Learn Kanji

Sukiya: Beef Bowl Heaven: March 22nd, 2012

One of the most popular dishes in Japan is beef bowl or gyūdon (牛丼). While there are many places that serve the dish, the two largest chains are – Yoshinoya (吉野家) and Sukiya (すき家).
Japan Signs: Watch Out For Bag Snatchers: March 13th, 2012

While Japan is known for its low level of crime, it is still common to see warning signs placed in high traffic areas such as train stations. I found this particular sign located at the top of the stairs leading up to Futako-tamagawa station (二子玉川駅) in Tokyo. Don’t you love those happy little “bag snatch warning” characters! ^^
Similar Kanji: Compare and North: August 30th, 2011

Use the image of a spoon (ヒ) to create your stories. Here we see two spoons and if we “compare” the two, the one on the right looks like the normal kanji for spoon (ヒ) but the one on the left looks a little squashed.
Similar Kanji: Special, Wait and Hold: August 15th, 2011

Use the images of “cow (牛)” and “Buddhist Temple (寺)” to create your stories. The most popular mnemonic for this kanji is the use of “Cow” as a sacred or “special” animal in countries like India where, in some places, a person can be jailed for killing or injuring a cow!
Learning Kanji: My Lightbulb Moment: August 12th, 2011

Learning one hundred kanji is difficult enough but learning the stroke orders, readings and meanings of over 2000 Joyo kanji is an onerous task. It can seem insurmountable at times but with time and effort it’s eminently achievable – 125 million Japanese say so. What can be really disheartening is the realisation that after studying kanji for months or even years (depending on your daily kanji diet), you still cannot understand your favourite Japanese tweeter or read the subtitles on your favourite anime.
Look-alike Kanji for Beginners: August 2nd, 2011

A big sticking point for beginners of the Japanese language is the progression from hiragana and katakana (or even possibly rōmaji for the ill-informed!) to kanji-based sentences. Not only are kanji difficult to read, write and remember in the first instance, when you gradually start to acquire more and more kanji, you’ll start to notice that there are many kanji which look similar to those that you have already learned!
Remembering the Kanji: One Year Later: July 20th, 2011

Learning to read Japanese can sometimes be a great big hairy goal with no clear path to success. In this article I’ll discuss how I got started learning kanji using the Remembering the Kanji system by James Heisig, and my results after a year of study.
Do you have a J-CLUE?: July 12th, 2011

The Hiragana Times and J-Clue has teamed up to launch a new test aimed at assessing Japanese language and cultural understanding. J-Clue doesn’t replace the JLPT, it is simply testing a different subset of your language skills. Do you know what konkatsu means? Could you name the traditional Japanese art in which a person sits on a stage and tells a funny story? What does the phrase, “Shiranu ga hotoke,” mean?
Download: Free Kanji Graph Paper: July 4th, 2011

I’m always looking for different kanji practice paper online and while there’s several pdf downloads available, they’re often hard to find. So I thought why not make some myself ^^ Kanji practice paper is for anyone wanting to get started or improve their kanji writing skills. Each practice square is divided in to quarters to help with alignment.
Have Fun With Kanji Reps: June 22nd, 2011

The daily grind of learning new kanji, stroke orders, readings plus going over the old ones to make sure you haven’t forgotten anything is mostly exciting but occasionally just plain old boring. When that feeling starts to hit you again, try a few of the following quick fixes that should help keep kanji reps from being – well – repetitive. ^^