Riddle

Here’s a なぞなぞ (Japanese riddle).

Can you guess the answer?

ねだんが分からない寿司はな～んだ？
(What type of sushi has an unknown price?)

Write your answer in the comment section of this post.
I’ll put the correct answer here soon.

***************************************
edited: 2013 April 11

Here is the answer (there are two possible answers):

First, the more common answer is:

「いくら」 (fish roe)

This is because 「いくら」 is pronounced “ikura” and is “fish roe”, which is a possible topping on sushi.
But also 「いくら」　(ikura) is the Japanese for “What is the price?“

Another possible answer is:
「はまち」 (Yellowtail Tuna)

This is also a possible answer to the riddle because 「はまち」 is another possible sushi topping, and it’s pronounced hamachi which sounds similar (with a Japanese pronunciation) to the English phrase “How much?“

Famous Japanese

People around the world can name American presidents, American movie actors, American pop music artists, American companies, and American fictional characters.

They’re world famous.

It’s been that way for at least a few generations now.

But before I came to Japan, there was no internet back then and Japanese food and pop culture wasn’t popular around the world like it’s become in recent years.
Back then, I wouldn’t have been able to name a single Japanese prime minister.
The only Japanese actor I knew back then was Pat Morita (from “Karate Kid“)…and he was actually a Japanese-American.
The only Japanese musicians I knew were Yoko Ono and the Japanese heavy metal band Loudness.
Of course, I would have been able to name a number of Japanese companies such as Sony, Toshiba, Toyota, Honda, etc.
As for Japanese fictional characters, I knew Ultraman and Godzilla.

I’ve now been living in Japan for most of my life…so, I probably know more about Japan than I know about America anymore.

How about you? How familiar are you with Japan and Japanese culture?

What famous Japanese people do you know?
Japanese characters?
How about Japanese food / dishes?
Actors / actresses?
Bands / musicians?
How about Japanese words?
Japanese cities?
Or any other things you know about Japan?

Anki Flashcards

Do you the flashcard application / software called “Anki“?

"Anki" is a Japanese word that means "Memorization"

You can download Anki on your computer or AnkiDroid on your Android Smartphone (there’s also an I-Phone application).

This software, made by Damien Elmes, is an excellent tool for learning a language or nearly anything else that can be studied with flashcards.

You can make your own cards (and share them, if you want to) or download cards that other people have made.
And it’s all free!

I made a deck of basic everyday Japanese words. If you study Japanese, please try them…and let me know (on this post’s comment section) what you think of them.

My deck is called “Useful Japanese Vocab.“. You can find it by searching that title on the Anki site.

To use the flashcards, you are shown one “side” then you click “Show answer”.

After that, you click “Soon”, “Good” “Easy” or “Very easy”, depending on how well you knew the answer.

If you study with the deck often, you can learn a lot.

A card from my deck.

Click here to go to the Anki site.

Japanese in the Oxford Dictionary

I wrote a post last year about Japanese words that are used in the English language (often with a different pronunciation…and sometimes even a different meaning from the original Japanese).

(Click here to read it.)

Well, it seems that this year’s edition of the Oxford Dictionary from England has added three more Japanese words to their dictionary that are supposedly in common usage in the English language now.

The words are: 「引きこもり」 (“Hikikomori“), 「過労死」 (“Karoushi“), and 「オタク」 (“Otaku“).

I know these words of course…but I can’t imagine them being used in English!
How are they used in a sentence in English?

Their definitions as taken from Oxford Dictionary Online:

★ Hikikomori
Pronunciation:/hɪˌkɪkə(ʊ)ˈmɔːri/
noun (plural same)
[mass noun]
(in Japan) the abnormal avoidance of social contact, typically by adolescent males
[count noun] a person who avoids social contact
Origin:
Japanese, literally ‘staying indoors, (social) withdrawal’

★ Karoshi
Pronunciation:/kaˈrəʊʃi/
noun
[mass noun]
(in Japan) death caused by overwork or job-related exhaustion
Origin:
Japanese, from ka ‘excess’ + rō ‘labour’ + shi ‘death’

★ Otaku
Pronunciation:/əʊˈtɑːkuː/
noun (plural same)
[mass noun]
(in Japan) a young person who is obsessed with computers or particular aspects of popular culture to the detriment of their social skills
Origin:
Japanese, literally ‘your house’, alluding to the reluctance of such young people to leave the house

I think there are a few errors in a couple of the entries.
The actual definitions are mostly fine, but the “origins” aren’t quite right.

I think they should change them to:

Hikikomori -
Origin:
Japanese, literally ‘staying indoors, (social) withdrawal’
I’d write:     Japanese; literally ‘pulling away’ or ‘(social) withdrawal’

Otaku -
Origin:
literally ‘your house’, alluding to the reluctance of such young people to leave the house
I’d write:    Japanese; literally ‘you’ or ‘your house(hold)’. Anime fans in Japan began referring to each other by this overly polite term, from which it became the term that they were all referred to by.

Also those pronunciation keys in the entries are difficult to understand.
Does anyone actually use those characters to learn how to correctly pronounce a word?

