There’s only “me”, “myself” and “I” in English, but when it comes to Japanese first-person pronouns, the options are seemingly endless.

On this episode of Coto Radio, Mr. Nagai is joined by teacher Hidari to talk about traveling in Japan, anime pilgrimage, and overtourism.

When you start learning Japanese — or at least reading Japanese words — you’ll come across romaji first before hiragana or katakana.

Ganbare (頑張れ) or ganbatte (頑張って) is a Japanese phrase that means “Come on!” “Let’s go!” or “Go for it!” in English.

Have you ever needed to convert your birth year, written in Western years, to Japanese years? If you’ve ever lived in Japan and handled paperwork in the city hall, you might have stumbled across a date that made you pause. Instead of 2025, you see something like 令和7年 (Reiwa 7). This isn’t a typo. It’s […]

The bonodori is a spiritual dance to welcome the spirits. Every region has a local dance and a different music.

We’ll introduce each day of the week with its Japanese name, pronunciation, and useful tips to help you remember them quickly. Let’s get started!

Learning the Japanese days of the week and months of the year is one of the easiest lessons that you will have. Let’s start with the days of the week.