How to Japanese

Week 2 of Murakami Fest 2026.

Year 19 of Murakami Fest!

The newsletter is online which means there must be a podcast: It’s an even month which means I’m revisiting past topics, which this month is my Japan Times article on incomplete sentences from May 2016.

The newsletter is up as is the podcast: The content is new this month, and I’m looking at process, specifically the importance of goal setting and right sizing those goals in order to maintain 継続 (keizoku, continuity).

Murakami’s latest novel—The Tale of Kaho—comes out tomorrow in Japan, and he did me the biggest favor in the world by publishing it as a series of stories and novellas over the past three years.

The newsletter is up and the podcast is live: On even months moving forward, in the interest of saving myself some time that I can bank for other projects (like writing reviews of Murakami, etc.), I’ll be finding something from my blog archive to look at.

The newsletter is up, and the podcast is live: It was time for me to mention something about generative AI and language learning.

The newsletter is online and the podcast is up!

The newsletter is online, and the podcast is live: This month, I wrote about 事項 (jikō) and about how it’s essentially meaningless on its own.

The newsletter is online!