Coto Japanese Academy

Part of conversations is not only letting the other person speak, but also communicating that you are listening. In Japanese, this is known as 相槌 (aizuchi). Aizuchi are conversational interjections that Japanese speakers use when speaking with one another. They are one of the most important aspects of speaking Japanese since it is considered polite in Japanese culture to subt...

If you and your family have just moved to Tokyo, finding the right Japanese preschool or kindergarten for your child can be a daunting prospect. You’re settling into a new country where English isn’t widely spoken, so it’s natural to wonder whether a local Japanese youchien or an international preschool is the better fit. Should you prioritize Japanese immersion to help your ...

In Japan, you might run into plenty of situations where you will need to say “I don’t understand,” especially if you’re just starting to learn Japanese. The most common and straightforward way to say “I don’t understand” in Japanese is わからない (wakaranai) in casual speech, or わかりません (wakarimasen) in its polite form. But Japanese actually has several phrases for expressing confu...

After mastering hiragana, one of the three Japanese writing systems, the natural next step is to learn katakana, the second Japanese syllabary. Commonly used to write loanwords, katakana represent the same set of sounds as hiragana, ...

If you have started learning Japanese or thinking about doing it soon, you might ask yourself: How long does it take to learn Japanese? It’s an honest question, and probably the most important. Between people’s fascination with Japanese culture and the desire to live in Japan, Japanese has become one of the most popular languages to learn – but also the hardest, too.