The Kanshudo Blog
Welcome to the Kanshudo blog! The most recent entries are displayed here; click on any headline to read the full post. Older posts are linked from the bottom of the page.
NEW!
Search the blog using Site search. Enter 'blog' as one of your keywords to restrict your search to blog posts. For example: blog blog kanji blog grammar
You may also be interested in recent additions to our reference library of Japanese grammar and POI (points of interest).
Cranes, flutes and origami
The crane plays an outsized role in Japanese culture, and we are delighted to present a number of new resources to help you become acquainted with this central theme of Japanese art and literature!
Learn more about cranes and what they symbolize in our new Point of interest,
つる
鶴
- cranes in Japanese culture. Then, work through the delightful fairy tale つる
鶴
のふえ
笛
(The Crane's Flute), our latest addition to the Reading Corner, with a new translation by our partner J.D. Wisgo. Finally, to really cement your knowledge of the kanji 鶴, read the Joy o' Kanji essay on 鶴.Play Kanji Draw
Drawing a kanji by hand is one of the best ways to truly cement it in your memory. We are delighted to announce that Kanji Draw is now available as a standalone game, so you can test yourself and practice drawing kanji as often as you like!
Our new standalone Kanji Draw game has a study mode (with infinite lives) as well as a high score mode so you can compete with yourself. You can draw on kanji with a specific usefulness level, or you can choose kanji from a specific study set. You can also optionally restrict the game by your own mastery, so you can focus on learning kanji you don't know well, or testing yourself on kanji you do.
As with all Kanshudo games, you will earn study points for every round you play, and every kanji you draw correctly will improve your kanji mastery score.
You can find Kanji Draw from the PLAY menu at the top of every page, as well as in the KANJI & KANA menu at the bottom of every page. You can also find it in the Play index page and the site index, or you could just do a Quick Search for 'draw' or 'kanji games' from any page.
Kanji Draw will also appear as a study task on your Dashboard, along with all of Kanshudo's games and learning tools. Let Kanshudo drive you on the road to Japanese mastery!
Win a free year of Kanshudo + Joy o' Kanji!
We're delighted to announce a special June promotion with our partner Joy o' Kanji! Just post something nice about both Kanshudo and Joy o' Kanji on your preferred social network, and let us know. You will be entered into a prize draw, and one lucky winner will receive a whole year of Pro access to Kanshudo including Joy o' Kanji's kanji essays (see here for more details on our joint subscriptions).
This is open to existing subscribers, as well as those of you who have been looking for a good opportunity to subscribe, so don't delay! More details in the attached image.
Read Japanese novels with Bunsuke
We're very excited to announce a new partnership with Japanese literature expert Bunsuke. Every few days we will be bringing you a short extract from a noted Japanese literary work, with translations and commentary by Bunsuke. The excerpts live in a new section of the Reading Corner which you can access from the front page. You can also access the Bunsuke section using the Quick Search function on the top right of any page - just search for read, or bunsuke, or literature etc. (This is often the quickest way to find any function on Kanshudo if you're not sure where it is in the menus.)
To start, we have extracts that will give you a flavor of the work of two of Japan's most famous authors - Haruki Murakami, and Natsume Soseki. We'll be adding a couple of new extracts per week. You can also subscribe to Bunsuke's email newsletter ⇗ for even more content - Bunsuke releases new extracts daily, and delivers them right to your inbox!
Here's a direct link to the new Bunsuke section of the Reading Corner so you can get started right away!
Count with Kanshudo!
Learning to count in Japanese can be tricky, and we've added some new tools to make it as easy as 1-2-3!
Japanese uses a system of 'counters' - suffixes designated for counting specific objects. We've collected the most common counters in counters for objects and other things - , and you can read more about the general approach in Japanese numbers and counting - .
Knowing a counter is only half the story - you have to know how to read the combination of a number and counter. We've added a new special keyword "counter:" to enable you to search for all uses of a counter so you can quickly find out how the reading changes as it is combined with numbers. Try this search to see it in action: counter:本.
Dates and time are actually just special examples of the counter system. For details, see our overview articles, Japanese dates - and telling the time in Japanese - .
If you'd like to investigate counters even more thoroughly, you can use the following search to find all counters in Japanese: search for all counters.
If you're curious about the image attached to this blog post, you can read more in our Point of interest, counting with a そろばん (Japanese abacus) - .
OLDER BLOG POSTS
