Long time no post! I said long ago that I didn’t really want to get into YouTube, but I decided to push myself outside of my comfort zone and try making some videos in Japanese as a way of practicing more regularly. In my first one, I talk about what spurred my interest in Japan way back in 1995. It’s subtitled in English, so I hope you’ll watch (and maybe subscribe?)

先週の金曜日はノッティンガムからロンドンへ行き「ブライアンとロビンのクリスマス・コンペンディウム・オブ・リーズン」を初めて見った。イギリスに住んでいる人なら、この有名なデュオを知ってるはずだが、知らない人のために紹介しておくと「ブライアン」とはブライアン・コックス教授、マンチェスター大学の素粒子物理学者だ。それだけではなく…

Instead of sharing the usual offerings from big brands, this year I’ve decided to share a selection of unique gift ideas from fellow independent artists, illustrators, and designers from around the world who are working hard to make a living doing what they love (and some of my products, too).

Last year I wrote a fairly… optimistic, shall we say, blog post about how I planned to study for the summer JLPT N3 exam in London. Having the N5 and N4 certificates already under my belt, by early 2018 I was ramping up my study schedule ahead of a five-week stint in Japan…

Just as we’re all different people with different preferences, our study techniques shouldn’t be the same. What works for one person isn’t necessarily going to work for someone else. Just because someone on the internet claims that they can learn 2000 kanji in a year just by reading flashcards doesn’t mean that another person…

The Japanese Language Proficiency exam (JLPT), or 「日本語能力試験」as it is called in Japanese, was something I had been aware of since my teens. I always wanted to take it, but growing up in Newfoundland meant I knew it was something I would have to spend a lot of money on—the nearest testing location was, and still is, in Toronto.