Posts from March 2009

Japanese Festival: Hina Matsuri (雛祭り)

Posted by Ginny No Comments
Mar 19 2009

Hina Matsuri (雛祭り) literally means “Doll Festival.”  You’re probably thinking it’s a festival for dolls, but that’s not quite true.  It’s a festival for young girls.  For presents, young girls receive a hina ningyo (雛人形) or a set of dolls.  A basic doll set comes with a five-level-platform called a hina dan (雛壇). 

The first level contains the dairibina (だいりびな) or the royal dolls.  The royal dolls consist of the odairisama (御内裏様) and the ohinasama (御雛様).  The odairisama (御内裏様) is the emperor and in turn the ohinasama (御雛様) is the empress.  A thin screen called a byoobu (屏風) is placed in front of the royal dolls.  I’m gonna go off into a sligh tangent about the byoobu (屏風) so please bear with me.  Up until WWII, the royal family in Japan were considered to be of divine descent.  Therefore, the byoobu (屏風) serves as a physical divider between the royal family and a “commoner:.  It used to be forbidden for a commoner to look directly at a royal family member.  It was thought that the commoner would naturally go blind because the royal family were divine gods.

Ok, now that I’ve got that out of my system, let’s talk about the second floor.  Just beneath the royal dolls are the court ladies.  The court ladies are called san-nin kanjo (三人官女).  All the ladies have a primary function.  Believe it or not, it’s an important function because they are to pour sake (酒) for the emperor and empress so that the cups are always filled.  Each of the ladies are separated by a takatsuki (高坏).  A takasuki (高坏) is a round table with rice cakes on it.

Speaking of rice cakes, I’ve got to go check on mine (they’re on the stove) so I’ll be back to tell you about the remainder of the dolls.

Japanese Numbers 100 – 900

Posted by Ginny No Comments
Mar 17 2009

Unlike numbers 20 to 99, the number 100 has no relation to any previous single digit number. This is a number you’ll just have to memorize. Luckily for numbers 200 to 900, they look a lot like the numbers 2 – 9.

100 – hyaku (ひゃく)

200 – nihyaku (にひゃく)

300 – sanbyaku (さんびゃく)

400 – yonhyaku (よんひゃく)

500 – gohyaku (ごひゃく)

600 – roppyaku (ろっぴゃく)

700 – nanahyaku (ななひゃく)

800 – happyaku (はっぴゃく)

900 – kyuuhyaku (きゅうひゃく)

There are a couple of numbers in particular that I want you to pay attention to. The number for 300 is pronounced as sanbyaku (さんびゃく). Notice how most of the numbers have ended in hyaku (ひゃく). The change in pronunciation is slight, so make sure you pronounce 300 with a “b” instead of an “h”.

Another slight pronunciation change is the number for 600 and 800.  Both 600 and 800 deviate from the hyaku (ひゃく) ending. Instead of an “h” sound they end in an “p” sound. It’s hard to pronounce the number for six and one hundred and it’s also hard to pronounce the number for 8 and one hundred. Try it yourself rokuhayku (ろくひゃく), hachihyaku (はちひゃく). As a result,  a part of 600 and 800 become chopped off and a consonant more conducive to pronunciation is added. One other thing I want to stress is that 600 and 800 have a slight pause when pronounced. 600 is going to be pronounced as rop – pyaku and 800 is pronounced as hap – pyaku. The hyphen indicates where you should add the slight pause.

Hopefully you’re finding a pattern. For the most part (not including some exceptions) Japanese numbers follow a pattern. When you understand the pattern, Japanese numbers are easy to remember; even when they get to the high numbers.

Japanese Numbers 20 – 90

Posted by Ginny 2 Comments
Mar 15 2009

In order to form the number 20 in Japanese, you add the number for 2 in Japanese with the number for ten.  In the previous post I talked about how you need to add in order to form the numbers 11- 19.  Well for the numbers 20 – 90 you need to multiply.  If you multiply 2 times 10 you get 20 right?  So that’s the strategy that will hold true starting from the numbers 20 to 90.  Here are the numbers from 20 to 90:

20 – nijuu (にじゅう)

30 – sanjuu (さんじゅう)

40 – yonjuu (よんじゅう)

50 – gojuu (ごじゅう)

60 – rokujuu (ろくじゅう)

70 – nanajuu (ななじゅう)

80 – hachijuu (はちじゅう)

90 – kyuujuu (きゅうじゅう)

One thing I want you to pay attention to is that there is only one standard option to pronounce the numbers 20 -90.  For the numbers 0-19, some numbers had two, even three options for pronunciation.  There is only one way to pronounce the number 40.  It’s yonjuu (よんじゅう) not yojuu (よじゅう) or shijuu (しじゅう).  The same goes for 70 and 90.

