I took level three of the JLPT in 1999. I passed easily (well, after studying hardly). I spent all of 2000 preparing for level two. Again I passed, but not as easily. Well, the test wasn’t bad, but taking the test was. That is, well… let me explain.
IN THE YEAR [...]

The JLPT is this Sunday. Thousands of people will be traveling to take the test. I won’t be among them, but I do plan to take 1 kyuu one day. I passed 2 kyuu in 2000 and since being back in the States, I have had neither the desire to study as [...]

Well, I finally got around to removing the shrink wrap on the ２５０万人の漢検 DS software. This was no easy task. Usually Japanese shrink wrapped items have a little pull string to help the poor guy who bought the item. But we are not so lucky today.
Before we start, if you don’t have [...]

I got in three new Nintendo DS Games yesterday from Japan. I haven’t had a chance to even open them, but I will try to get to at least the ２５０万人の漢検* since it will replace the popular ２００万人の漢検 and other posters have mentioned it.

The new games are:

必殺カンフー漢字ドラゴン hissatsu kanfu- kanji doragon – Deadly Kung [...]

This morning I awoke to a large order that nearly wiped us out of our Josei Jishin magazines. (Thank you!) A few years ago I got the desire to import Japanese magazines to sell at our store. The problem is, to make the shipping charges (which are expensive) worth it, I have [...]

Well, as you can see I am making some progress with the new theme, but it is still half baked. Ok, so as to not totally waste web space and bandwidth with this post, how do you say ‘half baked’ in Japanese?
This is one of my favorite words and can be very useful for [...]

I had every intention to sit down and totally revamp the blog’s theme this morning.  It so happened that life happened and my new theme didn’t fully happen.
I will try to finish it tomorrow but in the meantime please close your eyes as you read; I don’t want to disappoint.
This reminds me of the annoying [...]

This morning I was going through a Unicom JLPT 1 kyuu kanji study book (an older version of this one). It had a list of six jukugo using 修 but I was struck by the wide variety of meanings. Here they are with some examples from the book or my Casio XD-GW9600:

修学　しゅうがく learning; [...]

It was 4:29 this morning. The alarm went off and so did I—to Wal-Mart that is.
Today was Black Friday. The day retail stores see more black than red.
There weren’t many cars on the road, but as I pulled into our Super Wal-Mart, I noticed the parking lot (which is huge) was [...]

Today being Turkey day (at least for a few more hours here in Florida), I thought I’d look up the origin of the word ‘turkey’ in Japanese. It has nothing to do with the Turks, by the way.
The word is 七面鳥 shichi men chou. Literally this means Seven Faced Bird. But [...]