About the Author
Ken is an engineer who also works as a part-time Nihongo teacher.
ken's blog
If you want to watch a TV comedy-drama series that is entertaining and educational at the same time, I highly recommend Nihonjin no shiranai Nihongo (The Japanese that the Japanese people don't know).
Pyramid, the carrier single in the self-titled album of Charice, tops the Tokio Hot 100 Chart as of first week of August 2010. It beats other hit singles of foreign and Japanese artists like Katy Perry, Rox, Kylie Minogue, Namie Amuro, and Juju.
To beer or not to beer: that is the question; or maybe not anymore because there are now beer-tasting drinks that are non-alcoholic. It started last year when Kirin Free, the first 0.00% alcohol beer in the world, became a surprise hit in beer-loving Japan.
"The Cove", an Academy Award winning documentary, exposes the slaughter of more than 20,000 dolphins and porpoises off the coast of Japan every year, and how their meat, containing toxic levels of mercury, is being sold as food in Japan and other parts of Asia, often labeled as whale meat.
When I was learning Japanese in school, I learned that you can mark the objects of the three verbs kuru (to come), iku (to go), or kaeru (to return) by using the particle e. For example, if you want to say I will go to Tokyo, you can use the sentence: [Watashi wa] Tokyo e iku.
I had always taught that Japanese normally say "watashi wa anata o aishitemasu" whenever they want to express love to someone. But when I learned about Japanese language and culture, I discovered that such is not the case.
Ken is an engineer who also works as a part-time Nihongo teacher.