After living in Japan for 10 years now I have come to the final realization and understanding that the majority of Japanese don’t or can’t love. This is a generalization, but I do believe it is true and very real. I used to believe that Japanese just had trouble expressing love. Japanese certainly have great difficulty expressing deep personal feelings. I am often amazed from personal experiences and from what I see on TV at how socially and emotionally challenged Japanese are. Silence seems to cover an inability to express feelings with social conditioning and a shame mentality seem to be the logical explanation.

Going back to my realization that Japanese don’t love. I believe Japan or Japanese doesn’t have a love culture. What I mean is love isn’t valued as much as pride or “doing one’s best. I want to make myself clear. I am not talking about a “boy meets girl and falls in love” kind of love. Japanese do fall in love and have the feelings romance or “being in love”. I am talking about family love, or a love for friends and a love for people in general.  I am not saying Japanese don’t care or feel things for people or family. They certainly do care and have feelings despite having great difficultly expressing them.

What I have seen and believe is that Japanese people just don’t love each other in the sense that love is something that you do or show. Love is a  verb – love it is something you do, not just feel.  Japanese families are ….loveless.  Their culture to a large degree doesn’t allow them to love. Up until the late 70’s arranged marriages were standard with the husband’s occupation, educational background and earning potenial being the most important things to the marriage. Many parents, especially fathers, don’t ever develop friendships with there children. In fact many father’s don’t even know their children because they are never home.

When I take my own son to kinder everyday I never see any parent kiss or hug their child to express love. This really blows my mind. I am talking about 3 and 4 year olds. Even when parents pick their children up there is nothing that you could call loving going on. A smile and a pat on the head at most. Parents may pick up there child and hug or hold them, but not for an expression of love, usually to satisfy a desire for attention from the child or a dependency. In fact, I never see parents kiss or hug there children anytime. Think about. Never expressing love to your own children.

What I do see and hear are parents wanting their 3 or 4  year old children to do their best and NOT CAUSE TROUBLE. The closet a parent will come to saying “I love you” is say “Do your best” (Gambatte). This is the last thing parents will say when dropping of their children at kinder or school. Or, a wonderful playful exchange will happen between two children which might be a little bit funny or strange. Then either one of both of the parents of the children will apologize for “trouble”caused and then openly scold the their children. This is something that really astounds me  - parents warning their children not to cause any trouble for their teachers or friends every morning. Remember these are 3 or 4 year olds learning about life and just beginning to develop their social skills. The pressure begins very early at school to conform to social standards and be perfect.

I feel that Japanese have it pretty hard. It is not easy being Japanese.  I have meet many Japanese who have never experienced love. They are extremely lonely and socially awkward people leading unhappy lives. Outside of their work they have nothing or nobody to share their lives with.

An effective way to learn and remember vocabulary is to not only to try to memorize particular words, but also to learn how to define them. As students we often become too dictionary dependent and not actually take the time to learn the meanings of new vocabulary. Often we forget new words and as a result become frustrated and get into a negative state of thinking, believing we can’t easily remember new words. However, we can communicate what we want to say often by defining the word we have forgotten. We do this quite often in our native language when we can’t remember elusive words or when we are just having a mental block. In the process oflearning  the definitons of new words we also improve our chances of remembering new words and reinforce words we already know.

Method

This method will work wonders for you vocabulary building, overall fluency and reading. Please put in an effort to follow the steps below.

Vocabulary List with Definitions

Words In English

Bully  Excursion  Face  Park  Noisy  Yawn Delicious  Listen  Police  Habit

If you would like to learn how to read kanji in context please visit  Kanji Supremacy

If you are not living in Japan or have no Japanese friends learning how to converse in Japanese is quite a challenge. It is quite easy to learn how to read and write kana and kanji, to study grammar and to learn lots of words by yourself. Conversation is different – you need a Japanese person to speak to. In this post we will look at a simple conversation. Hopefully you will learn something new.

Imagine you are at a train station wanting to go to Shibuya. You have forgotten your watch. You ask a stranger for the time and the time of the next train.