Alright, that’s it for today.

Japanese Numbers

Posted by Ginny 1 Comment
Mar 12 2009

We’re going to learn how to count today!

Here’s a run through of the numbers 0 -10:

0 – ree (れい) or zero (ゼロ)

1 – ichi (いち)

2 – ni (に)

3 – san (さん)

4 – yon (よん) or shi (し) or yo (よ)

5 – go (ご)

6 – roku (ろく)

7 – nana (なな) or shichi (しち)

8 – hachi (はち)

9 – kyuu (きゅう) or ku (く)

10 – juu (じゅう)

That was the easy part.  Here’s the part where you have to think a little.  For numbers 11-29, you’ll have to know how to do a little math.  To create the number 11, add the number 10 (じゅう) and 1 (いち), which becomes juuichi (じゅういち).  The same goes for 12.  Add 10 (じゅう) and 2 (に), which becomes juuni (じゅうに).  With number 17, you have some leeway.  You can use both juushichi (じゅうしち) and juunana (じゅうなな).  The same goes for 19. 

Now with 14, you have only two options, not three.  Even though you have three different ways to say 4 (よん) (よ) (し) in Japanese, only juuyon (じゅうよん) and juushi (じゅうし) will work.  Another thing to note is that 0 can be written in hiragana (ひらがな) and katakana (かたかな).  Zero (ゼロ) is in katakana (かたかな) because it’s a loan word from English.  Loan words are always written in katakana (かたかな).

Stay tuned! Next up, we’ll have more numbers to learn.

Japanese Grammar: The no (の) particle

Posted by Ginny No Comments
Mar 10 2009

When you want to say “my name” or “his friend” how will you say it in Japanese?  In order to complete this exercise you’ll need to know the Japanese possessive called no (の).  Take a look at this sentence: watashi no namae (わたし の なまえ).  Notice that the no (の) goes between the word watashi (わたし) and namae (なまえ).  Watashi (わたし) means “I” while namae (なまえ) means “name”.  Since the no (の) possessive is after the watashi (わたし), you know that the person who is doing the possession is “I”.  So in English this would change to the word “my”.  Altogether the sentence watashi no namae (わたし の なまえ) means “my name”.

The no (の) particle is used to connect nouns together. This means that the no (の) particle has a wide range of uses other than just a possessive particle.  For example, wasada daigaku no gakusee (わさだ だいがく の がくせい) connects the noun daigaku (だいがく) to gakusee (がくせい).  Let’s break this sentence down.  Wasada daigaku (だいがく) is a proper noun.  Daigaku (だいがく) means college and Wasada (わさだ) is the name of the college.  Next, gakusee (がくせい) means “student”.  Altogether the phrase wasada daigaku no gakusee (わさだ だいがく の がくせい) in English means, “A student at Wasada College” or “A student of Wasada College”.

There are a couple of things to note here with the phrases, “(A) student at Wasada College” and “(A) student of Wasada College”.  One, there is no “a” or “the” function in Japanese.  That’s why the “A” is in parentheses.  Second, the no (の) particle in this instance can mean “at” or “of” in English.  This just goes to show how flexible the no (の) particle is.

Another thing to note is that the first noun is the more descriptive noun, while the second noun is the general noun.  For example the phrase, “kookoo no sensee” (こうこう の せんせい) has the first noun, kookoo (こうこう) as being the more specific noun, while the sensee (せんせい) noun is the main idea.  Kookoo (こうこう) means high school.  Sensee (せんせい) means teacher.  Altogether the phrase “kookoo no sensee” (こうこう の せんせい) means “high school teacher”.

That’s it for today, see you next post.

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