Today, I refined my understanding of the word かしら (kashira). This word is put at the end of a sentence to make it into a question or request for confirmation.
For example, if you want to go home, you could ask your boss the following.
帰っても良いでしょうか。
kaette mo ii deshou ka
Nuance: May I go home now?
If you are talking [...]
On Sunday, April 27th, the Ibaraki Chapter of the Japan Association for Language Teaching will offer two presentations. All are welcome. There will be no charge. No pre-registration is necessary.
Date: Sunday, April 27
Place: Ibaraki Christian University, Hitachi Omika
Cost: Free
More info: http://www.kasei.ac.jp/jalt/
Morning Session (Part 1): 10:00 (Registration from 09:30)
Doing Culture Ethnographically/Study Abroad [...]
The Japanese word ARIGATO and the Portuguese word OBRIGADO, which both mean THANK YOU in their respective languages, can often sound uncannily alike. And since Portugal WAS the first European country to have made contact with Japan ( in 1543), and DID in fact leave several linguistic traces of its presence (not to mention the introduction of Christianity and firearms, among other things!) which continue to live on [...]
Continue reading about Around Mitsukaido Station, Its Not Arigato- Its OBRIGADO !
Electronic dictionaries are good because they can help you look things up quickly when you are on the go, and they often have a few tools to help you study. However, most Japanese-English electronic dictionaries are designed for Japanese people, so some of them cannot be used well unless you already know kanji. [...]
As Shaney has mentioned on TAIRA a while ago, Alien Times is celebrating its 20th anniversary this month. Wow!
Did you know that the back issues of Alien Times were handed out during the Tsukuba International Exchange Fair last month? I had a chance to talk to quite a lot of people during the fair, and [...]
Continue reading about Caught in the political correctness argument
tsukubans speak