One of the biggest worries students tend to have when they start studying Japanese is how to fit all those complicated characters into their heads. While it is a mighty task, it certainly can be done by anyone with some determination and guidance in the right direction. I find that one of the quickest ways to memorize kanji is to separate them by category. It helps to start with some that are easy to write because many of the more complicated characters will utilize these. After these you can move on to single kanji words that you find yourself using the most. After a while you’ll be ready to move on to kanji compounds and the multiple pronunciations of characters. We’ll start with something extremely basic; numbers.

１ 一 ichi
２ 二 ni
３ 三 san
４ 四 shi
５ 五 go
６ 六 roku
７ 七 shichi
８ 八 hachi
９ 九 kyuu
１０ 十 juu
１００ 百 hyaku

For learning simple numbers, maybe try a song like this

One, two and three you should be able to memorize for life in less than a minute. The others are relatively easy to remember, especially when you use a few tricks to do so. Imagine that 四 is a little puppet show with the curtains hanging down from the right and left sides. 六　looks like a little man; the small dot on the top is the head, the horizontal line makes the arms and the other two lines are legs. 八　looks very similar to the katakana for “ha” （ハ）。　十　looks just like a cross, easy enough. 五　and 九 both have interesting shapes that will stick in your head relatively easily. That leaves us with boring old 七 which shouldn’t be all that hard.

Other Related Numbers

Making bigger numbers is relatively easy. The number in the 10′s place is before the number 10 and the number in the ones place comes after. 四十八 is 48. 六十九　is 69. 100 works the same way 四百七十二　is 472. If this sounds difficult, don’t worry. Numbers above 20 are rarely written in kanji.

Dates

While the ways to use these are practically limitless, lets think of the most common and practical ways. The first is the date. In Japanese, the month is expressed with numbers, rather than names. That means January is literally called “one-month” and February “two-month”. Month is 月　(getsu) and day is 日　(nichi)

三月　　　 March
十月　 October

Time
We express o’clock with the kanji 時　(ji) and minutes with 分　（pun though pronunciation varies). 半　(han) means a half and comes at the end.

七時 7 o’clock
九時半 9:30

Year
The year is often expressed in kanji but in a relatively simple way. Rather than 千九百九十九年　（年 or “nen” means year), 1999 is written as 一九九九年。

Money
Another very useful way to make use of these characters is with money. Although prices are rarely written in kanji, you will find them written this way in some Japanese restaurants or in some stores that sell traditional Japanese goods and pastries. Yen is pronounced “en” in Japanese with the character 円。
五十円　

We’ve looked at a handful of loanwords that came from English already but not all loan words came from English. There are a fair amount that come from German, Portugese, French, Dutch and other languages. The most interesting thing about these loan words is that most Japanese natives think that they’re actually English words. They may be a bit harder to remember than English loan words but anyone studying Japanese should take note of them.

アルバイト　Working your byte (German)
One of the most common non-English loanwords is the word for part time job. The word is Arubaito and comes from German but is often abbreviated to Baito. I cannot count the amount of times I’ve heard Japanese use the word baito and expect an English native to understand.

パン – Pots and Pans (Portuguese)
Another extremely popular word to mistake for English, Pan means bread, not something you cook out of. I’ve met almost native level English speakers in Japan who still mistake this word and it can be really confusing at first if you haven’t studied Spanish or Portuguese.

アンケート – survey (French)
I tried for a long time to figure out which English word this came from but Ankeeto comes from French and means survey. It can be used for casual magazine surveys about your love life or more scientific surverys about how your health and the workings of your brain.

ピエロ – Hey Pierre! (French)
This one always makes me laugh. I imagine a man named Pierre who puts on make up and dresses up as a clown on his days off. There must be someone like that out there who is studying Japanese! If that can’t help you remember the word, I don’t know what can. Piero comes from French and means clown.

ミイラ Looking at the man in the mirror (Portuguese)
It sounds like mirror but if you look into a mirror and see a miira, you’ve been dead for a long, long time. Miira means mummy and apparently comes from Portugese. Once again, if imagining a mummy looking in the mirror isn’t a good memory trick, I don’t know what is.

マロン Those are some small melons (French)
First of all, get your mind out of the gutter. I learned the word “Maron” when I went to a supermarket and asked where the melons were. You could imagine the look on my face when I was shown a bunch of nuts. Maron comes from French and means chestnuts.

コンセント　Getting Consent (???)
Contrary to my initial idea, this word has nothing to do with getting approval from someone. It means electrical outlet and I have not been able to figure out where it comes from. It has been bothering me so if anyone knows, please fill me in.

