I’ve had an interest in Japanese language and culture since I was a child and I was delighted to discover the Tenri School of Japanese Language located within the Tenri Cultural Institute. Tucked away in a nondescript building on 13th Street it could easily be missed, but once inside, the serene atmosphere makes you forget ...
One thing that makes the Japanese language hard to learn is the Japanese alphabet. Actually, it’s alphabets. Japan has two distinctive alphabets (or rather syllabaries) plus the logograms based on Chinese characters. The Japanese written word is made up of hiragana, katakana, and kanji. If you are starting out learning the Japanese language, you may ...
The Japanese language is classified as a level 4 language, which means to us English, that it is one of the hardest to learn. In reality, it is really the grammar that tends to throw English speakers off and not the language itself. Many Japanese language students will admit that the Japanese alphabet known as ...
Studying abroad will be one of the most amazing experiences of your life, though it can also be the most overwhelming. Even with all the planning and preparation you may do, once you get there it’s a whole other ball game. If you’re considering a study abroad program, don’t consider, do it! You won’t regret ...
Most people who come to stay in Japan for any extended period of time soon find themselves needing to study Japanese or further expand upon their current knowledge. On the surface Japanese seems to poss little difficulty. Japanese phonetics are simple as all consonants are always followed by a vowel, this comprises the bulk of ...
I’ve long had an affection for learning alphabets and writing systems. It’s like experiencing the joy of learning to read all over again. After the Latin alphabet, I moved on to Hebrew, Russian, Greek and even Japanese hiragana, even though Russian is the only one of those I speak. I’ve since mostly forgotten Greek and ...