This is where Japanese kana characters are especially helpful, if you can read it.

Hikikomori is pronounced 「ひきこもり」 (hɪˌkɪkə(ʊ)ˈmɔːri),
Karoshi is pronounced 「かろうし」 (kaˈrəʊʃi),
and Otaku is pronounced 「おたく」 (əʊˈtɑːkuː).

Have you ever used these words in English conversation?

Shiritori Round Two

「しりとり」 (“Shiritori“) is a Japanese word game.

The rules are pretty simple.
To play, the first player would say any (Japanese) noun. It can be any word as long as it doesn’t end with the 「ん」 (“n“) character.
- The next person says any Japanese word that begins with the same character that the previous word ended with.
- And the next player does likewise.
- The game ends when a player loses by either saying a word that has already been used or saying a word that ends with the 「ん」 (“n“) character (because no word in the Japanese language begins with 「ん」).
- When a word end with a character with 濁点 (「゛」) or 半濁点 (「゜」), the next player can use the character with or without it (ie: If a player’s word ends with 「ば」 or 「ぱ」, the next player’s word can start with either that character or simply 「は」).

An example of how the game would go:
「タコ」(“Tako“)→「コアラ」(“Koala)→「ライオン」(Laion (lion))　(The player who said 「ライオン」 (lion) would lose because you can’t choose a word that ends with 「ん」(「ン」).)

Actually, I had written a post a Japanese games, including this one, about a year ago (click here to see it).

In that earlier post, we played Shiritori in the comments section.
It was popular with visitors to my blog, and it was fun.

So, let’s try “round two”!

I’ll start with the first word…「たまご」(tamago (egg)).

Anyone can play. Write the next word (that must begin with 「ご」(“go”)) in the comments section of this post.
Usually this game is played only usuing Japanese words…but we’ll play using both Japanese and English.

Just remember, you can’t use a word that ends with 「ん」(“n”), and you can’t repeat a word that’s already been used.

カメデス

Here’s a story that I saw on the TV news and the newspaper recently about this turtle:

Someone painted 「カメデス」 ("I'm a turtle") on his back.

I added the original Japanese article here and below it is my translation of it to English.

雑記帳：「カメデス」カメ捕獲…甲府の舞鶴城公園

「カメデス」と甲羅に落書きされた甲府市の舞鶴城公園のカメが１６日、岸に上がっているところを捕獲された。落書きを消そうと、公園を管理する山 梨県が捕獲作戦を展開中だった。

仕事で外出していた山梨県警の男性警察官がカメを発見。近づくと手足を引っ込めたため、簡単に捕まえられたという。“逃走”を続けていたカメだ が、本職の警察官には手も足も出なかったようだ。

県は落書きされた文字を溶剤などで消すことも検討したが、カメはちょうど脱皮の時期。脱皮によって落書きが消える可能性もあるといい、結局、県の 施設で保護して様子を見守ることになった。

In English:

Journal：The “I’m A Turtle” turtle captured at Kofu Maizurujyou Park

A turtle that someone wrote “I’m A Turtle” on the shell was captured on June 16th at Maizurujyou Park in Kofu (Japan).

Government employees who manage the park had been trying unsuccessfully to capture the turtle to clean off the writing on it’s back.

A policeman was passing the park on his way to work and noticed the turtle. When he approached the turtle, it pulled it’s head and legs into it’s shell and the policeman was able to catch it easily.

The park employees were planning to remove the writing from the turtle’s back, but decided there was a risk of injuring the animal with the paint remover. So they decided to care for the turtle and hope the writing eventually wears off.

I wonder how someone could be mean to an animal. We have a pet turtle and I couldn’t imagine harming it (I have a photo of our turtle at the end of this post).

Aboin finally became a police dog

From the 毎日新聞 (Mainichi (Japanese) Newspaper)…

警察犬：「アボイン」３度目の挑戦で合格

警察犬を目指しなから２年連続で不合格だったおじさん犬「アボイン」が、埼玉県警の登用試験に合格した。訓練士の佐藤加津美さん(３０)は「不合格が続いたのでほっとした。立派な警察犬に育ってほしい」と話す。

アボインはジャーマンシェパードの７歳の雄で人間なら４０～５０歳。さいたま市内で先月あった「嘱託警察犬審査会」では、佐藤さんの「伏せ」の指示にすぐに従わない場面もあった。「(あがり性という)アボの悪い癖」が出たが、合格率７割の関門を突破した。

佐藤さんのよると、今月１２日に合格の連絡を受けた。任期は１年で、６月１日から要人警護や犯人確保に出動する「警戒犬」として”勤務”する。

Can you understand that article?

It says:

“Aboin” passed the police dog exam after three attempts

An aging dog named Aboin finally passed the exam to become a police dog with the Saitama (Japan) Police Force after having failed the annual exam twice before.

His 30 year old trainer, Katsumi Sato, said “I’m relieved he finally passed. I want him to become a successful police dog.”

Aboin is a seven year old male German Sheppard, which would equal about 40-50 years old in human age.

At one point in the exam, Aboin didn’t respond promptly to the “Lie down” command.

