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2025 on Tumblr: Trends That Defined the Year
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Cosimo Galluzzi
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izzy's playlists!
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Monterey Bay Aquarium
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Love Begins
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$LAYYYTER
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@nihongonau
Me, insulting someone in my first language: you absolute Buffon, you incompetent fool, hell shivers at your unpleasantness and god turns his back on you.
Me, trying to insult someone in a language I’m learning: you..you are bad. Not nice.
Say Hello to Hirogaru
「ひろがる」HIROGARU is the brand new e-learning website made by the Japan Foundation.
This website allows you to learn Japanese by clicking on your areas of interest. It has got videos and lots of articles in both Japanese and English.
You can check it clicking this link: https://hirogaru-nihongo.jp/
Some things I love about Japanese*
Prince = king child (王子)
Puppy = dog child (犬子)
Bamboo shoot = bamboo child (竹の子); omg I cannot even, how cute
Baby = red thing; diminutive (赤ちゃん)
*as an early learner who may be missing impt info; @todayintokyo @shoku-and-awe may want to laugh and/or correct my misconceptions ;)
One of the questions I get asked the most often is “How do I make my Japanese more colloquial?” or “How do I sound more like a native?” There’s also a lot of discussion about “Textbook Japanese” versus Japanese you’ll hear while on the train, in line at the store, or out with friends.
This post is quite long and explanatory, so here is a list of what’s covered under the cut!
TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. Plain form 2. Dropping particles 3. です to だ 4. Sentence ending particle の 5. 〜ています → 〜ている → 〜てる 6. て form does not always equal command 7. じゃない & じゃん 8. と to って 9. さ 10. なんか 11. なんて
Keep reading
New Year Vocabulary 元日
New Year’s Day 元日 is the most special day in the Japanese calendar. During the first seven days, every Japanese home is decorated with special ornaments called 門松 [かどまつ] made of pine, bamboo, and sometimes ume tree representing longevity, prosperity and steadfastness, respectively.
Japanese people drink a spiced sake called 屠蘇 [とそ] and eats a soup called 雑煮 [ぞい] containing mochi rice cakes.
During the beginning of the year there is also a tradition to do the first shrine (or temple) visit of the year 初詣で where wishes for a long life and for happiness are made. During this celebration, the temples are really crowded. Big ones like Meiji-jingu 明治神宮 or Narita-san temple have millions of visitors over three days.
元日「がんじつ」 ganjitsu: New Year’s Day
正月「しょうがつ」 shougatsu: New Year (esp. first three days) the first month of the year, January
三が日「さんがにち」 sanganichi: first three days of the New Year (January 1st to 3rd)
年賀 「ねんが」 nenga: New Year’s greetings/ New Year’s card
前年 「ぜんねん」 zennen: the preceding year/ the previous year/ last year
年内 「ねんない」 nennai: by the end of the year
平年 「へいねん」 heinen: non-leap year/ normal year (esp. as pertains to weather patterns, vegetative growth, harvest yields, etc.
年明け 「としあけ」 toshiake: beginning of the year/ early in the New Year
年始 「ねんし」 nenshi: New Year’s call/ beginning of the year/ New Year’s greetings
年賀状 「ねんがじょう」 nengajou: New Year’s card
越年「えつねん」 etsunen: seeing the old year out/ greeting the New Year/ passing the winter/ hibernation
若松 「わかまつ」 wakamatsu: young pine, New Year’s symbolic pine decoration
門松「かどまつ」 kadomatsu: New Year’s pine decoration
歳暮 「せいぼ」 seibo: year-end gift
お年玉「おとしだま」 otoshidama: New Year’s gift (usu. money given to a child by relatives and visitors)
忘年会「ぼうねんかい」 bounenkai: year-end party
歳末「さいまつ」 saimatsu: year end
年明ける「としあける」 toshiakeru: the New Year dawns
年の暮れ「としのくれ 」toshinokure: year end
年越し「としこし」 toshikoshi: New Year’s Eve/ end of the year
当たり年「あたりどし」 ataridoshi: good or lucky year
賀正「がしょう」 gashou: A Happy New Year! written on New Year’s cards, etc
初詣「はつもうで」 hatsumoude: first shrine visit of New Year
除夜「じょや」 joya: New Year’s Eve
謹賀新年「きんがしんねん」 kingashinnen: Happy New Year!
お節料理「おせちりょうり」 osechiryouri: food served during the New Year’s Holidays
大晦日「おおみそか 」 Oomisoka: New Year’s Eve
除夜の鐘「じょやのかね」joyanokane: temple bell rung 108 times on New Year’s Eve
仕事始め「しごとはじめ」 shigotohajime: resuming work after the New Year’s vacation, first time that one works in the year
First Impression: Duolingo for Japanese (web)
When Duolingo first released their Japanese course, I reviewed the mobile app version here. Today, I looked into the web version.