One of the interesting things that happens to some English words when they get turned into Japanese is getting blended together. Some words are too long for Japanese speakers and so it is fairly common that a long English word will get this treatment. Today we’ll look at some useful examples for anyone studying Japanese.

パソコン Pasacon

One of the first katakana words I learned, a very useful one and a shining example of the interesting ways that English has found its way into the Japanese language. This word is short for Personal Computer and is a must for anyone studying Japanese.

アメフト Amefuto

Ame usually means either candy or rain but in this case it is short for American. Can you guess what this word means now? I certainly couldn’t; American Football. Unlike Europe, Japan uses the same word as America, soccer, to refer to the kicking game and American Football to refer to the tackling game, although it is rarely played in Japan.

エアコン Aircon

When I first heard this word I thought someone was talking about that airplane thriller that stars Nicholas Cage as a con man. Con Air was it? The real meaning however, is not nearly as exciting. This is what “air conditioner” looks like in Japanese. Japanese air conditioners are very different from western ones. There is rarely, if ever, central air conditioning in Japan so most people really on wall units that are only good for heating up one room and leave you with a pretty nasty soar throat if you don’t keep it on low while you are sleeping. They are pretty effective if you live in a well insulated place but in my room for example, which has 3 big windows, it takes a while for them to get started.

セクハラ Sekuhara

This is a word you don’t want being used toward you. Although you might not be able to figure it out on your own, this word is short for “sexual harassment”. Though lawsuits are not nearly as common as they are in Japan as the US and Japanese men may get away with much more than they do stateside, there are a few cases where someone crosses even the Japanese line into what someone would call sekku hara. One of the most common forms of Sekku Hara in Japan is the “Chikan”. A Chikan is someone who gropes women on a crowded train. When I first came here this idea was nonsense to me but if you spend time on one of the busier lines in Tokyo during rush hour you can easily imagine how some perverted guy who lets his hormones get the best of him might try it. For this reason there are some women only train cars during rush hours.

マザコン Mazakon

Since Oedipus complex is probably one of the very first word you wanted to know when you started studying Japanese, here it is. This word is short for “Mother complex”. It is usually used more to refer to the typical Mama’s boy rather than a confused person with serious feelings for the mother.

Happy New Years from Kyoto! I’m exploring the ancient city with my family who is here for the first time and thought it would be the perfect opportunity to teach you a bunch of words and concepts relating to New Years. Anyone studying Japanese will find these words extremely useful for understanding the culture of Japan.

Prepping for the new Year – 年賀状　Nengajou

Nengajou, or New Year’s cards are seasonal greetings that are an important part of New Year’s in Japan. Although the custom has become less essential with the spread of the internet and mobile messages in the last two decades, most old folk and many young people still send these cards to friends, coworkers, and relatives. Most young people I’ve talked to send between 20-30 and some older people will send upwards of 50-100, basically to everyone they know.

お正月　Oshougatsu

New Years Eve, or Oshougatsu, is basically a family day in Japan. The trains are packed for the days leading to New Years Eve because a majority of people are heading back to their hometown. Tokyo Station was packed but there were enough Shinkansen (Bullet trains) that we managed to snatch 3 seats. Many people will eat soba noodles for dinner. Soba symbolize longevity and means good luck for the new year. Unlike in the west, most people stay home with their families on New Years. Many of them will watch special television programs while eating (and in some families drinking) together.

初詣　Hatsumoude

Hatsumoude is the years first visit to a temple. Although the religious meaning of this tradition has faded among most Japanese, they do like protecting their traditions and almost all will visit a temple within the first 3 days of the new year, many going right after midnight. This usually involves standing on a long line making a quick prayer and throwing some coins in for donations to the temple. Many temples will have festivals with lots of food stands as well.

The morning after – おおみそか　Oomisoka

The first day of the year is a feast! Families will wake up and prepare Osechi (New Year’s food). Osechi is composed of a huge variety of small dishes. Some of these dishes are commonly found in bento and many of them are only eaten on New Years. Traditionally, each of these foods have a symbolic meaning though the meaning has been lost among most. Some families choose to cook this food on their own and others will buy expensive sets from department stores (I see many sets going for 30,000 yen, about 350 dollars!). The rest of the day (or more like the next 3 days) is spent either relaxing with family or those who didn’t do it the night before will make a stop at the nearest temple.

