katakana1

Katakana is Japanese one of basic charactor. They are constructed by 46 characters and express pronunciation. The function of katakana is almost same as hiragana. So, what's the difference? The difference is it's use. Hiragana is used to express Japanese word, and katakana is mainly used to express exotic words. So non-Japanese names are expressed by katakana when they are written in Japanese. They are also used to express the reading of Kanji words, since kanji words sometimes have multiple reading or irregular reading and not all Japanese can read them correctly. Below is complete list of katakana.

This list does not seems enough to express pronunciation of English or other language. This is because Japanese has less sound than other language. For example, Japanese does not have pronunciation of "L", so alot of Japanese can't tell "Right" and "Light". Because they are same when written in Katakana.
This may be one of the reason that a lot of Japanese can't speak good English, and non-Japanese people has difficulty in learning Japanese.

But if you want to convert your name to Japanese Kanji, don't need to study Japanese. Just use NinjaNameDatabase!

Red Mt.Fuji

Mt.Fuji is one of the symbolism of Japan. Normally most people, including Japanese, imagine blue triangular mountain with snow on its top. But in Summer and Autum, we don't see snow on the top of Mt.Fuji.

This is Mt.Fuji without snow. And this Mt.Fuji is red! I took this picture from Fuji Speed Way circuit on the day of F1 Japanese Grand Prix.

We can see red Fuji only 5-10 minutes on sunrise of fine day, especially in the Summer and Autum. Red Fuji is called "Aka Fuji" and told as a symbol of good luck. Often seen in the picture of Hokusai's ukiyoe.

Why don't you get up early and see Red Fuji, when you visit!

Pink Tokyo Tower

Tokyo Tower was colored pink today. I didn't know why, but I have look into it after come back home and know that it was "Pink Ribon Campaign". I don't know this is global or domestic, but this is campaign of Breast Cancer. Anyway there was pretty much people around the tower.

There is always pretty much people around the tower, but not bad as around Shibuya. Comparing to Eiffel Tower, there's less people. There's a lot of people who never been to tokyo tower, even though they live in Tokyo. But I think it's not bad to visit tokyo tower, if you visit Tokyo.

This is how they color Tokyo. This way, color of tokyo tower changes sometime. I think tokyo tower is colored green on end of April.

This is standard color of tokyo tower. It is heigher than Eiffel Tower, but I think Eiffel Tower seems bigger. What do you think?

I sometimes climb up the tower to middle level and drink beer. There was also somoking seat which makes me comfortable for me. This place is most standard for tourist, but blind spot for Tokyo residentiary.

Japanese Seasonal Beer - Aki aji

In Japan, beer company launches seasonal limited beer aside from standard line up. Those are only sold 1-2month in each season. I've been to a lot of contries, but I haven't seen seasonal one exept in Japan. Does any other country have? If so, please introduce me!

Normally, Seasonal beer is not sold in the bar. So you have to buy it in convenience stores.Why don't you try when you come to Japan?



The beer on the picture is Autumn Limited Beer "Akiaji" which means Autumn taste. If you can tell seasonal limited beer by the picrue on the cans, but if you know kanji of Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter you'll never miss.

hiragana1

Hirakana is Japanese basic charactor. They are constructed by 46 characters and express pronunciation. Languages using alphabet like English basically express puronaunciation by combination of vowel and consonant, but hiragana express that combination by one character.(There are some exceptions.)

They don't have any meaning by each characters itself. Title of this topic is kanji which means hiragana. Every word written by kanji can be also written by hiragana.

Hiragana is pretty simple and easy to remember, comparing to kanji. I give you complete list of hiragana so that you can try writing Japanese.

For example "hirakana". First divide word into hirakana combination of vowel and consonant like this. "hi - ra - ka - na". Then find character from list and write!

It's pretty easy to write hiragana, but there is some difficulty to convert English names or words into hiragana. If you want, use ninja name database. This will convert your name not only to hiragana but also into KANJI!

Japanese beer

This is about Japanese beer. In Japanese, beer is called "bakushu", if we write in kanji. This means malt liquor. But we normally says "biiru" which is beer in Japanese pronunciation. In the bar or restaurants, it's written in katakana like below.

In Japanese law, beer must use more than 66.7% malt as its material. So if malt is less than 66.7%, we can not call it beer, but less alcohol tax instead. Beer with less than 66.7% malt is called "happoushu" which means sparkling liquor. Try, when you come to Japan!

Draft beer is called "nama biiru" in Japanese. "nama biiru" means "rare beer". If you want draft beer in bar or restaurants in Japan, say only "Nama!". Nama means rare , but you'll get cold draft beer.

Japanese characters

Recently Japanese foods, animation is getting popular, Japanese characters are often seen in all over the world. I often see tatoo in Japanese. Some guys in Olympic had tatoo in Japanese. But I often find wrong Japanese and a lot of people can't tell Japanese and Chinese.

In this topics I'll write about Japanese Characters. First, there are 3 kinds of characters in Japanese. They are "Kanji", "Hiragana" and "Katakana". Most Japanese can write more than 1,000 Kanjis. Can you imagine to learn 1,000 characters by heart? I can also write Kanji, but still I can't believe that I can. I'll write the difference of those characters in different topics which will be comming soon!

If you want to convert your name to Japanese, visit NinjaNameService!