I started where I left off in the app, in one of the lessons near the end. Like the mobile version, the lessons involve sentences that you have to translate between English and Japanese. This part is exactly the same on web and mobile.
There are some questions that ask you to type in English without having a word bank. There’s also an option to type in Japanese instead of using the word bank, and I thought that was useful for longer sentences when I didn’t want to bother selecting each word individually.
One thing I don’t remember seeing in the mobile version was the “discuss” feature. On web, when you get a question wrong, there’s an option to discuss the question with other users and figure out why you’re making the mistake. I opened a few of these discussions, and they’re really productive and useful.
One of the biggest flaws I see in these lessons is that they rely on drilling you with identical sentences over and over. For example, you might keep seeing “I bought a thin book at the store” and “Please give me a thick pen,” but the adjectives and nouns in those sentences are never switched. So whenever you see a sentence starting with 店で, you automatically know it’ll be the thin book. I can see this being helpful if you really don’t know what you’re doing and need to ease in to the sentence structure gradually, but it can be annoying once you’ve caught on and memorized the sentences.
At first, I thought that Duolingo would be a great platform for practicing vocab. But it seems like there’s always a way to “cheat” and hover over words to find the answer instead of remembering on your own.
The biggest saving grace of Duolingo’s web platform is the “tips and notes” feature you can find on some of the lessons. Charts like these are helpful, but most of the lessons don’t have one (yet?).
Overall, I agree with the initial impression I had when I reviewed the Duolingo app. Duolingo seems like a great supplement to a more structured course, but it would be difficult to learn from scratch or grow your grammar and vocabulary very quickly this way.
With Valentine's Day approaching, here's something to add to the romantic confusion: the two different kanji for love.
My bookshelves showing all my Japanese books. Unfortunately, had to get rid of some because of the move though
Paying close attention
払う「はらう」and 支払う「しはらう」both mean to pay but have slight differences in when they are used
払う can be used to mean to pay but it doesn’t just mean money as it’s also when you pay/compensate for something in equal value. Also, as you’ll see in an example, it doesn’t just mean to pay but also to brush or to dust off
払わせてください
彼女はむ棲むのレッスン代を払うため、必需品をなしですませた
敷物のほこりを払って落とそう
注意を払う To pay attention
敬意を払う to pay respects
犠牲を払う to pay dearly for; to sacrifice
支払う on the other hand is used for paying with money, paying fees, paying bills, etc. You’ll see it with words like 代金、料金、授業料、家賃、給料、税金、罰金, and so on.
彼にお金を支払わせよう
彼らは別々に支払った
彼は私たちに高い賃金を支払うことを約束した
So if you’re talking about paying money or fees, you can use either one, but if it’s not money you’re paying then use 払う。And of course if you’re ever really unsure, hiragana is always good to use!
「Learn Japanese」 How-to use っぽい (to say something-ish, -like, -looking, -ly)
The grammar pattern Xっぽい is used to express that something is very “X-ish,” “X-like,” “X-looking,” or “X-ly.”
As one might have been able to guess from the somewhat cute-sy nature of っぽい’s pronunciation, this word is predominantly used in conversational Japanese and is seldom seen at all in written language (most likely only when what is written is a transcript of a conversation).
Not only is っぽい more conversational and casual than most Japanese grammar patterns, but it is also very modern and actually even continually changing. So while there are in fact some words that just don’t sound right with the っぽい suffixed attached to them for various reasons (grammatically incorrect, unnatural sounding, more suited for other similar grammar patterns); when it comes to language, once something is used over and over and enters the majority (especially in mass media)-even if it is incorrect, it eventually becomes the norm.
Additionally due to this, っぽい is quite the nuance grammar pattern, so take some precaution in automatically translating to “-ish” or another definition every time you come across it. We have provided multiple English definitions/translations because none are universally compliant with っぽい, something that should become more apparent with the example sentences below.
Construction: NOUN + っぽい Pre-ます-VERB + っぽい い-ADJECTIVE Stem + っぽい な-ADJECTIVE + っぽい
Regardless of the initial word type (noun, verb, adjective), when っぽい is added as a suffix, the resulting compound word is an い-ADJECTIVE. As such, it henceforth follows the grammatical guidelines of an い-ADJECTIVE, e.g. its ADVERB form would be Xっぽく and its Negative Form-ない would be Xっぽくない.
Example(s):
彼は忘れっぽいから、ちょっと心配だ。 Kare wa wasureppoi kara, chotto shinpai da. “He is kind of forgetful, so I’m a bit worried.” *Notice the minor alterations we have to make to the word 忘れっぽい to naturalize it into English, as “forget-ish” would have simply been grammatically incorrect.