Although countdown parties are becoming more popular, the holiday is basically a time for family to relax, eat a lot, and enjoy time together. The following days are also a chance for people to see their hometown friends. If you have the chance to experience New Years in Japan, consider yourself lucky, it is one of the most enjoyable times of the year.

Last time we looked at some ways to use the magic word (or words) to get what we want. But you can’t always have what you want. Sometimes we don’t need to request anything, we just want to tell someone what it is we want and don’t expect them to do anything about it. When you tell your friend “I want a new car”, you don’t usually expect them to buy it for you (unless you are having an affair with a rich, generous person). In English we use “want” with both nouns and verbs but in Japanese there are two different ways to say want. It is important to take note of this when you study Japanese.

I want to eat 食べたい

When you want to do something, you have to conjugate the verb with the -tai ending so the sentence becomes “Noun + wo + verb-tai”. This is a verb conjugation so obviously we can not use it with nouns. After a long day, ”食べたい！”　is how you’d say “I want to eat!”. We take the stem form of “Taberu” or “to eat” with the -tai ending「何を食べたい？」would be a casual way to ask “What do you want to eat. To make this more polite, we add a “desu” at the end 「何を食べたいですか？」　「すしを食べたいです」 “I want to eat sushi”. Easy enough, right?

I want a car 車が欲しい

When you express that you want an object or a noun, the grammar is different so please be careful. We use the pattern “Noun + ga hoshii”, so if you are working day and night to save up for a new guitar you can say 「新しいギターが欲しい」　or “I want a new guitar”. Or if you’ve been single for a long time and finally need some love and affection you can say 「新しい彼女が欲しい!」 or “I want a new girlfriend!”. You’ve friend might respond with “Ganbatte!” or “Do your best!” People tend to use Verb with the -tai when they can. 「すしが欲しい」 and 「すしを食べた」 essentially mean the same thing but it is more common to say “I want to eat sushi” than “I want sushi”, just like in English. When we want to be polite, we add a “desu” at the end.

I Miss New York

One of the most frustrating things for people who study Japanese is trying to express that you miss something. There is no verb to express “to miss” in Japanese. We have to work with what we’ve got. There are two main ways we can do this. Instead of saying “I miss New York”, we might say 「ニューヨークに戻りたい」 or “I want to return to New York”. This can be frustrating if we don’t actually want to express discontent with Tokyo. We could also say「ニューヨークは懐かしいです」 or “New York is nostalgic”. The third way to say this is 「ニューヨークは恋しいです」 or something like “New York is dear to me” but you will not hear this one often. Take your pick. “I miss you” would most often be translated as 「あなたに会いたい」.

It’s important to know how to get what you want. When you go to another country this is especially true. It’s a good idea to try to be polite when you do this with people you don’t know or even with people that you do know. If you are studying Japanese, you need to learn a little more than just a magic word. There is more than one way to say please in Japanese and it effects the grammar of the sentence but it shouldn’t be too difficult. Let’s take a look at three different ways to say “please” in Japanese

The most common and useful way to say please in Japanese is by ending a sentence with kudasai. This is used in both casual and formal situations and is the most flexible way to say please. We can’t just throw it at the end though, we need to change the verb to the -te form. If you cooked a nice dinner and want to invite your friends to eat the feast in front of them you can say “食べてください” or “Please eat”. We take the word taberu and change it to the te form and add kudasai. Not too hard, right? If your friend gets a little too drunk and starts to tease you about your bosses crush on you, you can tell them 「やめてください！」 or “Quit it”! I use kudasai for all of my pleases except for in super formal situations and when I make very very casual requests.

Onegaishimasu is much more polite and is used for business occasions and with strangers when you want to be particularly polite. You can also use it as a stand alone word, unlike kudasai, when you just want to say “please”. An example of this would be if someone offers to give you a tour of the city, “Onegaishimasu!” means “please do!” Most of the time this word is used with nouns. 　We might say to a waiter 「水おねがいします」 or “Can I please have water”. Most people wearing a uniform, be it a suit or a fast food restaurant uniform will opt for this more polite variant of the magic word. You can also use it to someone you don’t know to be polite. A casual way to use this is 「おねがい」but be careful as it sounds a bit more desperate. 　

Choudai is the most casual way to say please. We may use it in a very casual way with close friends for small requests. 「水ちょうだい」 means “Water please” but you don’t want to say this to a waitress or even to a friend who is older than you as it is very casual. Children often use choudai with their parents if you say it in a childlike voice, it might be considered either really cute or really annoying. While a word for word translation does not reveal it’s nuance, the above sentence could roughly translate to “Gimme water please”. Even with close friends, it’s a good idea not to use this for big requests.

