In Japanese, dekiru できる, also spelled dekiru 出来る, means a number of things. It can mean "able to" when used as an auxiliary verb. But it can also mean "capable of." And, sometimes, it can mean "to make" or "to be made" or "to be made of."

• Kanji
• "To Be Capable Of"
• Potential Form of する
• で出来ている
• Related Words

In Japanese, isekai 異世界 means "different world," but it also refers to a genre of anime that deals with going, ending up, being summoned to, or reincarnating in another world, particularly via high-speed truck-kun collision.

• Translation
  
  • 異
  • 世界
• Genre
  
  • Power Balance
  • Examples
  • What's Not Isekai
    
    • SAO vs. Overlord
• History

In Japanese, genki 元気 means "lively," "full of energy," "healthy," "fine," and so on. It's a word that's used in two ways: to ask if someone is doing fine, physically, or to tell someone to stop being gloomy and get motivated.

• How Are You Doing?
  
  • 元気で何より
  • Not Genki
• Seeming Lively
• As Adjective
• 元気をだして
• Anime Personality
• Kanji
• Origin of the Word

If you have started learning Japanese you might have noticed or been told that the hiragana ha は is sometimes pronounced wa. This is even there's already another hiragana specifically for the syllable wa わ. So how can you tell if は is pronounced wa or ha in a phrase? Is there even a way? Is it really that confusing all the time?

There are two ways to say something (or someone) is the "number one" in Japanese: ichiban 一番 and ichigou 一号, and that can cause some confusion. After all, what's the difference between these words? What's the difference between 番 and 号?

If you have ever watched ever it's likely you've already heard some word related to "magic." Be it mahou 魔法, also romanized mahō, majutsu 魔術, madou 魔道, maryoku 魔力, mana マナ, and so on. In this post I'm going to list the meaning of these magic words in Japanese and some common phrases about magic used in anime.

In anime, ahoge アホ毛, literally "stupid hair," refers to a strand of hair that springs upwards from the character's head. A rebellious hair that doesn't conform to the rest of the head hairstyle, and, sometimes, appears to defy gravity and other laws of physics.

In English, "cow lick" refers to something similar.

• Appearance
  • Multiple Strands
  • Ahoge That Changes Shape
  • Real Life Ahoge
• "Stupid Hair."
  • Idiot Hair isn't an Idiot's Hair
• "Antenna Hair"
  • Shokkaku 触角
  • Antena アンテナ
  • "Hair Antennae"
    • Antenna vs. Antennae
    • Ahoge vs. Hair Antennae

The first thing you should get acquainted with if you are beginning to learn Japanese is the way Japanese is written. Here are some posts to help you understand with the Japanese writing system:

In Japanese, 「」 and 『』 are "quotation marks," in'youfu 引用符. They work in a similar but different way to English quotes ("these ones"). Not to be confused with brackets 【】, which this article will also talk about.

In Japanese, there are two types of tsu characters. The normal tsu つ, and the small tsu っ, which is smaller. You can notice this in hiragana in words like mittsu みっつ, "three," and in katakana in words like nattsu ナッツ, "nuts." But how does this small tsu works? What is っ for? And what is it called?

• About The Small Tsu
• Small Tsu in Romaji
• How to Pronounce The Small Tsu
• Small Tsu in Japanese Words
• Small Tsu at The End of Sentences
• Small Tsu at The Start of Sentences
• Difference Between っ and ー
• How to Type The Small Tsu っ

In which direction is Japanese written and read? Is it left to right, top to bottom like English? Or is it something else?

The answer is both, actually. On the internet, Japanese is written horizontally, left to right, top to bottom, just like English. Traditionally, however, Japanese is written vertically, top to bottom, then right to left, which from an English perspective makes it look like it goes backwards (from right to left). Lastly, there are also rare cases when it looks like Japanese is written horizontally but backwards.

The kana in the Japanese hiragana can be easy to confuse sometimes. There's mi み, ro ろ and ru る, and they all look like 3's, but luckily it stops there, right? Except when you encounter the rare wi ゐ and we ゑ which are hiragana too and look like some weird versions of first three! Just what are those kana? Since when do they exist? Weren't the kana in the w row just wa わ and wo を?!

One of the most artistically inspired symbols in the Japanese language is the prolonged sound mark. It looks like a longer horizontal dash, or a vertical line in vertical text. Like this:ー. And it performs a very simple function in writing: to make sounds longer.

• Appearance in Text
• How To Type ー
• What Is ー Called in Japanese
• Long Vowels in Japanese
• Pronunciation Rules for Prolonged Sounds
• Difference Between ああ and あー
• When to Spell a Word With ー
• When Spelling Things Wrong is The Right Way
• Usage With Differentiated Speech

In Japanese, sensei 先生 means "teacher" most of the time. It can also mean "doctor," or refer to an artist or author, a "master" of arts. It's also a honorific, so it can come after the name of someone who's a teacher, doctor, artist, etc.

Words related to ages, people's ages, in Japanese are tricky ones. This is because for every single word there seems to be a very similar word which is the wrong on. Even the phrase "years old" in English doesn't translate word-per-word to Japanese.

• Common Mistakes
• Counting Years Old
• Hatachi 二十歳
• Sai 歳 vs. Sai 才
• School Age
• Twenties, Thirties, Forties, Fifties
• Words For Age
• Aging and Getting Old
• Asking Someone's Age
• I'm X Years Old
• I become X years old.