In this lesson, we’ll learn how to say “only” and “nothing but”. Let’s start with “only”, or だけ. This is added to the end of what you’re indicating is “only”. 一つだけ残ります。 ひとつだけのこります。 There’s only one …
Mountain Day: A new holiday in Japan
Since 2016, Japan has been celebrating a new holiday on August 11th, called Mountain Day (山の日) or やまのひ. The holiday is meant to bring people closer to nature, with the hopes that it’ll encourage more …
Bluff Your Way Through Any Conversation in Chinese
Here are a few phrases you can use to get through any conversation in Chinese – even if you have no idea what is going on! Is that so? 是嗎？Shì ma? Really! 真的假的 / Zhēn …
Internet Slang in Japanese
Japanese is filled with internet-related slang just like how English is. If you use the internet a lot (as I’m guessing you do, since you’re reading this), you’ve probably picked up a lot of slang. …
A Guide to Japanese Grammar: 7 (How to say “but” and “however”)
Learning how to say “but” and “however” In this lesson, let’s learn how to say “but” or “however”. There are different ways to do this, however let’s start with using が. If you’ve been following …
A guide to Japanese Grammar: 6 (Expressing desire and intent)
This lesson will go over desire and intent. After this, you will know how to say you want something, intend to do something, or expect something! Learning how to express wants using 欲しい and ~たい …
Skritter mobile beta updates (3.2.1 version 300241)
Summer is in full swing in the Northern Hemisphere, and we’ve been putting these endless summer days to good use working on and testing the latest Skritter: Write Chinese and Skritter: Write Japanese mobile beta …
A Guide to Japanese Grammar: 5 (Linking objects and counters)
Linking objects together (と、や、など) と is used similar to the way we use “and” in English. As an example, “dogs and cats” would be: 犬と猫いぬとねこdogs and cats や is used as a particle to represent …
5 Phrases to Have Better Conversations in Chinese.
If you want to have better Chinese conversations, the following 5 phrases will help you achieve your goal. Having these in your language arsenal will be helpful when someone either speaks too quickly, or you’re …
A Guide to Japanese Grammar: 4 (の as a particle, asking please, and る verbs)
の as a particle の can be used as a possessive particle, like how we use “‘s” to show that something belongs to someone. For example, Susan‘s bag. Or, Ken‘s car. Examples of using の …