In a country where being polite is so important, it’s important for anyone studying Japanese to learn how to say please.

For your education and entertainment purposes, a few more katakana loan words that didn’t work out exactly as intended.

These words of encouragement didn’t even resemble any English word in my mind and it took me a while to figure out that it actually came from English at all. One common place to hear this is school sports teams but it is sometimes used in the business world or with friends. It comes from the English words “Don’t mind” and basically means “Don’t worry about it?” I don’t feel stupid for not realizing this right away. This loanword, like many others, took a shortcut in accuracy in exchange for convenience. It’s ok, Don mai!

This one baffles me as well. When spelled out in romaji, “Oorai” certainly doesn’t look like it came from English but after hearing numerous Japanese men yelling it out to parking cars, you can easily figure out that it comes from the English world “Alright”. But why go through the effort of adopting such a useful and versatile words if you are going to limit it to it’s least common usage? When asked how you are doing, or when describing if a movie was good or not, you never hear the word “Oorai”. It is used solely for the purpose of helping drivers back up. Talk about Mottainai.

This word bothers me because it paints an image (no pun intended) of something very different. The first thing I thought of when I first heard “irasuto” is the word it sounds most similar to “lust”. Maybe I just have a dirty mind but my common sense never lead me to think this could possibly mean “illustration”. The actually meaning and the sound “lust” always conjures up an inappropriate image in my mind and I feel like I need to lower my voice when I say this word. I guess I’m not 100% used to Japanese life after all.

In high school I would make up words similar to this one. I would turn nouns and adjectives into verbs, however ridiculous it sounded. For example “I frogged him” meant “I threw a frog at him”. I suppose this makes me as guilty as the Japanese of breaking the rules of the English language for their own amusement. In Japanese, “cunning” is used as a verb and means to trick people, so in other words “She cunninged me” means “She tricked me”. Japan has way fewer scams than the rest of Asia but just in case, be careful not to be cunninged.

Apparently there are two kinds of smart people. One is really intelligent and the other has a really hot body. Smart is often used in Japanese to refer to someone who is thin or slender. I have heard from certain people that this actually is real native English somewhere in some time period for someone, but not for myself or most of the Americans I know. On the contrary, this was quite baffling for me at first. Keep in mind that the real meaning of smart is also included in this word.

Words don’t always translate well. Sure, dictionaries tend to give one single word that is supposed to correspond one English word with one Japanese word but more often than not, the nuance between the Japanese word and the English word are slightly different and an explanation is very useful. It is important to be careful of this when you study Japanese and make note of the words that don’t translate well, otherwise you will use Japanese words as if they are English words and people are going to be a bit confused about what you are trying to say. This time we are going to talk about how to express some extreme situations that will hopefully come in handy for anyone studying Japanese.

大変　Taihen

This is a negative word. It may be the ultimate negative word because you can use it in just about every bad situation. It can be used to describe a difficult situation or some kind of trouble as well as express that something is terrible or extreme. When used alone 大変です is pretty close “That’s pretty rough” or “This is pretty bad!”. People often say this as a sign of sympathy for others. If you tell someone about your hard day at work or about your boyfriend flirting with other girls, you are bound to have this thrown at you. You can also use it as an adjective to describe a difficult situation with 大変な状態。.　You can use the word to express extremity as well such as 大変暑い or “It is extremely hot!”

やばい　Yabai (Yabe)

This is a tricky one because depending on the situation it could express something great or something terrible. Sometimes I like to translate it as “Holy Shit!”. It is basically a word to express surprise over something but usually this surprise comes with a nuance of being either really good or really bad. If you see a movie and it was really good you can say あの映画はやばかった　which might translate to “That movie was really something!” or “That movie was crazy!”. You have to use the context to figure out if it was a really good movie, a really bad movie or just a surprising movie. If you say テストはやばかった, it probably means something like “the test was really hard” You can also use it to describe a person. A やばいやつ　could be a variety of things. If you see a scary looking guy on the street, it probably means he is a “dangerous guy”, if he is on a basketball team he is a “tough opponent” and if its a cool looking guy, it might just mean he gets all the girls. My personal favorite: if a bear is chasing you, you can turn around and shout to your friend “これはやばい”, which I would translate as “We’re f—ed!”.

