Many Japanese family names There are a very large number of family names or surnames in Japan compared to other East Asian countries. And the two most popular Japanese surnames are Sato and Suzuki. Some of the names have a long and distinct history but some are quite new because in 1875 the Meiji government passed a law requiring all citizens to register a family name. So many names were created...

Writing emails in Japanese With emails becoming the most used form of business communication, it is important to learn how to write emails in Japanese properly. There is a course that you can take at Japonin(JOI) that teaches business Japanese and also how to write a business email. But this blog is a funny look at how people can make mistakes when writing Japanese. The computer Kanji covert fea...

Household chores in Japan There was a survey by the Nippon.com site which showed that Japanese wives do seven times more housework than their husbands. The imbalance is even true when both partners are working. In this blog by a Japanese homemaker and language teacher Chiharu Takase, she points out her household chores likes and dislikes. It is an amusing blog for Japanese language learners tha...

Children's books in Japanese When you are learning Japanese, finding interesting level-appropriate reading can be difficult. Japanese reading is tested in the JLPT tests and your ability to skim and get information from texts is a valuable one. In this blog for Japanese learners, one of our teachers Sachiko Someya has an amusing story about children's books in Japanese and her son's choices from...

Tea in Japan Tea is popular all over the world and is drunk daily in many countries and cultures. Japan is no exception. In the UK, when people say “tea”, we usually mean black tea. But in Japan if someone says "tea" without specifying the type, they mean green tea. There are many types of tea on sale in Japan though and in this blog by one of our Japanese teachers, Noriko Yokozuka, she talks a...