We teach Japanese classes in Shinsaibashi, Osaka.

If you wish to be fluent in Japanese, wouldn’t it be great if you could make the right word choices that are best fitting to your intentions, your feelings and your sense of values? You might have noticed that native Japanese speakers can recognize a speaker or writer’s intentions, feelings and even sense of value as they listen to or read their words. If you want to improve your Japanese so that native speakers can understand your true feelings in your conversations or in your writing, you are in the right place. We are here to help you out.

What we are talking about is Gokan (語感). These are the nuances of a speaker or writer’s impressions, feelings and senses of values. All of us have different perspectives and we are not supposed to feel the same way.

We would like to show you an example of Gokan（語感） in written Japanese. As you may know, there are 3 forms of Japanese letters. … “Hiragana”, “Katakana” and “Kanji”. If native Japanese speakers would like to give soft/light/delicate impressions in their written texts visually, they are most likely to choose the form of Hiragana, and if they would like to give hard/heavy/formal impressions, they would choose the form of Kanji. They would choose the form of Katakana to describe feelings of hardness that are in between Hiragana and Kanji, yet Katakana is basically used to describe words of foreign origin. They are careful about choosing sentences that show the right nuances in letters, emails, business documents, advertisements and other media. You can also recognize different nuances in different expressions and sentences. Let us share an example. Please have a look at the following picture. – It shows that there is a beer.

A.ここに ビールが １ぱい あります。

B.ここに ビールが １ぱいだけ あります。 Just one glass of beer. (Statement)

C.ここに ビールが １ぱいしか ありません。 We’ve got only one glass of beer.

Among the 3 choices, which sentence would you choose? If you are a beer lover, you should have chosen C. The sentence, 「しか～ありません（ない）。」 contains a personal feeling of disappointment. (Suppose you are a beer lover and wanted to have lots of beers but there is only one glass available.) But if you do not drink beers at all, then there is no way you would feel disappointed for not having lots of beer. You will only recognize the fact that you see a glass of beer. So you would be more likely to use a statement rather than a expression. Also if you want to know the difference between A and B, ask us!)

We will train you closely in our classes so that you will be able to understand Japanese people’s sense of values that are expressed in words. You will be one step closer to speaking like a native Japanese speaker.