Six Ways To Say "Happy Birthday" In Japanese

Six Ways To Say "Happy Birthday" In Japanese

So you want to wish your Japanese-speaking friends "happy birthday" in Japanese.

Whether you're sending a birthday card, or just writing a message, here are six different ways to share the love.

First of all, let's say “Happy Birthday”:

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How to Read The Japanese News (Or Any Japanese Website!) with Rikaichan

How to Read The Japanese News (Or Any Japanese Website!) with Rikaichan

When I first moved back to Brighton from Japan I had a lot of time on my hands. I also didn't have a job, so I was desperate for free Japanese reading material.

So I started borrowing Japanese books from the library.

This plan was not exactly a success. It turns out reading Twilight in Japanese is only slightly more entertaining than reading it in English.

But we are really lucky to live in a world where, if you have internet access, you can read just about anything you want in Japanese online. And the news is a great place to start.

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Plateaus in Language Learning and How to Overcome Them

Plateaus in Language Learning and How to Overcome Them

Do you remember the first conversation you ever had in a foreign language?

The first three years I was learning Japanese I basically studied quite hard for tests and barely opened my mouth. I liked kanji, and what I saw as the oddness of the Japanese language. Three "alphabets"! A million different ways of counting things! I liked hiragana - so pretty! I studied hard and thought my university Japanese exams were easy.

Then, on holiday in China, I met a Japanese woman (at a super-interesting Sino-Japanese cultural exchange club, but that's a story for another time). I tried to speak to her in Japanese. And I couldn't say anything.

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"How Did You Learn Japanese?"

"How Did You Learn Japanese?"

When I tell people I'm a Japanese teacher they quite often ask: how did you learn Japanese? And I don't find this question particularly easy to answer.

Sometimes I give a quick answer which is that I used to live there.

But you can live in Japan for years and not learn Japanese.

I've met lots of people like this (and there's nothing wrong with that, unless learning Japanese is the reason you moved to Japan).

The long and more honest answer to "how come you speak Japanese?":

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How to Practise Japanese by Playing Video Games Every Day

How to Practise Japanese by Playing Video Games Every Day

Earlier this year, I was telling a friend about the various monthly challenges I set myself to practise Japanese.

“What are you going to do in July?”

“I might try writing every day, like a diary or something? Or I might watch Japanese TV every day…”

“Fran, watching TV every day doesn't really sound like a challenge.”

“…or I might play video games every day.”

“That definitely doesn't sound like a ‘challenge’ to me.”

“…all the more reason to do it, right?”

Who says challenges have to be challenging? I played Japanese video games for about 20 minutes a day for a month. Here’s what I learned: six reasons to play video games in a foreign language. 

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How to Use Anki to Not Forget Vocabulary

How to Use Anki to Not Forget Vocabulary

Lots of you probably use flashcards already. Why not use really, really clever ones?

Imagine you're studying Japanese vocabulary with a set of flashcards. You go through the cards one by one, putting them into a "pass" pile if you remembered them, and a "fail" pile if you didn't.

When you finish, you work through the "fail" pile again. You get about half of them right.

The next day, you go through all the cards again. It takes ages, and it's boring - you did all these yesterday…

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