Japanese Idiom: Something's Wrong with My Ki...

Get it?

Look at the kanji.

What's wrong with it? Other than having been drawn by a 外国人.

長いですね。だから、気が長い。

き が ながい is an idiom for having a lot of patience. You can use it when your friend buys a Bonzai tree kit, or in the negative when you go to a Japanese post office.

Japanese Diary: Susumu

昨日、僕はチャリティマラソンをする申し込みしました。
「マラソン」がちょっと違いますけど。本当はウォークです。

11月17日、僕はHelp the Homeless Walkathonに参加して歩きます。

もしよければ寄付してくれませんか。
興味があったら、下記のリンクをクリックしてください：

http://www.kintera.org/faf/r.asp?t=4&i=238022&u=238022-195787805

よろしくおねがいします。

(Checked by a real Nihonjin.)

Japanese Diary: Samu

夏から毎日自転車で事務所へ通っています。最近寒くなりました。今朝２℃でしたが、自転車に乗りました。すごく寒かったけど、基本的に大丈夫でした。顔だけ凍えました。

(This Japanese has been verified by a certified Japanese person.)

Strange English: Crispy English

You can use "crisp" to describe many things. Food, weather, paper, people's personalities...

• I like to eat my cereal quickly, while it's still crisp. If it sits in milk too long, it gets soggy.
  
• It's finally fall! The air is crisp and cold.
• You can tell this book has been well-loved. Its pages are soft and curled, no longer crisp.
• Her attitude was crisp when I told her I was coming in late.
  

But you can only use "crispy" for foods--maybe only a few foods.

• Potato chips, lettuce, deep-fried foods, and maybe apples can be crispy.
  

Why? I have no idea. But if you call anything else other than food "crispy," it sounds totally weird.

A Blog for Japanese Learners?

I'm always looking around for good study materials. When I got my Google Reader account, I searched and searched for good, daily Japanese-oriented blogs. Blogs that were in elementary Japanese, or that dealt with little pieces of grammar that I hadn't read yet, or that would teach me a word or two each day in a way that would stick with me.

I know too much for a basic level, and I don't know enough to easily read real Japanese blogs. So I decided to make this site, since there was obviously a need for something like a bridge between beginner Japanese and advanced.

Are you beginning to see the problem? If I'm so lazy that I want a daily blog to teach me Japanese, I'm probably too lazy to keep up my own version.

Of course, I blame my work, but if I really felt strongly enough about it, I could set aside an hour or so each day to study. I'll try to do that from now on.

I'll try to record something every day in Japanese. I can't guarantee the grammar will be good. If I have time later, I'll edit my entries for grammatical exactness.

If anyone has any suggestions for how to keep up this blog and my studies, I'm listening.