Evidence-led guides to Japanese language, names, culture, travel, food, anime, the Chinese zodiac and Japanese eras.
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Japanese Phrases
Ordering Food in Japanese, Start to Finish
The six-step script that works from a ramen counter to a department store, plus the two conventions that surprise Americans and the allergy phrases worth screenshotting.
Japanese Phrases
Japanese Politeness Levels, and Which One to Use
Casual, polite and formal are built into the verb, not added with tone. What each level sounds like, what keigo actually is, and why visitors should live in the middle.
Japanese Phrases
Essential Japanese Phrases for Travelers
Ten phrases, and three of them do most of the work. What to say, how to pronounce it, and the one thing phrasebooks leave out: which register to use with whom.
Chinese Zodiac
Zodiac Compatibility: Four Triangles and Six Clashes
The famous pairings come from the geometry of a twelve-point circle, not from anything about the animals. How the system works, how seriously it is taken, and where to stop.
Chinese Zodiac
Japan’s Eto vs the Chinese Zodiac: Four Real Differences
Japan starts the zodiac year on 1 January, calls the eighth sign a sheep and the twelfth a boar - and has one combination that cut the national birth rate by a quarter.
Chinese Zodiac
The Five Elements and the Sixty-Year Cycle
Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, Water: how to find yours from the last digit of the year, why the cycle is sixty and not twelve, and where the elements turn up in daily Japanese.
Chinese Zodiac
Born in January or February? Your Zodiac Sign May Be Wrong
The zodiac year begins at Lunar New Year, which moves by nearly a month. Roughly one birthday in seven is in the window where year-only calculators get it wrong.
Chinese Zodiac
The Chinese Zodiac Years, Explained Properly
Twelve animals, five elements and a year that does not start on 1 January. The full system, the arithmetic to work out any year, and why 2026 is a Fire Horse.
Writing & Language
Japanese Numbers and Counters, Made Simple
Two counting systems, several hundred counters, and a handful you actually need. Plus what to say when you have no idea which counter is right.
Writing & Language
How Many Kanji Do You Actually Need?
The official answer is 2,136. The useful answers are thirty, a hundred, and a thousand, depending on what you want to read. What each threshold buys, and the official lists explained.
Writing & Language
Why Japanese Loanwords Are Not the English You Think
A mansion is an apartment, a viking is a buffet and smart means slim. Which borrowed words are safe, which are traps, and the four stages that change a word on the way in.
Writing & Language
Romaji Explained: Three Systems and Which One to Use
Hepburn, Kunrei-shiki and Nihon-shiki disagree about a handful of very common syllables. How to tell them apart, which to use, and what to do about long vowels.