Ms. Sato said “He has a bad habit of getting over-excited and distracted.”

Regardless, Aboin still managed to passed the test (which has a 70% success rate)

Ms. Sato was notified that Aboin is to report to duty on June 1 for a one-year contract in which he will be responsible for helping to guard VIPs and catch criminals.

(The photo was taken at 10:30AM yesterday at the police dog training camp in Saitama. Ms. Sato said “Good luck, Abo”)

なぞなぞ

Do you study Japanese?

Japanese なぞなぞ (riddles) are a helpful study tool. The play on words in children’s riddles help expand your vocabulary.

If you don’t understand Japanese, these riddles will probably be difficult to understand because riddles in any language aren’t easy to translate to another language (since riddles usually incorporate a play on words, and different languages don’t often have similar wordplay).

Anyways, probably the most common Japanese riddle:

「パンはパンでも食べられないパンは、なぁに？」
答え:「フライパン」

Do you understand it? Have you heard it before? It’s an old joke that everyone in Japan has heard countless times.

Literally, in English it would be:
“Bread is bread but what bread is inedible?”
Answer: “A frying pan.”

See? It doesn’t make sense in English.
But in Japanese, the word for “bread” is “pan”.

Now does it make more sense?

If you write it in English, but use the Japanese word “pan” instead of “bread”:
“Pan is pan but what pan is inedible?”
Answer: “A frying pan.”

Here’s another one:

「トラを食べちゃう車ってなぁに？」
答え： 「トラック」 (とら食う)

“What kind of vehicle does a tiger eat?”
Answer: “A truck”

Meaningless in English.
But “tiger” is “tora” in Japanese. And “eat” is “taberu“…or sometimes “kuu“.
“Truck” in Japanese is “torakku”, which sounds similar to “Tora Kuu” (Tiger Eat).

If you want to see more Japanese riddles (and you can read Japanese), go to http://なぞなぞ.jp/.

Do you know any Japanese なぞなぞ (riddles)? Write them in this post’s comments section.
Feel free to write English riddles there too.

料理のサンプル

日本のレストランのショーウインドーには、料理のサンプルおいてあります。でも本物ではありません。本物に似せて作った物です。本物とそくっりですね。お客はメニューで注文してもどんな料理がくるか分かりません。これなら安心ですよね。

Can you read the Japanese above?

It means:

“Restaurants in Japan have a show window with sample food. They’re not real, though. They’re fakes made to look like the actual items. They’re very realistic. It helps customers who don’t know what to order. This can be quite a relief, don’t you agree?”

Besides this, restaurants in Japan usually have photos of each item in the menu itself.
Of course this helps foreign visitors who can’t read Japanese, but it’s also helpful to those of us who can read the menu because it’s easy to decide what you want to eat when you can see the menu items rather than imagining them.

Do restaurants in your country have a system like this?

Almost 2010

In Japan, it’s almost midnight on 2009 December 31.
In about ten minutes the year 2010 will start in Japan.

Click here and you see the current time in Tokyo on my main website.

Last year, I wrote about 大晦日 (New Year’s Eve) in Japan and some of the customs in Japan…including 年越しそば (New Year noodles), which we ate today as we always do, and the 「紅白歌合戦」 (Red And White Music Battle) TV show that we’re watching now.
Click here to read my New Year’s Eve post from last year.

Since the year 2009 will be over in a matter of minutes (at least on this side of the world), how about a list of new words that entered the English language in 2009 and new words that entered the Japanese language this past year too?

New English-language words for 2009 (according to the Oxford Dictionary (since I don’t live in an English-speaking country, these were all new (and interesting) to me):

Intexticated – Distracting by sending text-messages via cell-phone while driving.

Paywall – Part of a website that is only available to paying subscribers.

Sexting – Sending explicit photos and/or text via cell-phone email.

Funemployed – Unemployed people taking advantage of their free-time to pursue interesting activities.

Choice Mom – A woman who chooses to be a single mother.

And the 2009 English-language “Word Of The Year”…Unfriend – To remove someone from your list of “Facebook friends”.

Are these words common in America (or other countries)?

And the new Japanese-language words in 2009:

「歴女」 (Rekijo) – (Eng. “History Women”) – Japanese women who are interested in Japanese history. It’s a new trend. They enjoy visiting historic spots in Japan such as graves of famous Samurai and other historic landmarks.

「ファスト・ファッション」 – (Eng. “Fast fashion”) – Due to the bad economy, cheap retail fashion stores such as “Uniqlo” and “Forever 21″ have seen an increase in business.

「派遣切り」 (Haken-giri) – (Eng. “Temp Staff Cutbacks”) – It used to be that temporary staff of large companies could almost count on becoming permanent staff one day, but the economy has caused many companies to lay-off their temporary workers.

「政権交代」 (Seiken-Koutai) – (Eng. “Regime Change”) – The Liberal Democratic Party has won every Prime Minister election for decades…but this year Yukio Hatoyama of the Democratic Party Of Japan became the Prime Minister.

「新型インフルエンザ」 (Shingata-influenza) – (Eng. “New Flu”) – The Swine Flu is called New Flu in Japan.