This handbook provides all the information one would need on these tricky units of grammar. All About Particles covers more than 70 particles those that are used regularly as well as those used less frequently in more than 200 uses. The book can be approached as a guiding textbook and studied from beginning to end. It is as a reference book, however, that All About Particles shines. It is light and easy to carry, slim enough to fit into the corner of a shoulder bag, and concise enough to quickly clarify particle-related questions. It is a priceless tool for any serious student of Japanese.

    Seventeen-year-old Naoko Nakamura’s prearranged marriage to the son of her father’s business associate would secure her family’s status in their traditional Japanese community, but Naoko has fallen for another man—an American sailor, a gaijin—and to marry him would bring great shame upon her entire family. When it’s learned Naoko carries the sailor’s child, she’s cast out in disgrace and forced to make unimaginable choices with consequences that will ripple across generations.America, present day. Tori Kovač, caring for her dying father, finds a letter containing a shocking revelation—one that calls into question everything she understood about him, her family and herself. Setting out to learn the truth behind the letter, Tori’s journey leads her halfway around the world to a remote seaside village in Japan, where she must confront the demons of the past to pave a way for redemption.In breathtaking prose and inspired by true stories from a devastating and little-known era in Japanese and American history, The Woman in the White Kimono illuminates a searing portrait of one woman torn between her culture and her heart, and another woman on a journey to discover the true meaning of home.

    For nearly two months, he was held by North Korea’s fearsome security services, subjected to intensive interrogation, and repeatedly warned that if he did not confess his “crimes,” he might never be allowed to return home. In visiting the North, Newman was returning for a final glimpse of the country where he served a half century earlier. Perhaps naively- and in sharp contrast to America’s former enemies Japan, Germany, and Vietnam - he did not realize that for the North Koreans, the war had never ended. His role in 1953 as a U.S. military adviser to the “Kuwol Comrades”-- anti-communist Korean guerrillas who fought behind North Korean lines -- convinced a paranoid North Korean regime that despite his age, his heart condition, and the passage of time, Newman was a dangerous “enemy” agent. "The Last POW" is the exclusive account of Newman’s ordeal -- how the North Koreans tried, without success, to break his will; his interactions with his sinister interrogator and the other North Koreans involved in his detention; the "confession" he was forced to broadcast, and how he tried to signal he was being coerced. While Merrill was detained in Pyongyang, his family -- his wife Lee, living in a retirement home in Palo Alto, and his son and daughter-in-law in Pasadena -- were frantically trying to determine what had happened to him and what they could do to secure his freedom. Newman’s detention became a symbol of the seemingly irreconcilable differences that keep North Korea and the U.S. in a permanent state of tension, and revealed the inner workings of the security apparatus of one of the world’s most totalitarian states. Eventually, his case would involve the State Department, the international news media, eccentric former basketball player Dennis Rodman, and possibly North Korean leader Kim Jong Un himself. His story serves as a warning against underestimating the lengths to which a paranoid and secretive regime will go to defend what it perceives as a threat to its security or reputation. But it is also an inspiring tale of an ordinary American family’s courage and resilience in a situation as frightening as it was bizarre. Mike Chinoy is a Senior Fellow at the U.S.-China Institute at the University of Southern California. He previously spent 24 years as a foreign correspondent for CNN, serving as Bureau Chief in Beijing and Hong Kong, and as Senior Asia Correspondent.. He is the author of "Meltdown: The Inside Story of the North Korean Nuclear Crisis," and "China Live: People Power and the Television Revolution." He his visited North Korea 17 times. Cover design by Evan Twohy.

    Marcin Milkowski, Ph.D. and Prof. Dariusz Jemielniak, Ph.D. It is the largest English-Polish dictionary ever published. It contains over 1.8 million words, covering hundreds of thousands of meanings in over two hundred thousand definitions, includign abbreviations, synonyms, antonyms, et al. Its range is over 20% wider than in the case of any dictionary published before.It is also the first English-Polish dictionary developed in the 21st century, basing on actual English language usage and frequencies (based on corpora of American, British, and Canadian English), covering not only general vocabulary, but also terminology and idioms typical for business, finance, law, medicine, the sciences and technology, including over 150 disciplines! It is the first English-Polish dictionary including words such as QWERTY, screenager, smartphone, tablet or boccia, with their proper pronunciation. The dictionary can replace the standard Kindle e-reader dictionary, to allow one-click lookups (please, note that this functionality is typical for all Kindle e-readers, but not necessarily a tablet).

    Since the country opened its doors to the outside world in the mid-nineteenth century. Japanese art and culture have enjoyed an immense popularity in the West. When in 1993 renowned scholar Penelope Mason wrote the the first edition of History of Japanese Art, it was the first such volume in thirty years to chart a detailed overview of the subject. It remains the only comprehensive survey of its kind in English. This second edition ties together more closely the development of all the media within a well-articulated historical and social context.

