Living Japan

A Japanese friend of mine and I have been working hard recording episodes for our new Podcast, Train Your English. The podcast features three levels of English instruction; beginner, intermediate and advanced. The advanced level may appeal to those of you who regularly read my blog as it's conducted entirely in English and we discuss very similar topics relate to Japanese culture that I post on my blog here. Definitely check it out! Website: www.trainyourenglish.com iTunes Podcast Android Podcast

*Be sure to read part I to get the whole picture. I once heard from a linguist professor, "Language is culture, and culture is language." They are intertwined so beautifully, like an intricate mandala spread out across the floor. Early humans viewed the world around them and constructed culture and language almost simultaneously based on what they valued, feared, and desired. What they valued, feared, and desired was largely impacted by their environment. If they lived in an area where natural disasters were prominent, then the language of that particular region would reflect that in a multitude of ways. Japanese is a language vastly different from English because it developed in a very different part of the world; a very simple conclusion, indeed. But what are the roots of this? I'd like to examine this below. *Please understand that this is not an academic paper, just an accumulation of many discussions I've had with friends and colleagues in conjunction with b...

This is a topic I have been pondering for quite some time and I'd like to break it up into a few posts. It is my hope that what I write will compel you, the reader, to venture beyond the comfort of your own world, be it your culture, neighborhood, family, etc. Not just for curiosity's sake but to dive deeper into places, dare I say, that will change the very core of your understanding of the world we live in. For me, Japan, its culture, people, and language have been that place, and I'd like to share that experience with you.  *As you've probably noticed by now, I'm not the best writer and I have surely lost whatever I learned in my college years having lived in Japan and spoken the language for as long as I have. If you bare with me for a while, maybe my writing will slowly make a come back.* This post has been on the back burner for years. I have made some attempts to start it but failed at each try, mostly because life either got way to insane to handle or...