Hello everyone! Ai-chan here! I was talking to my Japanese friends recently and realized how much they use onomatopoeia in conversations. Onomatopoeia in English never amazes me as much as it does in Japanese because in Japanese, it feels like they have a word for everything! Unlike English onomatopoeias, Japanese has words to describe not only the sounds made by animate or inanimate object, but also feelings, actions and state. I’m pretty sure manga lovers would have known this already! I think some of the common ones would be ワンワン (wan wan), the sound of a dog barking,ドキドキ (doki doki), the sound of a heartbeat, and キラキラ (kira kira), to describe something that is glittering. One of my favorite onomatopoeias is ゴロゴロ (goro goro)... Show more

No matter how good you are, mistakes are inevitable, especially when you’ve just started learning Japanese. There’s nothing wrong with making mistakes, but who wants to be *THAT* foreigner who makes awkward mistakes when speaking to Japanese people? In this JapanesePod101 Blog post, we’ll give you a heads up so that you can be aware of common mistakes people make, which will make your Japanese language learning experience a lot easier. 1. Don’t Attach -san to Your Own Name! One of the first things English speakers learn in Japanese is the name suffixes used when addressing other people. The most common one is -san, which we attach to people’s names to show respect. -San corresponds with “Mr.” and “Mrs.” when referring to other... Show more

1. Schedule your time. One of the most important factors in keeping your motivation up is developing it into a habit. Whether it be 20 minutes or 3 hours, schedule time to study every day and stick to it. Regular exposure solidifies what you learn and keeps you progressing. To make sure you stick to your routine, a great idea is to build a schedule for your day and decide that every day/Monday/weekend, you study from 6pm to 8pm. Just remember that 30 minutes a day, every day, is better than a binge 8-hour study session at the end of the week (though it’s obviously better than nothing). 2. Learn a word a day with our great Word of the Day learning tool. Trying to learn everything at once and getting overwhelmed by the sheer number... Show more

“To have another language is to possess a second soul.” - Charlemagne Learning a new language is an achievement anyone can be proud of and it's exciting and beneficial at all ages. It offers many practical, intellectual and aspirational benefits. A wave of new research shows the incredible psychological benefits of learning a second language. These benefits extend far beyond being able to order a cup of coffee abroad or ask directions to your hotel. 1. Learning a Foreign Language Boosts Brain Power Medical studies have shown the positive effect learning a second language has on the brain. A foreign language is a whole new system with distinct rules, etymology, and meaning, which are just a few of the complexities of a language.... Show more

Japanese anime is very popular around the world. So popular that many people decide to learn Japanese because of their love for their favorite anime shows. But one problem with learning Japanese through anime is the kind of Japanese you’ll absorb this way. The characters in anime live in their own universe, where everyone tends to use slang, casual language, informal pronouns and even made-up words. It’s very easy to spot people who learned Japanese exclusively through anime – you’ll see 20-year-old boys talking like 10-year-old kawaii girls, or 20-year-old girls talking like yakuza, for example! Needless to say, native Japanese speakers may not take them seriously! Despite this, it can actually be useful to incorporate anime into your... Show more

Today, we bring you another blog post from Motoko, JapanesePod101.com lesson creator, host and Office Party Planner! Motoko will be sharing more bilingual posts on our blog, so check back often and leave a comment! Hi everyone, Motoko here! Today I’d like to tell you about another listener visit we had recently. We had a JapanesePod101.com listener come to visit us in the office. This was the fourth visit for me, but I still felt nervous! This is Matt. He was visiting from California. I had heard that he came to Japan for a holiday. But it seems that it was more of a special trip for him, because guess what? He came here to meet his girlfriend’s parents for the first time. :o His girlfriend is Japanese, and he wanted to... Show more

Today, we bring you another blog post from Motoko, JapanesePod101.com lesson creator, host and Office Party Planner! Motoko will be sharing more bilingual posts on our blog, so check back often and leave a comment! Hi everyone, Motoko here! Today I’d like to tell you about another listener meetup we had. The other day, we had two JapanesePod101.com listeners come to visit us. One was from Canada, and the other was from France. It was the second meetup for me, but I still felt nervous beforehand! Andre from Canada, and Becher from France paid us a visit. They met each other through their Japanese studies, and this was their first trip together – they were staying in Japan for two weeks. They told us that right before... Show more

There’s absolutely no limit to the number of vocabulary words you could and should learn in the Japanese language. The fact is, the more words you know, the better you’ll be able to speak and communicate. That’s true of any language; even your native tongue! But when are you going to find the time to learn them all? Isn’t there a shortcut? Introducing Visual Dictionary Lite - Learn Japanese, presented by Innovative Language Learning! This new App for iPhone and iPad focuses your Japanese vocabulary learning to the words you need to know - the objects, places and people that you’ll encounter in your daily life. With Visual Dictionary Lite, you’ll be transported to a world where everything you tap and touch comes to life with native... Show more

Today, we bring you another blog post from Motoko, JapanesePod101.com lesson creator, host and Office Party Planner! Motoko will be sharing more bilingual posts on our blog, so check back often and leave a comment! Hello everyone, Motoko here. Today’s post is a report from our bowling tournament! The full-time staff at Innovative Language Learning (which I’ll call just Innovative from now on) all took part in a bowling tournament. Initially we were going to have a team-on-team match, but we ended up playing as individuals. 　 A グループ対抗戦　(gurūpu taikōsen) means, just as you can see from the Kanji characters, competing as a group. Conversely, a 個人戦 (kojinsen), individual match, is when you yourself are your only ally and you compete... Show more

Today, we bring you another blog post from Motoko, JapanesePod101.com lesson creator, host and Office Party Planner! Motoko will be sharing more bilingual posts on our blog, so check back often and leave a comment! Hi everyone! Motoko here! A few weeks ago, we celebrated the marriage of Marvin. He's part of our Technical Team and is from Germany. The wedding ceremony was held in May – and what’s more, his bride is Japanese! In Japan, there are all kinds of wedding ceremonies. There’s the traditional Shintō shinzenshiki, which is held at a shrine, and the Buddhist butsuzenshiki, which is held at a temple; there’s also the kyōkaishiki, or church wedding, which has been gaining popularity in recent years. Another more unusual variant... Show more