http://howtojapanese.blogsome.com How to "Get Used to" Japanese Tue, 26 Aug 2008 22:59:07 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Well, judging from the facebook status updates of many of my friends in New Orleans, he’s the next hurricane, and he’s making his way through the Caribbean. He just hit Haiti and is heading for Cuba. After that he might strengthen over the Gulf and roll into New Orleans or ... http://howtojapanese.blogsome.com/2008/08/27/who-the-fuck-is-gustav/   This is a phrase you can use to describe Tokyo (or New Orleans) in the summer. It’s a nice, little non-idiomatic four-character compound – high, hot, many, moisture: high temperatures, lots of moisture. The pronunciation is こうおんたしつ. The usage is simple. You can attach this onto other words with の, so 高温多湿の場所 ... http://howtojapanese.blogsome.com/2008/08/25/p94/   I’d be remiss if I didn’t write something about the Olympics, so you get a cool kanji. Do you recognize it? You might’ve seen it if you watched Kosuke Kitajima take gold in the 100m and 200m breaststroke. In the upper right corner of the screen, most channels had this ... http://howtojapanese.blogsome.com/2008/08/22/p95/ I’ve talked about how Airbag Expressions can be used to ask for something and also how they can be used to breach a topic. I also wrote about emailing with Japanese people and how stating your name is almost like an Airbag Expression. Here are a few more Airbag Expressions. ... http://howtojapanese.blogsome.com/2008/08/20/airbag-expressions-3/ Isaac made a fantastic comment on my facebook feed for this post, so I thought I’d share it with everyone: "try ゆうびん　to get the 郵便マーク　(〒)はーと to get ♥ or ♡おんせん（温泉）to get ♨" The onsen mark! I’m so jealous I didn’t figure it out myself! It’s such a cool and distinctive mark. I ... http://howtojapanese.blogsome.com/2008/08/18/p92/ Ever since I wrote this post, I’ve paid more attention to people’s reactions to my けっこうs and my いいs. To be honest, I started using more いいs than けっこうs and have noticed far less confusion on the part of the employees. I was generally using 「けっこうです」 or 「袋はけっこうです」- the most ... http://howtojapanese.blogsome.com/2008/08/18/p91/ Apparently he’s pimping Seoul. http://howtojapanese.blogsome.com/2008/08/15/p90/   以上 (いじょう) is a very useful phrase. It’s a short phrase you can use to signal that you’ve finished placing your order at a restaurant or that you’ve finished giving a speech or your portion of a presentation. (以上です。) I guess in that case it literally means, “(Everything I want ... http://howtojapanese.blogsome.com/2008/08/15/p89/ I wrote previously about how こめ can be switched to ※ with Japanese input systems. Well, I’ve discovered through a friend at work that there are a number of other tricks you can do with 変換. Arrows - Type in やじるし and you can get these: →, ←, ↑, ↓. Circles - ... http://howtojapanese.blogsome.com/2008/08/13/p88/   Anyone recognize the image? If you were thinking Wikipedia, you are correct. While online dictionaries such as ALC are handy, as are electronic dictionaries and even paper dictionaries, Wikipedia is more precise. Find what you want in English and then pray that it has an equivalent entry in Japanese. Not ... http://howtojapanese.blogsome.com/2008/08/11/how-to-find-stuff-2/