One of the ways you immerse yourself in nihongo or the Japanese language is through watching movies, listening to music and reading books in Japanese.

Immerse yourself in the Japanese language by reading the best selling book of all time: The Holy Bible.  Download it for FREE in pdf format from this site.  Enjoy!!!

one (Eng.) – ichi (Jap.): There’s one very irritating itch (ichi) on your back and you use a backscratcher shaped like a giant number one to scratch it.

two (Eng.) – ni (Jap.): You have giant number two artistically tattooed on your knee (ni).

three (Eng.) – san (Jap.): You feel a little hot so you look at the sky to check out the sun (san) and behold there are three.

four (Eng.) – yon (Jap.): You see four people yawning (yon) melodiously in four voices: bass, tenor, alto and suprano.

five (Eng.) – go (Jap.):  You see a man with a hand up with five fingers extended and you’re confused because he’s shouting “go” (go) instead of “stop”.

six (Eng.) – roku (Jap.): You are juggling six rocks (roku) with loud rock (roku) music playing in the background.

seven (Eng.) – nana (Jap.): You see the seven dwarfs dressed, dancing and singing like The Backstreet Boys singing the “na na na na na na na na na na na” (nana) part of the song “I’ll Be There For You” of The Backstreet Boys.

eight (Eng.) – hachi (Jap.): A giant black billiards eight-ball all of a sudden shakes and then hatches (hachi) and eight chicks come out.

nine (Eng.) – kyû (Jap.): You are playing a very weird game of nine-ball billiards because instead of using the cue (kyû)  stick to hit the white cue (kyû)  ball to hit the yellow-striped nine ball, it is done in reverse.  You roll the nine-ball to hit the cue (kyû) ball and it finally hits the cue (kyû) stick.

ten (Eng.) – jû (Jap.): Imagine Moses in the movie, The Ten Commandments.  But this time instead of wearing robes, he dressed up as a rabbi, a Jew (jû), wearing a broad-brimmed black hat, sporting an untrimmed long bushy beard, wearing a black outfit with a white scarf with blue stripes around his neck.  He stands up on a mountain and lifts up the stone tablets containing the Ten Commandments of God.

hundred (Eng.) – hyaku (Jap.): You watch The 300 (The Three Hundred).  The movie is towards the end already and about a hundred only are left.  They continue to hack and slash they enemies dismembering and decapitating them and piling them into a wall of dead bodies.  The stench and bloody gore caused by these hundred men is too much. “Yuck!” (hyaku).

thousand (Eng.) – sen (Jap.): There are a thousand people jam packed in a zen (sen) garden behind a Zen (sen) Buddhist Temple.  However, they are not irritated or bothered at all in spite of the crowd because they are all in a trance practicing zen (sen) meditation.

million (Eng.) – hyakuman (Jap.): The contestant in Who Wants To Be A Millionaire is a man with garbage and sewage all over him.  He stinks so much that the host says, “Yuck, man!” (hyakuman).  Surprisingly he wins the jackpot of a million dollars.

Translating numbers from English to Japanese is easy.  Take for example the number 25.  It is equal to 2 tens and 5 so it is simply translated as nijûgo, that is: 2 (ni) 10s (jû) .and 5 (go)

Let’s work on these numbers:

47 – yonjûnana, that is: 4 (yon) 10s (jû) and 7 (nana)

932 – kyûhyakusanjûni, that is 9 (kyû) 100s (hyaku) 3 (san) 10s (jû) and 2 (ni)

8,561 – hachisengohyakurokujûichi, that is 8 (hachi) 1000s (sen) 5 (go) 100s (hyaku) 6 (roku) 10s (jû) and 1 (ichi)

If the number of millions, thousands, hundreds and tens is only one, you don’t have to put “ichi” before “hyakuman”, “sen”, “hyaku” and “jû”.

For example:

19 – jûkyû, that is 10 (jû) and 9

120 – hyakunijû, that is 100 and 2 (ni) 10s (jû)

1,111 – senhyakujûichi, that is 1000 (sen) 100 (hyaku) 10 (jû) and 1 (ichi)

That’s it.  Kindly review the instructions on how to use the Power Memory system.  Have a nice day!

This is the pronunciation guide for the Japanese words of this blog only since I acknowledge that there are different methods of indicating how Japanese words are pronounced.

A – as in “a” in “arm”

B – as the “b” in “boy”

D – as the “d” in “dog”

E – as the “e” in bet

F – as the “f” in “fork” and sometimes as the “h” in “hat”

G – as the “g” in “good”

H – as the “h” in “hat”

I – as the “i” in “hit”, sometimes diminished or unpronounced

J – as the “j” in “joy”

K – as the “k” in “keep”

M – as the “m” in “man”

N – as the “n” in “no”

O – as the “o” in “or”

P – as the “p” in “pot”

R – as the “r” in “rat”

S – as the “s” in “sad”

T – as the “t” in “toy”

U – as the “u” in put, sometimes diminished or unpronounced

W – as the “w” of “wash”

Y – as the “y” in “yoyo”

Z – as the “z” in “zoo”

With apostrophe ( ‘ ) or double consonants (e.g. bokken or bok’en, ippon or ip’on) – the consonant sound is held longer almost as if there are two different words.

