「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.
Tokyo Five 
Recent Comments