Hir@gana Times

About ten years ago or so, I used to buy a monthly magazine called “Hir@gana Times“.

It’s a monthly magazine that used to cost ¥390 (about US$4) when I bought it.
I bought it to study Japanese. That’s the main purpose of the magazine. All of the articles are written in English and Japanese. The Japanese kanji characters everywhere in the articles have the ふりがな reading over them to assist people learning to read Japanese (my blog, BTW, also has ふりがな for all of the kanji. Hold your mouse over the kanji on this blog and it’ll pop up.)

I quit buying the magazine years ago but I thought about it today for some reason.
I decided to see if the magazine has a website…and of course it does.

It’s seems that the price of the magazine has gone up to ¥450 per issue…and most of their website is only available to paying members!
But it does have some free sections…and just like their print magazine, all of the kanji on the website has ふりがな. But their website does the ふりがな differently than I do on my blog…they have the ふりがな characters printed above the kanji just like in their magazine (and Japanese children’s books). I put the ふりがな on my blog as small pop-ups because I think that’s a better way to remember the kanji.

Anyways, if you want to see their website, it’s here.

And here’s an article from their site:

(Click to enlarge)

(Click to enlarge)

Counter Suffixes

In about four hours (from when I wrote this), it’ll be New Years Eve (in JST (Japan Standard Time)).
Soon it’ll be 2009! Time flies!

I was just reviewing one of my Japanese language books and decided to add another lesson here (click here for another one I wrote last month).

If you study Japanese, please leave a comment and let me know if this is helpful, too easy, or too difficult. (As with all of the 漢字 (kanji) on my blog, if you hold you mouse over it…you’ll see the ふりがな pop-up.)

The examples written in red are exceptions to the rule.

物の数え方 (Counter Suffixes)

• People: ～人 (一人, 二人, 三人)
• Small item: ～個 (一個, 二個, 十個)
• Books, magazines: ～冊 (一冊, 二冊, 八冊)
• Paper money (bills): ～札 (千円札, 一ドル札)
• Pairs of shoes or socks: ～足 (一足, 三足, 四足, 何足)
• Glass, cup, spoonful: ～杯 (一杯, 二杯, 何杯)
• Dog, cat, insect: ～匹 (一匹, 二匹, 十匹)
• Cylindrical items: ～本 (一本, 二本, 八本)
• Birds: ～羽 (一羽, 三羽, 十羽)
  (ie: 千羽鶴 (1000 origami Cranes))
• Cars, phones, TVs: ～台 (一台, 何台)
• Flat items (sheets of papers, etc): ～枚 (一枚, 何枚)
• Age: ～歳 (二歳, 二十歳, 何歳)
• Place, Rank: ～位 (三位)
• Number of times: ～回 (一回)
• Pieces of mail: ～通 (三通)

日本語を勉強

Do you study 日本語 (Japanese)?
Can you understand the following passage? Is it too easy? Too difficult?

(It was taken from the book A Course In Modern Japanese, vol.2).
I transcribed the first lesson of the book here (as always, I added ふりがな to the 漢字 (Japanese Kanji characters)…but only the first time each one appears.

+++

「落し物」

ルイン：　山田さん、ちょっと教えて下さい。
山田：　ああ、ルインさん。何ですか。
ルイン：　あのう、財布を落としたんですが、どこに連絡すればいいでしょうか。
山田：　えっ、どこで。
ルイン：　それはよく分からないんです。地下鉄に乗る前に駅で電話したときはあったんですけど。
山田：　じゃあ、たぶん駅か地下鉄の中ですね。
ルイン：　ええ。
山田：　じゃ、駅に連絡すればいいと思います。
ルイン：　ああ、駅ですか。
山田：　ええ。だれかが拾って届けてるかもしれませんから。
ルイン：　あ、そうですね。
山田：　私が電話しましょうか。
ルイン：　あ、いいです。私がしますから。
山田：　そうですか。
ルイン：　はい。ありがとうございました。

Just a few things…

Just a few random items…

• My second daughter will return home this evening from her 林間学校 (field trip) to 新潟 (Niigata). 🙂
• A couple days ago, there was another big 地震 (earthquake) in 岩手県 (Iwate Prefecture)…the same area that had a big earthquake last month (you can read my post about that earthquake here).
• A few more people have agreed to do interviews for my site. I’ll post them as soon as I get their responses to my questions.
• Did you notice that anytime you see 漢字 (Japanese kanji characters) on my site, if you hover your mouse over it, the ふりがな (kana characters that show the proper reading of kanji) appears? Does this help you?
• What are you favorite places, events, things to do in the Tokyo area? Just wondering.