Vowels with hat ( ˆ ) or repeated vowels (e.g. hoo or hô, seetaa or sêtâ)

Sounds of differing consecutive vowels are blended (e.g. the “ai” of “wakarinai” or “itai” is pronounced like the English word “eye”).

Note that the pronunciations of the trigger words in the images do not totally correspond with the proper pronunciation of the Japanese words.  Kindly refer to the pronunciation guide.  Enjoy!

face (Eng.) – kao (Jap.): You look into a mirror to take a look at your face and the face you see is that of a cow (kao).

hair (Eng.) – kami (Jap.): You are in a terrible storm with very violent winds and you are soaking wet and your clothes are being whipped around all over except for you hair which is as if it is not being blown by the violent winds at all.  It’s even dry as if the weather around your hair were calm (kami).

forehead (Eng.) – hitai (Jap.): You see a person who is a Cyclops (a man-like creature with an eye on its forehead).  You know there shouldn’t be an eye there on the forehead so you hit the eye or hit eye (hitai).

eyebrow (Eng.) – mayuge (Jap.): You see your mother use colorful eyebrow pencils which she bought from a makeup store for gays.  As she puts on the loud multi-colored makeup on her eyebrows, you ask, “Ma, you gay?” (mayuge).

eye (Eng.) – me (Jap.):  A very tiny goat bursts out of your friend’s eyes and makes the soud, “MEEEeeeeeeEEEeeeeEEEE” (me).

nose (Eng.) – hana (Jap.): Your nose suddenly grows larger and larger and until finally out of it comes Hannah (hana) Montana singing a song.

ear (Eng.) – mimi (Jap.): You see a very tiny devil sitting on the inside of your ear saying, “obey me” and on the other ear you have an angel saying, “no, follow me, me.”  The devil says, “No, obey me, me (mimi).”  And the both of them go at it for hours.

mouth (Eng.) – kuchi (Jap.): Of all places, you are ticklish in your mouth.  Here comes somebody starting to tickle you inside your mouth saying, “Kuchi kuchi coo!” (kuchi).

lip (Eng.) – kuchibiru (Jap.): You are in about to compete in a sporting event and before the event starts you look for you coach.  Your coach has a gigantic beer belly, which is why you call him Coach Beer (kuchibiru) and what is even more noticeable about him is that he has giant puckering lips.

tooth (Eng.) – ha (Jap.): You feel a pain in your mouth so you go to the mirror to have a look at your teeth.  Behold, you there is a tooth that is very large and sharp that it makes you say, “Huh?” (ha).

tongue (Eng.) – shita (Jap.): With your eyes closed, your tongue licks and tastes something with a very unique texture and flavor.  You don’t open your eyes yet trying to guess at what it is as your tongue continues to lick and twirl along the strange contours of the thing. You open your eyes and find out that it’s of all things shit, Aaaaaaahhhh! (shita).

cheek (Eng.) – hô (Jap.): a very long garden hoe (hô) has punctured and skewered both of your cheeks.

chin (Eng.) – ago (Jap.): you see a man with a very ancient chin.  The chin has a very long and unkempt beard.  The skin is wrinkled and cracked.  The chin was from a very long time ago (ago).

The first thing to do is to pronounce the Japanese word five times or more. The purpose of this is not for rote memory or memory through repetition. This is not how Power Memory works. The main purpose of this is to familiarize your tongue in pronouncing the words because if you just read and visualize you may be able to recall the words but not be able to pronounce them immediately.

Do NOT read the English and the Japanese word together repeatedly. This is a bad habit and will slow down your learning.

The next step is to read the images and associations I have described. Make your visualizations as vivid, colorful as possible. Add lots of action, sound and emotion. 

Feel free to add to the scenes I describe. The more you add to the image effects that you came up with yourself, the easier it is for you to remember. 

Also, feel free to come up with your own images if you can think of something that would work better for you. Just make sure that the images are funny, out-of-this-word and jam-packed with things you can observe with your five senses and things that you can react with your emotions.

Another tip. Don’t take to long in visualizing. Studies show that it is the clarity of the image that matters and not the length of time you visualize. If you can visualize the image or scene clearly in ten seconds, holding the image or scene in your mind for another minute or two will NOT make any or much difference. Quality and NOT quantity.

Next, after you have visualized the image or scene, pronounce the Japanese word again as you hold the image or scene a little bit more.The whole thing should not take more than twenty seconds per word. Well, maybe thirty, if you include reading my descriptions. People who have been thoroughly trained in Power Memory would take only about ten seconds or less per word.

That’s about it for storing the words in our mind. But that is not the key to retention. The key to retention is in the recall.

Instead of visualizing things repeatedly what you are supposed to do is to do a repeated recall of the words.

A good habit is to get a stack of small index cards. Write the English word on one side and the Japanese word on the opposite side. 

After five minutes take out the cards and read one side. Recall the translation using the scenes you have visualized.

