| 11:01am | Saabisu, saabisu! | | | | Last time I talked about some phrases that are very concise in Japanese yet have many long and complex potential translations in English, depending on the situation. Another example of words not meshing up neatly across languages is the word okyaku-san (oh-kyak-sahn), which can be rendered in English... |
| 11:00am | Then: Making an Otaku Pilgrimage | | | | Since we were nearby, we stopped by Lake Kizaki, the area famous as the location of the Please Teacher and Please Twins anime series. Virtually every scene was based on a specific location in the town, or at various sites nearby, which had the effect of adding a layer of realism to the anime usually... | | |
| 10:59am | Matsumoto Castle, Nagano Pref. | | | | Over the weekend I took my son to Matsumoto Castle in Nagano Prefecture, one of the most beautiful castles in this part of Japan. Built in 1590 at the tail end of Japan's "warring states" period, the castle is not only breathtaking to behold from the outside but fascinating to explore inside, with its... |
| 10:55am | Cool Products Monday, August 17, 2009 | | | | Here are today's "really cool products" that I've picked out for you, out of the 30+ new items we've added to the J-List and JBOX.com sites today. Note that some products may be "not safe for work" but that all links will allow you to redirect yourself either to the J-List or JBOX.com websites. To see... | | |
| 4:42pm | My Trip to Matsumoto Casatle and Lake Kizaki | | | | This is Matsumoto Casatle, the castle we went to see today. One of the oldest and most beautiful castles in this part of Japan, because a) there was never as much culture over in Eastern Japan as in the Western and Southern areas and b) many castles were dismantled for scrap during the Meiji Period... | | |
| 11:06am | Announcing the Start of 2010 Japanese Calendar Season! | | | | We're happy to announce the start of 2010 Japanese Calendar Season! Every year J-List posts hundreds of great calendars, which are printed exclusively for the domestic Japanese market, and our customers love having access to such a huge selection of fun and interesting calendars from Japan. The first... |
| 11:04am | Confusion when Translating Japanese to English | | | | It's funny how words in one language don't always match up with words in another, especially when you're talking about languages as different as English and Japanese. Take the word sasuga (sah-soo-GAH), which is used to express praise when one's expectations have been met. For example, if a man named... |
| 11:03am | Deflation in Japan and $9 Jeans | | | | Despite some recent positive rumblings, the recession continues to be hard on the Japanese economy, pushing the unemployment rate here all the way up to 5.4%, very high by local standards. As I've written before, the two recessions Japan endured during its post-bubble "lost decade" have made the Japanese... |
| 11:03am | Obon Festival in Japan | | | | Japan is in the middle of Obon (pronounced "oh, bone!"), a four-day Buddhist holiday that's kind of like Thanksgiving in the U.S., in that this is when everyone heads home to spend time with family, but it's also similar to Halloween since the sky is supposedly filled with the ghosts of our dead ancestors... |
| 10:46am | Cool Products Friday, August 14, 2009 | | | | Here are today's "really cool products" that I've picked out for you, out of the 30+ new items we've added to the J-List and JBOX.com sites today. Note that some products may be "not safe for work" but that all links will allow you to redirect yourself either to the J-List or JBOX.com websites. To see... | | |
| 10:45am | South Korean ESL vs. Japan | | | | When we were in Las Vegas we happened to see a family from South Korea playing in the pool, and I decided to say hello. The family had a boy of around five years of age, and I was immediately impressed with how good his English was: he was able to answer a few of my questions and even make a joke, saying... |
| 10:44am | Kiki's Delivery Service Subtitle Confusion | | | | The other day I got an odd hankering to watch one of my favorite Hayao Miyazaki films, Kiki's Delivery Service, the story of one young witch's journey out into the world. The version I was watching was in Japanese, but with English subtitles, and as the movie progressed I noticed something interesting:... | | |
| 10:42am | Once More Into The Breach: Japanese Election Hell | | | | Japan currently stands at the brink, staring down at an abyss so hellish I can scarcely contemplate it. I'm talking, of course, about the upcoming election in which the various political parties here will woo voters non-stop for two weeks in an attempt to win enough votes to form a governing majority.... |
| 10:41am | Cool Products Wednesday, August 12, 2009 | | | | Here are today's "really cool products" that I've picked out for you, out of the 30+ new items we've added to the J-List and JBOX.com sites today. Note that some products may be "not safe for work" but that all links will allow you to redirect yourself either to the J-List or JBOX.com websites. To see... | | |
| 10:41am | Cool Products Wednesday, August 12, 2009 | | | | Here are today's "really cool products" that I've picked out for you, out of the 30+ new items we've added to the J-List and JBOX.com sites today. Note that some products may be "not safe for work" but that all links will allow you to redirect yourself either to the J-List or JBOX.com websites. To see... | | |
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