Japanese

What Good Is Literature?

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Today, one of my advanced and highly motivated students embarked with me on his first foray into Japanese literature: we started reading the short story 「神様」 (“Kamisama,” or “God”), by Hiromi Kawakami. It’s the second time I’ve taught this story, which features a walk to the river with a delightfully polite bear. It was hard … Read more

The Sorrow of the Lost Examples

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**Update 7/5/2021: Unfortunately, the Sanseido web service has now been discontinued, leading to even more lost examples. Its service has thus been removed from the Kenkyusha Online Dictionary experience as well. For those continuing to look for a J-J (国語) dictionary, I now recommend the デジタル大辞泉 found here at goo辞書: https://dictionary.goo.ne.jp/jn/.   Today I bring … Read more