How to find Japanese Speakers in your local area

How do you practice Japanese if you don’t know any Japanese speakers? You find some! Here are some of the steps that I took to find Japanese speakers in my city, Edinburgh… in Scotland! You can take similar steps to quickly improve your speaking fluency...

For kids? For adults too!

Our Edinburgh-based group Nihongo Scotland (part of online group Nihongo Connection) was recently given a selection of children’s books. These are a great resource for Japanese language learners and have already found a few fans at our Friday study club in...

What is that weird katakana word in my manga?

Pow! Bang! Whack! Yes, those are the English equivalents, but they are not the only onomatopoeia that we use. There are words that represent the voices of people and animals, the sounds of things, conditions, actions, feelings and emotions. Don’t freak out,...

My crazy brain!

How do you remember Japanese words? I am not talking about the usual strategies and flashcards, I mean the weird ways that you remember vocabulary or even grammar. Perhaps you remember words because of the way they sound or relate to your native language or to another...