Douglas Smith links to the following video from Stephen Fry animated by Matthew Rogers. It's been around a few years, but may be as new to you as to me.

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Fry was in Cold Comfort Farm, playing the pretentious, emotion-deaf poet Mybug. Stella Gibbons, who wrote the novel from which the movie was made, wrote 25 novels (plus four volumes of poetry). ( Read more... )

George Takei had an hour to talk and take questions. He was erudite and energetic. One of the first people in line with a question said hello to him in Japanese. Takei replied in the same language, and when his interlocutor looked puzzled he said (approximately), "You shouldn't start off in another language if you're not prepared to continue in it ( Read more... )

I was listening to an episode of the Japanese learning podcast to which I subscribe when the American host brought up something I've been wondering about. You sometimes hear Japan being referred to as 'Nippon' and sometimes as 'Nihon'. I'd had the vague impression that the first term might be archaic and/or derogatory, but that's not the case, ( Read more... )