その赤っぽい車の隣に有名な店がある。 Sono akappoi kuruma no tonari ni yuumei na mise ga aru. “Next to that reddish car right there is a famous shop.”
最近自分が男っぽいと悩む女性は多いようだ。 Saikin jibun ga otokoppoi to nayami josei wa ooi you da. “It seems that nowadays there are a lot of woman who are insecure about how manly they come off as.”
日本にアニメグッズを買いに行くのはジョージっぽい。 Nihon ni anime goods o kai ni iku no wa George-ppoi. “Going to Japan to buy anime goods is such a George-like thing to do.” *Notice how you don’t always have to be instigating a comparison/contrast when calling something Xっぽい, as the X can even be someone’s own name, thus calling them very much like themselves.
子供っぽい行動 kodomoppoi koudou childish behavior
色っぽい話 iroppoi hanashi an erotic tale
熱っぽい netsuppoi fever-ish
怒りっぽい okorippoi hot-tempered
Similar Grammar Pattern(s):
〜気味 as “slightly〜” ~らしい ~みたい
✧¸¸.•*¨*• •*¨*•.¸¸✧
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6 Tips for Learning Hiragana and Katakana
1. Focus on hiragana first, then move on to katakana after you’re comfortable. If you learn both simultaneously, you might get the two writing systems mixed up.
2. Mnemonics are your friend!!! Unlike kanji, hiragana and katakana have no inherent meanings - they’re like the letters of the alphabet we have in English. In order to remember which one creates which sound, it’s very helpful to associate each one with something visual. Here’s a chart from Tofugu that gives you a great visual clue for each hiragana character.
3. Flashcards, flashcards, flashcards.
4. Make sure you practice actually writing each character. It’s one thing to be able to read and recognize them, but you need to be able to write each one off the top of your head. Don’t stress too much about your handwriting - you’re essentially on the level of a 3 year old when you start learning hiragana. Just as a child grows up and improves their handwriting with practice, you will get better at writing as you do it more and more.
5. Notice the characters that look similar and focus on differentiating them. Examples are ね/わ/れ、シ/ツ/ン/ソ、ワ/ヲ/フ/ラ/ヌ.
6. If you already know some basic vocabulary and grammar, try reading stories written completely in hiragana and katakana. This site has a bunch of classics.
Most importantly, don’t feel like you need to rush. A lot of people try to come up with ways to “learn hiragana in 1 hour or less,” but these alphabets are truly the foundation of the Japanese language, and it’s worth taking some time to make sure you master them.
I figured I’d make a thing for anyone who needs to convert some anime tough guy talk into textbook Japanese real quick (click for big versions).
7 Tips to Improve Your Japanese Pronunciation
1. Watch Japanese TV shows. (Preferably something more on the realistic side than fantasy.) Even if you’re a beginner and still need to rely on subtitles to understand what’s going on, you can still benefit from listening to each character speak. Listen to how people say specific words and phrases, and try to repeat everything back in the same way.
2. Listen to a native speaker read a story in Japanese. You can either follow along with the text as they read or stop after each sentence and try to repeat it back. (This website has a lot of children’s stories, and some include audio)
3. Sing! Whether you go to karaoke or just sing along to JPOP at home, you’ll get more and more used to Japanese pronunciation as you learn each song.
4. Identify your problem areas and focus on one word at a time. If you’re having trouble with りょ (ryo), practice saying りょかん (ryokan) over and over.
5. Get used to the way English words are translated into loan words, and vice versa. One day in my introductory Japanese class, my teacher gave us a list of English words and asked us to guess how to write them in katakana. I think it took me about 10 tries to figure out “university” (ユニバーシティ)... but now, I’ve learned the rules about how loan words are created, and it’s easy for me to pronounce them correctly off the top of my head.
6. Use an app like HiNative to record yourself speaking and ask native speakers to critique you.
7. Of course, have conversations with a native speaker if you can! Nothing beats real-life experience and immersion.
Send me an ask if you have any questions or want more details on one of these tips!
grammar study materials
Commas are long, periods are little circles, and quotes are weird half brackets?! Learn everything about how to use Japanese punctuation.
How do you plan time for studying vocabulary and grammar ? I can't handle it :( thank you very much
I think if you’re short on time, it can be really helpful to focus on learning grammar points and then add a few new words each time you learn a new sentence structure. If you try to learn a few words that are commonly used in that sentence structure, it might help you remember the new vocab and grammar at the same time.
For example, if you’re a beginner, you might be learning 行く and くる. While you’re learning them, you could learn words for common places people might go (学校、図書館、パーティー、コンビニ、デパート、郵便局). That way, you can practice your new words and new grammar at the same time!
