Tag Archives: Japanese language

Japan’s Christian Roots

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Towada in Chinese/Japanese characters There is evidence that Christianity may have come to Japan long before the Jesuit priest, Francis Xavier reached Japan on July 27, 1549. The northern prefecture of Honshu, Aomori, contains many Christian symbols that predate Xaxier, things from the 2rd or 3rd century! There is an area in Aomori Prefecture, Northern Honshu, called “Towada”. Lake Towada is famous and the largest lake in northern Japan. As … Continue reading →

Fun translating text from Japanese to English

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One of my jobs is doing text translations on PC from Japanese to English. I use Google translate in the process, but only as a double check to make sure I didn’t miss any phrases or words. I found Google does a fairly decent job translating Indo-European languages. I studied Russian and discovered that Google is OK to translate texts such as emails in Russian. An example from Bible text … Continue reading →

Japanese — a fuzzy language

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I had three books I wished to present as a gift to a VIP Japanese friend. I intended to give them as is without any formal wrapping paper to cover them, but my Japanese secretary suggested that they be wrapped together in a bundle with decorative wrapping paper. The secretary had only a couple minutes for the job and it looked rather haphazardly done. “Just tell her you did it!” … Continue reading →

Japanese traditional drink for the new year: Otoso

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Otoso, the traditional Japanese drink during new year celebration. Every year for three days from January 1st, the Japanese drink Otoso as part of their celebration of the new year. It is made of spiced Japanese rice wine. Most Japanese don’t know the root of the meaning of the word Otoso which literally means, “something that was slaughtered and resurrected.” Yes! This name literally has Christian roots! It has to … Continue reading →

Interesting facts about the Japanese Language

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The character above is the Chinese/Japanese ideograph meaning love. I’ve lived in Japan about half my life or about 27 years at the time of this post. I have been called a good speaker of what is considered one of the most difficult languages to learn in the world. Is there anything easy about Japanese? Yes! No verb conjugation! No gender of nouns! No articles (a, the) Number (singular and … Continue reading →

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