NO GUESSING. NO SKIPPING. If you can’t find the correct translation, flip the card to check out the correct answer and then refresh the images and scenes. Never rely on rote memory. 

Always check the images in your mind before answering. This way the images tell you the correct answer. For example, the word “fish” in Japanese is sakana (see Lesson sampler). 

If you use the techniques correctly, the image of a fish will trigger the correct Japanese translation. It should NOT be the word “fish” that triggers the Japanese word. This means that you learned through rote memory and when conversing you would need to translate as you think in English and speak in Japanese.

Using the Power Memory method will allow you to THINK in Japanese and SPEAK in Japanese which is better. Power Memory is a mental immersion in the language.

Lastly, do a recall after an hour, then next day, then after two days, then after a week and then after a month. Again, when I say recall, I do not mean to store the images again but to retrieve them from your memory. Only when you cannot recall the correct answer should you repeat the storing.

Hope this helps you a lot. Go now to the lesson sampler to practice what you learned here. Enjoy!

Just to see how easy it is, just read and visualize the following:

fish (Eng.) – Sakana (Jap.): a group of giant fish put Anna in a sack, in other words, the fish sack Anna (sakana).

samurai sword (Eng.) – katana (Jap.): a samurai brings about his incredibly long curved sword to cut Anna (katana) in half.

newspaper (Eng.) – shinbun (Jap.): you are reading a newspaper when suddenly you fall down and break your shin bone (i.e. the long bone below your knee and above your ankle). But, instead of mending the bone, you roll up your newspaper and use it to replace your broken shin bone (shinbun).

nurse (Eng.) – kangofu (Jap.): imagine yourself being confined in the hospital for a long time. In order to entertain you and lighten up your spirits, the nurse attending you suddenly jumps up in the air, doing flashy kicks and punches ala Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.  Surprisingly your nurse is a master of kung-fu (kangofu).

So, have you visualized the above?

Now ask yourself. What is the Japanese word for newspaper? For fish? For nurse? How about for samurai sword?

After an hour try to see if you still remember.  Try also tomorrow morning.

This is but a sample. I haven’t given all the tips yet in doing the visualizations and how to make the images stick even more.  That would be in the next post.  ‘Til then. Enjoy!

First of all, I am a language enthusiast. I am facinated with how humans communicate with each other.

I started appreciating other languages, most especially Japanese, when I was just a child watching Japanese anime. I have always wished that I would be able to understand what was being said by the characters rather than read the English subtitles because reading them makes me miss out a lot on the scenes.

Watching these shows also gave me an interest in studying Japanese martial arts like Karate-do, Aikido, Judo, Jujitsu (Jujutsu), Kenjutsu and, of course, Ninjitsu. I started learning a few words when I investigated these arts.

Though not the #1 most widely spoken language in the world, it still ranks in the Top Ten, #9 to be exact with 125 million speakers world wide at the very least.

It also has a wide cult following due to the popularity of Japanese cartoons (anime) and comics (manga). I actually know of someone who formally studied the Japanese language just to be able to watch anime that have not yet been translated to English or Filipino or had subtitles added to them.

Japanese companies are taking dominion in the world market. All of us are very familiar with Honda, Yamaha, Toyota, Mitsubishi, Sony, Nintendo, Suzuki, Mazda, Aiwa, etc.  Lots of people work in these companies with Japanese expat bosses.

Another reason to learn Japanese is because the Japanese government has been so generous in giving out scholarships to study in Japan (Monbusho scholarships).  The education is top-notch, however, most of the schools have Japanese as the main medium of instruction.

Hmm…why else would somebody want to study Japanese? For the food of course! I love Japanese food and I love being able to know what those food names mean.

I am also a Christian and a pastor. Our church has always had the nations in mind. For me, a major step in reaching out to people of every nation is to learn their language. How can we communicate the love of Christ when we can’t understand each other. It’s more than just developing the heart for the nations. It’s developing the mind for the nations.

Lastly, why a blog on how to study Japanese words easily? Because it can be done. I am the developer of a memory system called Power Memory. It is based on ancient Greek and Roman techniques but I have modified them and developed a teaching and learning method to make someone quickly functional in the system.

With the these techniques, it is very much possible to learn 10, 20, 50, 100 words and even more in just a single day!

In this blog, I’m going to show you how and for FREE!

Of course, learning the words is not exactly the same as learning the language. You have to study the grammar and the culture to do that. However, the bulk of language learning is in vocabulary building.

Would you believe that in everyday conversation you actually use not more than 850 words on the average? So learning and mastering a few words at a time will help you eventually conquer the language.

Who knows? By just knowing a few Japanese words could win the favor and the friendship  of the next Japanese person you meet. It has worked for me. It can work for you.

Oh, by the way, what I didn’t mention is that my system in learning is so fun that it’s actually not like you’re studying. You don’t really have to stretch those brain muscles (of course there aren’t any).

Just visit and read this blog often and with very little effort you will learn exciting new words.

Have a nice day!

P.S. Watch out for my other blogs on learning Korean, Mandarin and Spanish words.