June - 2015

This section contains lots of useful grammar notes which will help you improve your Japanese substantially. If you have further queries on grammar, feel free to ask us and we will try our best to answer them =)

Tomoki Moriyama

Jun 28, 2015

Why「こんにちは」instead of 「こんにちわ」?

Today I recieved a question from my student in the Beginner Course. She asked me why, in my email, did I write "konnichiwa' (hello) as「こんにちは」instead of 「こんにちわ」. This is a good question. I taught my students in my first lesson that to say 'A=B ' in Japanese, it's 'A wa B desu'. And when you write this sentence pattern in hiragana, it should be 「AはBです」. Please remember this rule and I will explain why this is so when you become an advanced learner. For instance, 「わたしはともきです

Tomoki Moriyama

Jun 27, 2015

When to use 「~んです」

Q: In what kind of situation can I use 「~んです」? A: You have learned 「~んです」, but you still might not have a deep understanding of the expression. Please consider the differences between the 2 sentences below. 1) 寒いです。 2) 寒いんです。 1) is used when you are just describing the cold, and there is no additional nuance. However, you can add the following nuances: a) explanation b) notice/discovery a) When it's cold and you want to ask your teacher to switch off the air-con. In this cas

Tomoki Moriyama

Jun 11, 2015

「あなたが好きです」と「あなたのことが好きです」の違い (For advanced level learners)

Advanced level の学生にこの違いを聞かれました。とてもいい質問です。「あなたが好きです」はとても直接的な言い方です。英語の’ I like you ‘と同じです。しかし「あなたのことが好きです」は、あなたの「性格、仕事、様子、考え方など全部」が好きという意味です。だから「あなたのことが好き」とあなたに言ってくれる人は、あなたのことをよく分かってくれるいい人だと思いますよ：）難しい？そうですね。愛は難しいですね。

Effective Speaking Training: Speech Shadowing

Tomoki Moriyama

Jun 9, 2015

Effective Speaking Training: Speech Shadowing

What’s most unique practice way of my lesson is 'Speech shadowing’. Shadowing is an advanced learning technique where you listen to a speech recording in Japanese, and then speak it aloud at the same time as the native speaker. I adopted the method one year ago and I have seen great improvement of speaking skill of my students in Intermediate and Advanced courses. The ideal content is a short dialogue at natural speed, and it should be on engaging topics with no artificial pa

Tomoki Moriyama

Jun 5, 2015

18 Japanese words that mean "I"

In Japanese , there are countless words to mean 'I'. Each word has a different nuance. Normally we use 「わたし」. But in very informal or casual situation, we use different words. And there are many words used just by women, men, king, ninja etc... By your textbook, you learned 「わたし」, but to enjoy Japanese drama, movie, manga or music, it's good to understand nuance of each word. In this article, I list some words, with some reference to Wiki (By the way, Wiki has many mistakes o

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