In Jisho 4, I spent a considerable amount of time in polish mode. In software development they say that the final 20% of an application takes 80% of the work. I can attest to that.

Something I like, but I’m not sure if it’s immediately obvious, is a shortcut for combining two lists in Jisho 4.

Your first thought might be to select a list, then select all of the words in that list, and finally drag them to the desired destination list. Three steps is two steps too many.

In Jisho 4 you can combine lists simply by dragging on list on to the desired destination list.

Boom. Presto Combineo.

How do you use Jisho? Do you have any tips and tricks? Share them in the comments below!

No idea what I’m talking about? Download Jisho today and see what all the talk is about.

The first time I came to Japan, I had been studying Japanese for less than a year. I couldn’t speak at all and only knew the more polite verb endings (ですます体 desumasu-tai).

I wanted to go out with some fellow students and I was trying to tell my host family that if I miss the last train I would stay with at a fellow student’s house. That’s when I hit a stumbling block. I didn’t know how to say if. I know now what I wanted to say to my host mother was

もし終電を間に合わなかったら、友達の家で寝ます。
もし　しゅうでん　を　まにあわなかったら、ともだち　の　いえ　で　ねます。
moshi shuuden wo maniawanakattara, tomodachi no ie de nemasu.

The first thing that’s handy in this sentence is the phrase

間に合う　まにあう maniau. It means to be in time for. In this case we want to be in time for the 終電　しゅうでん　shuuden or the last train. You can use this for anything, and is a handy phrase all by itself.

The part that we are really interested though is in the もし〜たら moshi~tara, which means if. If you are in a hurry, you can leave off the もし part without any worries, but I think it’s more “proper” to have it.

We can use any verb, adjective, or noun to say if. The basic rule is use the past-tense plain (dictionary form (jisho-kei)) of the verb and add ら ra. na-adjectives/Nouns use the copula だ

A few examples to give you a better idea:
i-adjective
もし試験は難しかったら、先生に聞きなさい。
もし　しけん　は　むずかしかったら、せんせい　に　ききなさい。
moshi shiken ha muzukashikattara, sensei ni kikinasai.
If the test is difficult, please ask your teacher for help.

noun
もしそれはビールだったら、飲みます。
もし　それ　は　ビール　だったら　のみます。
moshi sore ha biiru dattara nomimasu
If that is a beer, I’ll drink it.

verb
もし白い鞄があったら、買います。
もし　しろい　かばん　が　あったら、かいます。
moshi shiori kaban ga attara, kaimasu.
If the bag is white, I will buy it.

There are other ways to say if, but this is a good general purpose “if”.

これは役に立ったら、また書きつづきます。
これ　は　やく　に　たったら、　また　かきつづきます。
kore ha yaku ni tattara, mata kakituzukimasu.
If you find these useful, I will continue to write them.

While most of the time when speaking Japanese you should try to be humble and polite, to ignore the importance of the other extreme (arguing) would be short-sighted. Unfortunately knowing how to argue with somebody in a foreign language is a required skill.

One thing that pushes many foreigner’s buttons in Japan is when (as well meaning as it may be) Japanese people assume we don’t speak Japanese because we are foreigners and speak to us first in English. I imagine this could get quite old if you are a foreigner who doesn’t happen to speak English or a non-native speaker. We might say something like this:

必ずしも外人だから、英語を話せるわけではないっすよ！
かならずしも　がいじん　だから、　えいご　を　はなせない　わけではない　っすよ！
karanazushimo gaijin dakara, eigo wo hakasenai wakedewanai ssuyo!

In English:
Just because I am a foreigner, does not necessarily mean I speak English!

The important parts of the sentence are bolded above.

必ずしも　かならずしも　kanarazushimo is an adverb meaning not necessarily.
わけではない wakedehanai is a phrase that means ‘does not mean that’.

Combine the two and we have our desired effect. To use this point you can simply put any sentence in-between 必ずしも and わけではない。

Of course it can also be used in less angry sounding sentences.
必ずしもビールが好きだから毎日飲みたいわけではない。
かならずしも　ビール　が　すき　だから　まいちに　のみたい　わけではない。
kanarazushimo biiru ga suki dakara mainichi nomitai wakedehanai

Just because I like beer does not necessarily mean I want to drink it everyday.

I mentioned Jisho 4 in passing a few posts ago. Beyond that I hadn’t said anything about it publicly. I’ve been working on it since August, with spare moment I had.

With Jisho 4 I wanted to do things right, so I went back to the drawing board and created an entirely new user experience. Besides getting a completely new look, it also searches faster than ever before.

Perhaps my favorite feature in Jisho 4 is Lists. I never have to worry about forgetting a word again. I can create and add to lists with a simple drag and drop. It doesn’t get much easier.

I’ve also made Jisho quite a bit smarter. You might have noticed that it seems like I have removed the Search Strength feature. It’s actually still in Jisho, it’s just automatic. In Jisho 3 if you couldn’t find a word, you would have to manually change the strength to search. Now Jisho automatically ups it’s strength if nothing is found.

Also, Jisho 4 now returns results based on your query. If you search in Japanese, Jisho shows you Japanese. If not, it shows English.

There’s a lot more that I could talk about, but I think it’s easier to give it a try yourself. Download Jisho now and take it for a spin.

The fine print

Jisho 4 requires OS X 10.5 or higher.

Jisho 4 is available at 40% discount for all registered users. If you purchased Jisho on or after October 1st, 2009, you are entitled to a free upgrade. See the Jisho Upgrade page for more information.

For all other users Jisho is $24.

When I first started working in Japan, I worried about how to request customers do something – without being rude. For example, let’s say I needed some images from them before I can continue working on their site. In English I might say something like:

I need you to upload the image so I can continue working on the site.

In Japanese, we could use くだいさい kudasai to ask them to upload the files, but that is too direct. Remember, in Japanese things are usually said in a fairly indirect manner.

First, we need to use honorific form of Japanese i.e. kei-go. The honorific of くださる kudasaru is いだたく　itadaku. The exact usage of いただく is out of the scope of this post, but briefly, it is used when you are trying to show respect to somebody above you. It pushes their level above you.

So if we want to be polite to our customer and request they do something, we could say:

私はサイトを進めるために、画像をアップして頂きますか？
わたし　は　さいと　を　すすめる　ために、　がぞう　を　あっぷ　して　いただきますか？
watashi ha saito wo susumeru tameni, gazou wo appu shite itadakimasuka?

This is valid Japanese, and is polite enough. We ask them if they could do something politely. But that’s not what we are going after. We are not asking them to upload an image, we are telling them to upload an image – politely of course. We can tell them to upload a file by saying something like this:

私はサイトを進めるために、画像をアップして頂ければと思います。
わたし　は　サイト　を　すすめる　ために、　がぞう　を　アップして　いただければ　と　おもいます。
watashi ha saito wo susumeru tameni, gazou wo appushite itadakereba to omoimasu.

The first part of the sentence is very straight forward.

私はサイトを進めるために、

Literally “So I can advance with the website”.

The second part is where the magic happens. 画像をアップして頂ければと思います。Literally the translation doesn’t make much sense. It’s something like, “I think if I could graciously receive the uploading of the image.”

You can use the 〜て頂ければと思います ~ていただければとおもいます　~te itadakereba to omoimasu to tell people do most anything.

To politely request that customers or anything “above” you do something, simply create a sentence of what you want them to do ending in a て-form verb followed by our kei-go verb いただくitadaku in ba-form, followed by the particle と and the verb 思います　おもいます　omoimasu.