A: すみません。　いま　なんじですか。
B: じゅういちじはんです。
A: すぎのでんしゃ　なにじに　きますか
B: ごふんにきます
A: ありがとう　ございます
B: いいえ

In the above conversation すみません is said to get the strangers attention. Remember すみません can also mean “Thank you” or “I’m sorry” depending on context. In this case it means “Excuse me”.

To ask for the time in Japanese the set phrase なんじですか is used.

なん (what) 　じ (time)　ですか (question particle). いま　means “now”.

If you have studied Japanese numbers you will know that じゅういち is 11. So じゅういちじ　means 11 o’clock. はん means half past. So じゅういちじはんです means “It is 11:30”. です is just the sentence ending particle. Depending on context it can mean “It is”, “They are” and so on.

Let’s have a look at the next line, すぎのでんしゃ　なんじに　きますか. Again this is a time question

すぎ のでんしゃ – means next train. The のis just the possessive particle.

なんじに – What time…

きますか – Come? Here we have the ますform of the plain verb くる, which means “come”. By adding か the sentence becomes a question..

What time does the next train come? – すぎのでんしゃ　なにじに　きますか

Now, for the answer; ごふんにきます. As both the speaker and listener know the subject (the next train) it doesn’t need to be stated in the reply. This is very typical of Japanese. So the answer is something like this – (the train) comes in 5 minutes.

ごふん meaning 5 minutes and the verb きます meaning come.

ごふんにきます　- It comes in 5 minutes

ありがとう　ございます of course means “thank you” and いいえ means “Don’t mention it.”

Here is the conversation in English

A: すみません。　いま　なんじですか。
B: じゅういちじはんです。
A: すぎのでんしゃ　なにじに　きますか
B: ごふんにきます
A: ありがとう　ございます
B: いいえ

A: Excuse me. What time is it?
B: It is 11.30
A: What time does the next train come?
B: In 5 minutes
A: Thank you
B: You’re welcome

If you are in the unfortunate situation where you can’t find a native Japanese speaker to help you with your studies there is one alternative – Japanese TV, particularly dramas. Watching Japanese television dramas is an excellent way to pick up words and learn Japanese conversation dynamics. Japanese converse very differently to westerners. If you watch dramas you can see how Japanese converse in fairly natural every speech. Movies are usually too difficult and the story lines unrealistic. So buy some drama sets on e-bay or get on to youtube and start watching dramas.

In this post you will learn some basic Japanese words. As you probably know many Japanese phrases and common expressions are quite difficult for the beginner. For example, the common greeting phrases はじめまして (hajimemashite)　and  よろしく　おねがいします (yoroshiku onegaishimasu) are pretty difficult words to get your tounge around.  However, these difficult and quite formal expressions are usually the first words a student is taught. We are going to have some and just learn some basic Japanese words.

We will focus on some common adjectives. There are two kinds of adjectives in Japanese　い-ending adjectives and な-ending adjectives. Will we focus on い-ending adjectives as they are usually more common and expressive. い-ending adjectives, especially adjectives that end with しい express human emotions and feelings. Examples are below;

さびしい　－　sabishii – loney (as in missing someone)

かなしい　－ kanashii – sad

うれしい　 － ureshii  – happy

These adjectives all end in しい(shii). Notice how they express powerful emotions.

Time to learn some basic words – watch the video and repeat after Kaoru Sensei. We won’t worry about kanji characters for the moment.  Hopefully you can read hiragana.

Note: ふとい describes objects that are thick or wide.  ふとい is not used to describe people who are large or fat. The common term to describe fat people is でぶ(debu). でぶ is a な-adjective. If we place でぶ before the noun person/people  ひと(hito) we would have でぶなひと. The  な of a  な-adjective is only placed before a noun. If you say a　な-adjective on its own or without the noun, you drop the な. For example, あのこは　でぶですね. That child is fat. There is no noun after でぶ. So there is no な. More on this in another post.

Alright now that you have watched the video here are a few revision questions.

What are two ways to say good in Japanese?

