Study Night 172

Howdy, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Masa, one of the volunteers for Benkyoukai. First of all, below is the basic information about Benkyoukai. Benkyoukai is a language exchange event where people practice English and Japanese. It takes place at JP Canada’s office from 5:45pm to 7:00pm every Wednesday. Everyone’s language level interestingly varies from […]

Study Night 170

This time, we had a different type of activity. We focused on a Japanese New Year’s traditional activity called “Kakizome/書き初め(かきぞめ)”. At the beginning of the year, people write calligraphy known as kakizome; they create works symbolizing their wishes for the new year. In Japan, we usually have calligraphy classes in elementary school. So everyone has basic […]

Study Night 164

For this week’s activity, I picked some “words/sayings with colours in them”. Yes it sounds weird so why don’t we move on to the questions we had, which will be self-explanatory. Out of the        : unexpected         with envy: jealous or envious Caught        -handed: clearly guilty         noise: static noise         Friday: the day after […]

Study Night 157

This week, we had everyone discuss “Festivals and Culture”. Each country has different events/ideas they celebrate/ appreciate/commemorate. Japan and Canada have quite an interesting contrast in this area. I have provided a worksheet with some festivals (some are holidays some aren’t) to start with (see below.) For this post, I’m going to pick one from […]

Study Night 155

  Hello everyone!. Before telling you about this week’s event, let me introduce Study Night (Benkyokai). Benkyokai is a language exchange event between English and Japanese speakers.  It is held at JPCanada’s office (#320 890 West Pender street) from 5:45 pm to 7:00 pm every Wednesday. For the first 15 minutes, participants have friendly conversations […]

Study Night 154

“Self-introduction”. Apparently this is very Japanese thing, but in Japan when group of people get together they are highly likely to present a “self-introduction” consisting of your name and some relevant (or irrelevant) information about yourself to each other. In Vancouver, this kind of activity could happen in an ESL class, but outside of that it […]

LEXIS JAPAN – Intensive Japanese Programme

If you’re thinking of studying Japanese, why not do so in Japan’s most liveable city?  Kobe is a great place to experience both sides of the country’s culture: tradition and modernity.. Lexis Japan offers two types of intensive Japanese programmes: full-time(25h/week) and part-time (15h/week.)  To make things better, they also offer monthly cultural activities! About […]

Study Night 140

  Hello everyone. This is Bob. In  southern Japan the rainy season has started. We call the rainy season “tsuyu(梅雨つゆ)”. It normally starts in May and ends July. However it depends on region. In southern Japan it starts earlier and in northern Japan it starts later. Hydrangeas bloom in “梅雨つゆ“. Hydrangeas in the rain are […]

Study Night 136

This time, National holidays(国民の休日/こくみんのきゅうじつ) were the focus of the activity. Do you know how many national holidays there are in Japan and Canada? What are those holidays for? Of course we can enjoy holidays without thinking about their meaning. However, if you know about what they are for, you can not only enjoy them but […]

Study Night 133

This time, Japanese-English words(“和製英語/わせいえいご”) were the focus of the activity. When English words get around Japan, their meaning frequently changes. These false friends can cause miscommunication. In order to prevent this, let’s study how Japanese-English word depart from their original meaning. In the first part, we translated Japanese-English words. Here are some examples we looked […]

Study Night 126

First, what we did yesterday was あいうえお作文 さくぶんand かるた.  So I’m going to show you what あいうえお作文 is. Here’s one example.  お題だい「おかあさん」The topic「mother」 あ ありがとう  Thank you い いつも  always う 美うつくしい beautiful え 笑顔えがおの smiling お お母かあさん mother It’s a message for mother’s day showing appreciation to mothers. Usually we make あいうえお作文 related to one topic and  it should […]