This is How to Japanese, a monthly newsletter with something about Japan/Japanese and a dash of いろいろ.

日本・日本語：Here we go again

I am officially back in the office after my parental leave, and fortunately for me all of my Japanese skills have not abandoned me. I do find myself double checking things here and there, which I think is a good practice to have when learning a language. Ideally you want to incorporate Japanese in a way that flows naturally, nearly without active thought, but you need to be wary of incorporating bad habits, lest you inadvertently start fluently using mistaken Japanese.

The most recent phrase I’ve double checked is 改めて (aratamete), and I discovered that I might have been doing a very slight faux pas.

Before I explain, let’s look at the verb 改める (aratameru). Weblio gives four definitions:

１ 新しくする。古いもの、旧来のものを新しいものと入れ替える。
２ 悪い点、不備な点をよいほうへ変える。改善する。
３ 服装や態度をきちんとする。
４ 正しいかどうか詳しく調べて確かめる。

1. Make new. Replace an old item or something dated with something new.
2. Change a bad point or deficiency for the better. Improve.
3. Refresh one’s clothes or attitude.
4. Confirm whether something is correct or not.

We’re concerned with the first definition, and we’re basically using 改めて as as advanced version of また (mata, again) or あとで (ato de, later). My go-to phrase with this was always 改めて連絡します (Aratamete renraku shimasu, I will get in touch with you again/later), generally with some kind of condition attached, such as a time condition (at some point in the future) or completion condition (once I’ve confirmed something or finished some task).

An example of this in practice might be something like this:

翻訳依頼が確定になりましたら、改めて連絡します (Honyaku irai ga kakutei ni narimashitara, aratamete renraku shimasu, I will get in touch with you when the translation request is official)

But a quick Google search on March 13, 2026, gave this pretty stark contrast:

“改めて連絡” - 111,000 hits
“改めてご連絡” - 3.24 million hits

I was neglecting the ご.

In my defense, I sometime use 改めて internally, so it may not always have been rude, but I’m sure I left out the polite ご with people outside of my organization as well, which is a big no no. So this was a wake up call to default to 改めてご連絡します.

That’s the first lesson I learned when looking into 改めて. The second was that you can sometimes leave it out altogether and replace it with more specific language. This idea comes from Ōno Moeko, my new favorite writer. She seems to be a corporate mental therapist of sorts, helping workers feel better in their jobs by giving them better language to use. She has a series of books titled 言い換え図鑑 (Iikae zukan, Rewording Reference Guide) and her most recent book is いつも感じのいい人はこんなふうに話している (Itsumo kanji no ii hito ha konna fū ni hanashite iru, Nice People Always Talk Like This).

I discovered her writing through the magazine Baila, specifically this piece about the vagueness of 改めて. When exactly is later? She suggests saying something like this instead:

明日10時までに連絡いたします (Ashita 10-ji made ni renraku itashimasu, I will contact you by tomorrow at 10:00 a.m.)

This is a nice reminder that you don’t always need the ご, that いたします can serve the same level of politeness. But it’s also a nice emphasis that clarity is paramount, and it’s good to be more specific if you can. I like to think that my conditional usage above is specific enough in a situation where things are not yet certain.

I’d highly recommend reading more of Ōno’s writing. I think this is exactly the kind of materials that intermediate students should be graduating to as quickly as possible. Articles like this are often far more helpful than textbooks. This post has 10 of her articles if you’re looking for more. And this article on what to use in place of なるほど (naruhodo, I see/of course) is particularly helpful. I’m also reading through her recent book and will report back!

いろいろ：

  • In the blog this month, I wrote a little about 及び which I was reminded of while prepping the podcast, which is also out. I think 改めて shares a little with 及び, but while 改めて can be used in spoken Japanese, 及び is almost exclusively used in written Japanese.
  • I’ve been working my way through the recent Murakami novellas in the literary magazine 新潮 (Shinchō). I just finished the one from last November, which I had to pay a bit extra for on Mercari because I missed when it came out, and I’ve started the one that came out in March, which is 100,000 moji in length…probably close to 50,000 words in English translation. I may put together some sort of loose review once I finish up. A reminder that "Kaho," the first story in this series, has already been translated in English and published in the New Yorker. UPDATE: I wrote the above before the publishing company Shinchosha announced that Murakami’s new novel titled just 夏帆 (Kaho) in Japanese and “The Tale of Kaho” in English, apparently, will be published on July 3. My best guess is that it will be the story + three novellas and a final section to wrap things up, judging solely from what I’ve read so far and from fast forwarding to the final paragraph of the last novella, which suggests he hasn’t finished the story yet. I was in the process of writing up my thoughts about these stories, which I think I’ll still do, but I may save some of my core thoughts for when the novel comes out. I guess it’s kind of a relief that I won’t have to read the thing from scratch, to be honest. Hopefully I can skim to see what if anything he’s edited and then read the ending.
  • This was an interesting take on PM Takaichi’s visit to the U.S. last month. I read it syndicated on Yahoo Japan, but it looks like it was originally published on AERA Digital. The author seems to recognize that Takaichi was at least somewhat successful in ingratiating herself with Trump, but at what cost and for what purpose? I’ll include both links because the Yahoo comments are sometimes interesting.
  • Speaking of syndicated articles, one of my guilty pleasures continues to be Japanese articles on the latest fast food products. Often these go into extreme detail, such as this article about the new Pompompurin Creamy Pudding Frappe at McDonalds, which includes no less than TWENTY NINE photos of the dessert. Even though I rarely eat any of these items, I appreciate the obsessive coverage and level of detail. As I wrote back in April 2024, one of the best ways to find these articles is by using the Edge browser and setting your language/region to Japanese/Japan.