What is the opposite of  ながい?

How do you say big in Japanese?

What does わるい mean?

What is the opposite of かるい?

How do you say old and new in Japanese?

What does ちいさい mean?

I hope you enjoyed this lesson on basic Japanese words. One of the best ways to learn Japanese is to give learning  grammar and kanji a break, and just learn lots of Japanese words. However, you should keep in mind being able to read Japanese characters can dramatically increase your abiltiy to learn new words. Mix up your Japanese study and try to keep learning fun and stimulating.

Here is a sample from our learning package Kanji Supremacy. When learning to read Japanese students often make the mistake of focusing too much on memorizing kanji symbols. Students focus on learning the readings of several hundred kanji without really practicing reading. The best way to learn how to read Japanese is to read kanji in context. Also, more often than not learning compound kanji words is more effective than single kanji characters.

The Kanji Supremacy Method

1. Go to the vocabulary section and read the words.
2. Play the audio and follow the text (email) as Kaoru Sensei reads. Do this several times.
3. Try reading the email by yourself
4. Refer back to the vocabulary to check words you don’t understand
5. Read the text yourself aloud.

Reading Practice Vocabulary -読み練習の単語を覚えましょう

No. Kanji Reading Meaning
1    -  元気       -     げんき               -    Well
2    -  私           -     わたし               -    I
3    -  今           -     いま                  -     Now
4    -  人           -     ひと                   -    People
5    -  日本       -     にほん              -    Japan
6    -  今日       -     きょう                 -    Today
7    -  十二時   -    じゅうにじ          -   12 o’clock
8    -  四十三   -    よんじゅうさん   -   Fourty three
9    -  来月       -     らいげつ            -   Next month
10  -  七日      -     なのか               –  7th
11 土曜日       -     どようび              -  Saturday

Reading Practice – emails From New York 1

おにいちゃんへ

元気ですか。　私は今インターネットカフェにいます。おいしいコーヒーをのんでいます。
ニュウヨークはすごいまちですよ。人がおおくて、とてもにぎやかです。日本とぜんぜんちがいます。
今日は、まちのバスツアーをします。　たのしみですけど、ちょっとたかいです。
四十三ドルもする。そのあとは、ともだちのアパートにいきます。来月の七日までとまります。

土曜日にうちにでんわをしますね。　みんなによろしくね。

Note: にぎやか -Lively, bustling

The Kanji learning Package comes with video tutorials that coach you how to kanji in context.
Grammar explainantions are also provided for each lesson. To learn more visit Kanji Supremacy

I have finally managed to work out how to blog in both Japanese and English so I thought I would post a kanji symbol lesson. In this lesson we will focus on just one kanji symbol and see how it can be used in a number of Japanese kanji compound words. Did you know that a kanji character can have several readings. A single symbol will almost aways have an on-reading and a kun-reading.  The on-reading of a kanji character (音読み・おんよみ) is the Chinese based reading. Kanji originated in China, and Japan started to adopt and adapt the writing system in the 4th century. On-reading kanji often have the same or very similar pronunciation to the Chinese version of the kanji. The kun-reading （訓読み・くんよみ） is the Japanese reading of the kanji.

Watch the video kanji lesson below.

Let’s revise!

車　has two readings;  くるま and  しゃ. Which one is the Chinese reading?

Here are the questions and vocabulary from the video;

車をもってますか　　－ Do you own a car?

車をもってません      － I don’t own a car

車はたかいですね　－　Cars are expensive

車　－　　　　　くるま　　－　　　kuruma         –  car

車椅子　－　　 くるまいす　－　kurumaisu   -   wheelchair

自動車　－　    じどうしゃ　 －   jidousha       -   motor vehicle

自転車　－　     じてんしゃ　－ jitensha          -   bicycle

書庫　 　－  　 しゃこ　　　　－　shako             -   garage

駐車所 　－ ちゅうしゃじょ　－ chuushajyo   -  car park

車輪　　  － しゃりん　　　　－　sharin             -  wheel

What did you think?