I love this website. We Japanese can learn living English idioms in Japanese. As far as I know no other website offers equivalent service at better or equal level.
I found the word “dog” very interesting when reading this week lesson.
When somebody is working very very hard, they say, “I’ve been working like a dog lately.”
The dog in the above sentence is a good dog which is intelligent and amenable. But saying “dog” as in the next sentence turns the tables.
“My wife thinks I am a dog.”
This “I” is not working hard. As a matter of fact, this “I” doesn’t work at all, you know. At least the wife thinks so.
Some dogs work hard and others do not. Which dog are you?
by Kenji, who is among the latter

recently i’ve been interested in japanese language education for non-japanese speakers. as you know, japanese has a lot of letters and because of its origin each letter is pronounced in several ways. also for japanese native speakers, it’s sometimes hard to write and read kanji characters correctly. same for non-native speakers without doubt..
so, japanese as a foreign language is my recent interest among others. how do you learn it?

I read an article by Tim Harford:
http://blogs.ft.com/undercover/2009/05/dear-economist-can-you-help-me-to-stop-procrastinating/
I’m a terrible procrastinater, too. I procrastinate not because I want to but because I can’t set my own deadline. What Mr. Harford says crystal-clearly makes sense. Yet, my problem stems from the very fact that I can’t do what he says is necessary.

Recently I’ve been suffering from a severe back problem. Maybe this is hernia or spondylolisthesis (can’t pronounce!) because it’s my bad old friend since my high school days. Just in case I have a similar attack in some foreign country, I will collect some words and phrases related to low-back ache. I hope I won’t be speaking about them though. Anyway let’s get started.

• Illness
  • low-back ache, lumbago
  • acute/chronic lumbago
  • sciatica
  • (n) hernia (adv) hernial
  • disc hernia
  • spondylolisthesis
• Medical treatment
  • orthopedics
  • fomentation, heating pad, wet compress
  • endoscopic operation

For information on the symptoms, please visit

• 
  Hernia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hernia
• Spondylolisthesis: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spondylolisthesis

How depressing!

COEDO Brewery: http://www.coedobrewery.com/e/index.html

Today I’d like to recommend y’all one of the tastiest Japanese beers called COEDO Ruri, which won the monde selection in 2007. Its rich taste remains very long together with the flower-like scent. In spite of its strong and unique flavor, the finish is clear. This beer must be second to none. I recommend you to drink it with a little warmer temperature than usual. Like, about 10 degree Celsius. You can more enjoy its flavor.

The name ‘Ruri’ is after gemstone, lapis, as the above website says. The luminous liquid deserves the name. COEDO brewery produces other 5 kinds of beer. Every single label is worth calling a masterpiece. Please try COEDO beer when you visit Japan.

I started Twittering. Please follow me: http://twitter.com/mintjulep3
Oh, yes. That’s right. I mainly twitter in Japanese. So that you can learn it.

if you see strange characters on this site.
Since this site contains Japanese encoding and characters, you might stumble on characters that I don’t intend. Unfortunately, my PC environment has Japanese characters, and so, I don’t know what happens otherwise. Please let me know if you notice something strange on your display. Thank you.

hi, guys. this is the first article. perhaps i won’t often post to this blog because of my inability in English. but i try to do so as often as possible.