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).

Japanese Books, Snacks, CDs…

I just added a page on my main website called “Japanese Stuff”.

It has links to buy Japan-themed books, snacks and DVDs that I recommend.

On this blog, I’ve recommend books like Jerry Yellin’s book “The Blackened Canteen“, and CDs by Japanese bands like Monkey Majik, and Japanese movies like Quill.

Now, I’ve decided to make it easier for visitors to my site to buy the books, snacks, CDs and DVDs, etc that I recommend by providing a link to buy them from Amazon.com.

Click here to visit my new ““Japanese Stuff“ page.

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。