Yumi checked into the hospital earlier today for the c-section tomorrow. Leaving the hospital room was pretty easy. All we had to do was to tell Makoto, “Drive! Car!” However, in the parking lot, Makoto realized mommy wasn’t with us. “Mama wa?” “Mama doko?”
We managed to get home with a [...]

注文の多い料理店
Chuumon no Ooi Ryouriten
The Restaurant with Many Orders
by Miyazawa Kenji

We’ve been working feverishly to get this e-book reader done before Yumi enters the hospital (tomorrow!). It took longer than I anticipated (Can you say ぎりぎり?), but it is done–and I think (read: hope) done well.
You can get a preview of the MP3 and learn [...]

Makoto had a pretty high fever about two weeks ago. It was only really bad two days, but one of those evenings as I put Makoto to bed, he, in a fit of fever, shouted, “telephone repair truck!”
It had to be important because the way he said, “telephone repair truck” sounded like it was  Pheidippides [...]

In less than 30 minutes the new iPhone 3G will begin selling in Japan. According to the news just now, Japan will be the first country to be able to grab the new iPhone today. I’m sure this is due to time differences.
Today’s post is brought to you buy the word:
新発売
shin hatsu bai
New [...]

We are working on our next $5 reader. This time it will be Miyazawa Kenji’s 注文の多い料理店 The Restaurant of Many Orders.
This story is great. Not only is it interesting to read, but it also repeats certain themes and grammatical patterns and has a few fun word plays.
I wanted to share one sentence with [...]

Just a few minutes ago I heard Yumi scream. She had found a few hairs left from me trimming my beard the other day. She didn’t appreciate the fact I used her dressing table to catch the trimmings.
Yumi told Makoto this was “papa no hige” (Papa’s beard). Then she asked Makoto,
まこちゃんのひげはどこ？
mako-chan no hige [...]

If you have a blog you may want to replace the default comment system with Disqus, a free comment add-on system for many popular blogging software (Including Wordpress here).
Essentially, it transforms bland vertical comments with a bulletin board style setup. You can add fun things like comment widgets to show off how many or [...]

Last night (July 5th), Makoto experienced his first 花火 hanabi, fireworks.

Yes, we were off a day, but if John Adams could have gotten it wrong surely we can cut Makoto some slack?!
John Adams to his wife:

The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt [...]

I just got an email from a group in England with an interesting marketing idea.  Well, I guess it builds on the One Million Dollar website idea of a few years ago, but essentially, you ‘buy’ a word, any word, and receive a link to your website.  Once you buy it, it is yours for [...]

Ok, here is a plausible scenario. You quickly need the definition of “floccinaucinihilipilification” for a school report, but your Casio XD-GP9700’s main E-E dictionary is the lousy (for native English speakers) Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary.
You press the 英英 button and the Advanced Learner’s dictionary appears. You were hoping for the much better Oxford [...]