiency Test) was started in 1984 for non-native learners. It was available for 15 countries and there were approximat...

If you want to use present perfect in Japanese, you will need to use the so called "ta-form" of the verbs. As for the detailed answer, in the followin...

I suppose the gap between the pre-intermediate level and the beginner level is somewhere around the conditional form. As for Japanese, the conditional...

Conjugation rules of Japanese verbs are easy to understand. However it requires you to study the classification of Japanese verbs. Showing a respectfu...

Speaking Japanese requires your brain to work the other way around as it would for example when talking in English. At least that is what I thought wh...

The necessity of passive structures in English is debated. There are linguists saying that it should be avoided, and there are linguist saying it shou...

The first Western-style horse races in Japan have been organized in the last years of the Tokugawa shogunate(1603-1867). The very first one was held b...

Have you ever wondered how to connect two Japanese sentences? Would you like to make polite requests in Japanese? Would you like to know how to say "I...

If you only need an exact number I can tell you: 1299. In case you want to know the real answer, let me explain you in details. Many of us who are thi...

If you were looking for the simplified answer, it is definitely no. The followings can be applied to basically any other languages. I wouldn't say tha...

It is fairly easy to catch a cab in Japan. However communicating with the drive might be a little bit difficult if you don't speak Japanese. In this c...

Japanese is generally an agglutinative language. So what does this actually mean? You must have heard of this in high school, but I will try to explai...

It is very important to be familiar with the classification of Japanese verbs when you compose your first Japanese sentences. In addition, when yo...

As I have already mentioned in one of my previous articles, it is not the grammatical structures that make the learning process difficult, when somebo...

If you have decided to look for a Japanese company or you are applying for a Japanese speaking position then this article is for you. You might think ...

I was so afraid when it was about going to the dentist since I was a kid. I thought most of the dentist are cruel doctors who just want to pull your t...

Let's suppose that one day you have to buy groceries in Japan. If you happen to be on the countryside I bet nobody will speak any English so you will ...

Japanese is spoken mainly in Japan and it has approximately 120 million native speakers. According to the Wikipedia, there were 4 million foreigners m...

Japanese has a fairly complex grammar, but it's grammatical rules are straightforward. As such Japanese adjectives can be easily classified. Classific...

The Chinese language is based on it’s characters. I think everybody recalls these objects when discussing Chinese, and it is difficult to imagine this...

I have collected the kanjis in 12 articles for you, and this is the last one. It took me approximately one month to learn them all, and I need to revi...

In general if you want to work in Japan you need to speak Japanese. Most of the companies require you to speak at least on the N2 level, but obviously...

Those who pass the JLPT ( Japanese Language Proficiency Test ) N1 level could receive 15 points when applying for working visas. This is according to...

Japanese immigration laws have changed a lot since May 7, 2012. That day the Immigration Bureau of Japan has introduced a so-called point based system...

JLPT is an examination system to measure the proficiency level of non-native learners of Japanese. It is used by some companies and schools (especiall...

You must be committed to learning Japanese if you are still reading my articles. I have already collected 600 words of N1 level kanjis and you can acc...

The JLPT ( Japanese Language Proficiency Test ) is designated for non-native Japanese learners. Most of the students take it in order to measure their...

I have already collected 400 Japanese words in the previous articles and I am expanding my lists in the following article. The whole collection will i...

I have been learning Japanese for more than three years now, but I still feel that my kanji knowledge is not sufficient. I am planing to take the JLPT...

I am planing to take the JLPT N1 this year, which is the most advanced Japanese language examination. As such I will need to master at least 2000 char...

The Japanese language is spoken by at least 120 million people, mostly in Japan. Since the archipelago is generally far from most of the other countri...

I would like to introduce you a new method to learn a language in the following article. When you are in a foreign country, it is natural that you wou...

Chinese as opposed to Japanese is not only spoken in it’s native country. It is good, because you don’t have to travel to the country if you want to s...

My experience is that I could acquire a good Chinese knowledge only by learning the characters. It is said that an average Chinese person uses about ...