I’m in the Japan Times today with one of my favorite Bilingual articles in a long time: “Enka gives lessons in Japan’s unattainable love.” I don’t remember the first time I learned the word 演歌 (enka), but it was likely … Continue reading
明けましておめでとうございます！ Happy New Year! It’s the Year of the Rooster, which apparently is not as lucky for me (a Rooster) as I initially believed…it’s just my responsibility to throw the beans on Setsubun as a 年男. よろしくお願いします！ After an extended … Continue reading
ご無沙汰しています！ I was in the Japan Times last week and this week looking at correspondence, letters and emails respectively: “‘Tis the season for ‘tegami’ — and for facing your Japanese letter-writing fears” and “To email in Japanese, take a layer … Continue reading
I’m in the Japan Times Bilingual page this week: “Repetition and role-play are crucial for speaking success in Japanese.” I was stunned to see that no one had previously written about 早口言葉 (はやくちことば, tongue twisters)…as long as the search engine … Continue reading
The other day I suddenly remembered the phrase 半ケツ. I’m not sure what prompted it. I mean, I have as many random sexual thoughts as your average red-blooded American male, but this was not sexual in nature…at least not completely. … Continue reading
I’m on the Japan Times Bilingual Page today: “To furu or furareru: In any lingo, breaking up is hard to do.” Sadly the piece is inspired by a true story. As is my MO these days, I dug deep in … Continue reading
I’m on the Japan Times Bilingual page this week: “In Japanese, mastery of the space-time continuum is just a few words away.” The intro is inspired by my first ever trip to Japan—an internship with a propeller company. I was … Continue reading
Back in the ‘90s and the early ‘00s when I first played through (parts of) FFVI, I had no idea how much the opera scene owed to karaoke culture, but now it’s totally clear. I mean, there’s a syllable for … Continue reading
I have another Bilingual page column in the Japan Times today: “The myths and misery of translating Japanese video games.” It’s sort of a redux of my post “On Translation and Me” (which was later syndicated at Kotaku) with a … Continue reading
One of the best parts about my return to New Orleans is that I have not been sick as much as I was in Japan. My first winter in Fukushima I caught pneumonia. The second year I had the flu … Continue reading