Articles

Basic Japanese Math

May 17, 2012
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Basic Japanese Math

I was sitting next to one of my Japanese coworkers today and we were talking about ropeways, cable cars, and just some differences between English and Japanese. For some reason or another, I was flipping through a Japanese textbook of mine, and tucked away index were some Japanese notes I had scribbled to myself. On this paper, I had written down some things I wanted to know how to say in Japanese. One of these things was a basic that I still wasn’t do: say basic math functions in Japanese. Since I had already started a fun little conversation with the Japanese teacher next to me, I decided to ask the teacher some basic...

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Answers to The Japan Guy Kanji Quiz

May 14, 2012
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Answers to The Japan Guy Kanji Quiz

Let’s take a brief look at the chart once more: Okay ladies and gents! Let’s see how you did. The answers below show the word and the corresponding kanji character. I also included a brief explanation of each one. Check it out! 1. One 一 One, single, solitary dash seems fitting to me. So the next time somebody asks you if you know kanji, you can show them how well you can write the kanji for the number “one.” 2. Two　二 If one dash is the number one, guess what the number two is? Two dashes!! 3. Three　三 Three dashes! 4. River　川 If you chose this one as the number three, I can definitely...

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The Song That Won’t Go Away

May 14, 2012
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The Song That Won’t Go Away

Okay, this is just a brief post because I have to hear your thoughts on this one. Recently, there is this song, that has been plaguing me! I hear it in my head ALL THE TIME!! I hear it so often in fact, that my fingers moved on their own last night and purchased the freakin’ thing from the iTunes Store. Now I’m really in trouble because I can listen to it anytime…on repeat if necessary. I’m pretty sure you know the song, because it’s not new new. It’s “Somebody That I Used To Know” by Gotye. This tune is more stuck in my brain than any song has been in a long time....

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A Japan Guy 15 Kanji Quiz

May 13, 2012
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A Japan Guy 15 Kanji Quiz

I remember eating out with my friend Abasa in the early part of my Japan stay and was so impressed by this guy. I knew so little Japanese, but he was speaking fluently, effortlessly. We talked about life in Japan and how he didn’t follow the normal teaching route. Abasa went the business route, instead. He’d lived in Japan for quite some time, and life seemed so good for him. Running into people like him who were so positive about being here, really had a big influence on me. I wanted to be able to experience Japan the way Abasa was. I wanted to be able to converse easily with the people around me....

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Whew! Problem Solved.

May 12, 2012
By
Problemsolved

I don’t know how many people were trying to get to the Japan Guy website this weekend, but if you were, I suspect you were getting some weird, incomprehensible error message. Oddly enough, so was I. I have was trying to fix an image problem, but ended up crashing my entire site instead. Umm, talk about scary. For a moment I thought I had lost half of my site. After the crash, I went for a long walk last night, worried that I’d have to try to re-do one years worth of Japan Guy stuff. The danger of losing something, really makes you appreciate having it so much more. Eventually, I was able to...

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Japan Guy Note: Small Picture Issue

May 11, 2012
By
TechTroubles

Hey Everybody, I was trying to do a pretty big post update today, and ran into a rather annoying little snag. You might be having a problem seeing images once you go to the posts from the main page. It’s an an techie issue that I’m trying to take care of, so please bear with me. It’ll be fixed soon, or my laptop will be in a hopeless scrap heap on apartment floor. I’m on it See you soon guys, Donald Ash

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Learning Kanji: My Five Kanji Teachers

May 10, 2012
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Learning Kanji: My Five Kanji Teachers

“BING, BONG, BING, BONG, BING, BONG, BING, BONG.” That grandfather clock-like tone means that cleaning time is over, and it’s time for the noon break. For the last four days my noon break has been a little different than normal. Every day after lunch & shouji I’ve been getting schooled in the ways of Japanese kanji by five, fifth grade girls. Learning kanji isn’t always easy, but hearing it from a Japanese kid’s perspective was really interesting. These five students were some of my best fourth graders last year, and the first day back, immediately after souji (cleaning time) they all came to my classroom, and were pretending like they were having an English...

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Ehh…A Tornado In Tsukuba?

May 6, 2012
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TsukubaTornado

I gotten a few messages today asking if I’m okay after the tornado in Tsukuba. I wanted to say thank you to those who emailed, I really appreciate it. I’m doing okay. It doesn’t look like any damage happened to the apartments and houses in my area. I think the tornado must have hit in a different part of Tsukuba. I was on my bike, riding to Tsukuba University, when the tornado hit (guess I need to pay more attention to the news). I should have noticed something was up when my door flung open as soon as I pushed the handle down. I really thought it was just a heavy thunderstorm with heavy...

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A Cool Yusuke Murata Manga

May 2, 2012
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A Cool Yusuke Murata Manga

You gotta check this out if you’re an manga fan. Even if you’re not a manga fan I think you’ll appreciate it. This manga is called When I saw how realistic it looked, my mind was transported back to the 80’s. Remember that video “Take On Me?” (I know somebody just sang the entire chorus to that song in their just now, or maybe even out loud). That was one of my favorite MTV videos because is was remarkably original. The reason why I thought of that video after looking at this manga was because the “Take On Me” video was the story of this real-life woman going into the coming book world and...

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How to Play Kendama (けん玉), Part 2

May 1, 2012
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HowToPlayKendamaP2

This is just is follow-up to How to Play Kendama, Part 1.” I guess I needed to prove that I’m not all talk . You’ll see from the video that I’m not an expert at this game, just a mere beginner actually. But this will show you the basics in action. Enjoy! Thanks for watching! Donald

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