If you liked this check out my Japanese concepts part 1 post Ganbare and Gaman

Katakana is a big part of the Japanese language. It is a alphabet-like set of characters that are used to represent foreign words as well as certain slang expressions, sounds in written form and also words with very difficult kanji. When you are studying Japanese you are bound to run into it all the time but since it isn’t quite as common as hiragana it will take a bit longer to get comfortable with. Once you do become comfortable with katakana, it doesn’t mean you will be comfortable with all of it’s usage.

マンツーマン　Let’s learn English bro
The English language is a commodity in Japan. Japanese people spend some of the most money in the world on learning English. Since English learning in Japanese schools is completely disconnected from actual practical English speaking, many people rely on English conversation tutoring, or Eikaiwa (英会話). Many advertise their service, not as one-on-one English lessons but as “man to man” conversation… Now, the last time I had a man to man talk, my father was talking about how important using protection was. Before you start to imagine students and teachers drinking beer and talking about sports, cars and women, remember there are a lot of these mistaken nuances.

テンションがたかい　How tense are you?
Do you have high tension? In Japan, having high tension has nothing to do with stress or electricity. It means you are energetic and have an energetic personality. On the other hand, having low tension means you are feeling a bit down, perhaps depressed, maybe just tired, or maybe you have a dull and boring character. When asked what kind of people they want to date, some people may say they want someone with high tension. Imagine saying that in an English speaking country….what were they thinking?

マンション　Delusions of Grandeur
This is one of the first bastardized loanwords that most people learn when they study Japanese. Your friend tells you he lives in a mansion, you think “What the hell is he talking about?”, you go to his mansion; a 10 story apartment building and think “Wait, what…this is all yours?” and he walks you up to his tiny one room apartment. “Where is the mansion?”. Your friend isn’t completely delusional. In Japanese a mansion basically refers to an apartment room.

ホーム　Going home to ride the train
How many times do you have to say “platform” quickly before it starts to sound like home? I’ve tried it about 100 but unless you transcribe it to katakana, it just doesn’t work. This almost makes sense in Katakana which is why most of the time a train platform is referred to as the “home”. It took me a few weeks to figure this out, I couldn’t imagine why I was being told that a train was approaching my home but it made me feel uneasy.

ライブハウス　　Live at the Live House
Someone must have messed up and thought that the “live” in “live music” was a noun. Small concerts in Japan are called “Lives” and concert halls are called “live houses”. Try to go to 3 lives without picking this up and using it yourself when speaking English.

Many people see the Japanese as extremely hardworking and who can blame them for that impression with so many Japanese working ridiculous overtime hours. While the amount of work being done and the efficiency of it is debatable, there is certainly a very strong sense of social responsibility. With that sense of responsibly comes a strong work ethic. At the very least, the Japanese work long hours and try to stay busy. Looking at the language may give us some insight into where this dedication to work comes from.

Ganbaru

When you start studying Japanese, it won’t be long before you run into some form of the word Ganbaru. Ganbaru in short means “to do your best”. You can say “Ganbarimasu” to tell someone (your boss for example) that you are going to do work really hard on something. When someone enters a company and gives a welcome speech they often end the speech by saying that they’ll do their best. When someone makes a mistake, they often assure that they will do their best from then on. At New Years parties, people often announce that they’ll do their best with something in the following year. It is common to hear students saying that they’ll do their best in everything from sports to grades to cleaning the hallway to having class meetings. While the meaning is not all that different from English, the variety of situations and frequency in which it is used is quickly noticeable. Since it is used so widely it can be thought of as a concept more than just a word.

“Ganbare” is how you would cheer someone on and say “Do your best!” It might be better to think of this as “Good luck!” if said before a sports event or performance. If your friend just broke up with his girlfriend and is having a hard time you might cheer him along the same way.

Ganbatte kudasai means “Please do your best”. Since this concept is so ingrained into the Japanese psyche, sometimes this is used in a dismissive way. Imagine you are working overtime every day despite having health problems. Your boss might say to you, “Ganbatte Kudasai”. While many people would translate this as “Please do your best” or “Please continue to work hard.”, I think it is fair to see this as a polite way of saying “Deal with it”.

Gaman

Another way to say “Deal with it” is “Gaman Shite”. Gaman most accurately translates to “to put up with” and is another word that is much more casually tossed around than it’s English counterpart. When you think about it, all most Japanese employees do is “gaman”. When your boss says “Jump!”, you say “How high?” with enthusiasm. People are not only supposed to work hard but also respect people with more experience then them. This often means holding in things that they want to say, not only with their boss but also with most of their coworkers. That can add up to a whole lot of “Gaman”. When your Japanese study starts to feel like too much, just give yourself a “Gaman shite kudasai!”.