I love Halloween!

So have a Happy one! Don’t eat too much candy!

Japan is the home of super cute & crazy, so it should be no big shock that they made a cat head of a train station. Tama had been living in a grocery store near the station where the owner Toshiko Koyama fed her & other stray cats. The store owner was the station master until the train line switched to unmanned stations in April 2006 to cut costs. With no where else to go Tama stayed at the station anyway.

In January 2007, railway officials decided to officially name Tama the station master. As station master her primary duty is to greet passengers. The position comes with a stationmaster’s hat; in lieu of a salary, the railway provides Tama with free cat food. Word got out about the new station master, and tourists now flock to Kinokawa to see Tama in her uniform, thus helping the financial crisis of the Kishigawa Line.
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This lesson will cover the na & ha lines, but if you need a review of a-ka, or sa-ta, they’re always available.

Something I’ve noticed as my class has been getting into katakana more is that when using foreign words, vowels tend to be stretched.

The word Hamburger in Katakana is
ハ ン バー ガー
ha n baa gaa
My initial thought was to put ア (a) in there (like ハンバアガア), but that is incorrect even though it’d be pronounced very similarly if not the same way.
Coffee is the same way:
コーヒー
ko- hi-
I keep feeling like I should put the extra letter in there, but it’s not necessary. The ー covers it nicely. It doesn’t appear to be as common in Hiragana, at least from what I’ve seen. It does happen though.

On with the show!

ナ ニ ヌ ネ ノ
na ni nu ne no

ハ ヒ フ ヘ ホ
ha hi fu* he ho

These are all said the same as in Hiragana.

**Don’t forget that fu is still irregular.

When I was cramming for my quiz, I had a good thought on how to remember

ホ.  When ho is drawn, you draw the part that looks like a cross 1st. I thought to myself that a cross gives HOpe to alot of people.

But that’s it for now! Practice hard! http://www.realkana.com/katakana/

がんばって ください - Please try your best!

The 招き猫 ( まねきねこ [Maneki Neko]- Beckoning cat) is a prominent part of Japanese culture. Seen in many stores & restaurants, these cats are meant to beckon customers in & bring the owners luck.  To foreigners, it looks like the cats are waving, but in Japan, the motion to call someone over looks much like a wave (to me at least, lol.) They’re also called Lucky Cats, and will bring different kinds of luck depending on which paw is raised. Generally the left paw is to bring in customers, while the right paw usually means wealth & general good luck. Nearly all Maneki Neko are holding a koban- a coin from the Edo period in Japan which also signifies wealth & prosperity.

The Lucky Cats are depicted as a Japanese Bobtail, and are usually white with spots.  The pokemon Meowth is said to be modeled after a Maneki Neko.
Many times, the figurines are made of plastic, ceramic or porcelain, but it doesn’t really make a difference. Most Maneki Neko are seen wearing a collar and/or a bib. The wiki article says that

“The bib might also be related to the bibs often decorating statues of the divinity Jizō Bosatsu. Protective statues of Jizō can be found guarding the entrances to Japanese shrines and graveyards. Jizō is the protector of sick and dying children and grateful parents of children recovered from illness will place a bib around Jizō as a gift of thankfulness.”

I bought my lucky Cat from a little gift shop when I was in California. /shrug
Poor little fella doesn’t have a bib, but he was only a dollar or two when I got him. Hooray for discount luck!

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This is probably going to be totally corny, but here goes.

I made blog of the week! (Thanks to iheartbadtz for pointing it out! lol)
I didn’t even know anything about it until I read the comment.

But Wooooot! *giggles*

 http://blog.sanriotown.com/blog/2008/10/29/blog-of-the-week-79/

I’m just so happy! I’m glad my work here is being seen & hopefully helping those that read it!

In my ever-ongoing search for a solid hiragana chart, I came across these gems, floating around the internet. I’m not sure where I first saw them, but I tracked the original creators to deviant art- na-insoo & starshock12. They’ve done a fantastic job with these posters (which you can order through deviant art.)

So what makes these posters so great? It’s the fact that each kana (one poster for hiragana & one for katakana) features an anime or video game character that use it in their name.

Apparently the artists got some flak for mixing the English & Japanese names, but I think it’s a great thing.
You can check out the posters here: Hiragana  |  Katakana

With the A & ka lines under our belts, we can move onto the Sa & Ta lines.
Same as before,these are pronounces just like the hiragana. (The hiranaga sa & ta line post is here.)

サ   シ   ス   セ   ソ
sa shi* su se so
タ   チ    ツ    テ  ト
ta chi* tsu* te to

Some words using these kana:
シール
shiiru- sticker/seal

テスト
tesuto- test

Practice! http://www.realkana.com/

かたかな is the 2nd Japanese syllabary we’ll cover. It is setup & sounds JUST LIKE Hiragana, but it used to write foreign & “borrowed” words & names of non-Japanese people. Words like  テレビ (terebi - television) &  ニコラス (nikorasu - Nicholas) will always be written in Katakana.
(かたかな (katakana) itself is written in hiragana since it is a Japanese word :P)

Don’t forget that these are pronounced just like the A & Ka lines in hiragana.

ア イ ウ エ オ
a  i  u  e  o
カ  キ  ク  ケ コ
ka ki ku ke ko

Some Words using these kana:
アルファベット - Alphabet
arufabetto

コアラ - Koala
Koara

Don’t forget to practice!  http://www.realkana.com/

Hiragana has one more part to further complicate it, but still not adding any more new characters. What we’ll be talking about today is described in several different ways. I was taught Contracted sounds, but it can be called double consonant hiragana, or just double hiragana. Take the 1st entry in the chart below- きゃ (kya. ) You’ll notice that the や (ya) is smaller than the き (ki) this is what tells the reader that it’s a contracted sound.

きゃ Kya
きや Kiya
^ at first glance, they appear to be the same, but there are different meanings & pronunciations.

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I know it’s been awhile, but I’m back & ready for the next part! Today I’ll be covering age, along with asking & answering how old you are.

On the basic level, you say the number of years you are the then add さい (sai.)  If you’re 10 yeah old it’d be じゅうさう (juusai)

As always, there are exceptions. 20 when counting is nijuu, but as an age it gets a special name. Hatachi is used to describe 20-year-olds (this is like turning 18 in the U.S.) since this is the age when people are officially adults.

In Japan at the beginning of the year a person will turn 20, there’s a big celebration for all of them, even though it my not be their birthday yet. Read more »