     The best website for learning Japanese grammar is now in print! My website has been helping people learn Japanese as it's really spoken in Japan for many years. If you find yourself frustrated that you can't understand Japanese movies or books despite having taken Japanese classes, then this book is for you. It will help you finally understand those pesky particles and break down grammatical concepts that will allow you to comprehend anything from simple to very complex sentences. You will also learn Japanese that's spoken by real people including casual speech patterns and slang, stuff that's often left out in most textbooks. Don't take my word for it, just check out my website and order this book to have it handy wherever you go.

    A couple in their thirties live in a small rented cottage in a quiet part of Tokyo; they work at home, freelance copy-editing; they no longer have very much to say to one another. But one day a cat invites itself into their small kitchen. It leaves, but the next day comes again, and then again and again. Soon they are buying treats for the cat and enjoying talks about the animal and all its little ways. Life suddenly seems to have more promise for the husband and wife — the days have more light and color. The novel brims with new small joys and many moments of staggering poetic beauty, but then something happens….As Kenzaburo Oe has remarked, Takashi Hiraide’s work "really shines." His poetry, which is remarkably cross-hatched with beauty, has been acclaimed here for "its seemingly endless string of shape-shifting objects and experiences,whose splintering effect is enacted via a unique combination of speed and minutiae."

    This compendium of early Japanese life provides a panorama of Japan during its formation.

    The book opens with an introductory essay by Gian Carlo Calza presenting an overview of the changing world into which Hokusai was born and through which he lived. This is followed by a series of essays, composed by distinguished Western and Japanese scholars, that present new research on a range of crucial areas of interest in Hokusai studies.These form a context for the core of the book, which embodies a retrospective of Hokusai's entire career, divided into seven chapters. Each chapter provides a succinct account of a phase in Hokusai's life, followed by a series of the finest and most representative works of that period. Great care has been taken throughout to choose for reproduction the best-preserved original prints that reveal Hokusai's mastery of line and colour to full advantage.This magnificent pictorial survey of Hokusai's prints, paintings and drawings is the first publication in English to make such a rich selection widely available, and to demonstrate the extraordinary range and quality of Hokusai's achievement. The final component of the book is a detailed scholarly commentary on each illustration that provides not only the necessary technical information but also a revealing analysis of style, color, composition and motif.

    This study guide includes the following sections: Plot Summary, Chapter Summaries & Analysis, Characters, Objects/Places, Themes, Style, Quotes, and Topics for Discussion.

    

    By building a rude home in the forest and eliminating desire, poet and Buddhist priest Chomei believed he would be spared the anguish that had befallen the townspeople. Yet at the end we find the author consumed with self-doubt, questioning his own sanity and the integrity of his purpose. His voice reaches out from the distant past and speaks directly to our hearts, surprisingly modern and intensely human.Author Biography: Yasuhiko Moriguchi and David Jenkins are writers, teachers, and translators living in Kyoto. Stone Bridge Press is a leading English-language publisher of Japanese literature in translation. Our ROCK SPRING COLLECTION OF JAPANESE LITERATURE features absorbing and important translations of classical and contemporary Japanese fiction and poetry. We believe that literature is a window into culture and society, and an expression of what is most peculiarly, and universally, human.

    But like those same customers and staff, they hold many secrets. If examined carefully, they show the signs of innumerable extravagancies, of immeasurable pleasure and pain, and of the deep mysteries of the human heart.Hitomi, the inexperienced young woman who works the register at Mr. Nakano's thrift shop, has fallen for her coworker, the oddly reserved Takeo. Unsure of how to attract his attention, she seeks advice from her employer's sister, Masayo, whose sentimental entanglements make her a somewhat unconventional guide. But thanks in part to Masayo, Hitomi will come to realize that love, desire, and intimacy require acceptance not only of idiosyncrasies but also of the delicate waltz between open and hidden secrets.Animating each delicately rendered chapter in Kawakami's playful novel is Mr. Nakano himself, an original, entertaining, and enigmatic creation whose compulsive mannerisms, secretive love life, and impulsive behavior defy all expectations.

    But this coffee shop offers its customers a unique experience: the chance to travel back in time.In Before the Coffee Gets Cold, we meet four visitors, each of whom is hoping to make use of the café’s time-travelling offer, in order to: confront the man who left them, receive a letter from their husband whose memory has been taken by early onset Alzheimer's, to see their sister one last time, and to meet the daughter they never got the chance to know.But the journey into the past does not come without risks: customers must sit in a particular seat, they cannot leave the café, and finally, they must return to the present before the coffee gets cold . . .Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s beautiful, moving story explores the age-old question: what would you change if you could travel back in time? More importantly, who would you want to meet, maybe for one last time?