Japanese Poetry

Waka (Japanese poetry) originally encompassed a veriety of forms, such as choka, tanka and sedoka, but tanka gradually become the predominant form until, from Heian Era (late 8th centuy), the term waka came to be considered synonymous with tanka.

Tanka is one form of waka, consisting of five lines of 5, 7, 5, 7 and 7 syllables. It is said that for a Japanese, this is the most natural length for a lyric poem poem expressing emotion. The first three lines of 5, 7 and 5 syllables are known as kami no ku (upper poem" and the remaining two lines of 7 and 7 syllables are known as shimo no ku (lower poem).

As a short form of lyric poetry, tanka stress the beauty of life and nature, and a feeling of yearning is an important element of tanka. What is sought within this simple form is to express the essence of the yearning with a depth in which all the emotions are intermingled. The vivid expression of that which has touched the heart has the power to evoke a wealth of associations. This allusive feeling contained in these 31 syllables is referred to as yojo. In content, tanka poem should include this yojo.

An example of tanka

難波津 (和歌)

難波津に          na ni wa tsu ni
咲くやこの花    sa ku ya ko no ha na
冬ごもり            fu yu go mo ri
今は春べと      i ma ha ha ru be to
咲くやこの花    sa ku ya ko no ha na

Aside from Tanka, there's also Haiku which is a fixed shorter verse form of seventeen syllables arranged in a 5-7-5 pattern.

Basho Matsuo, in the middle of the Edo period (late 17th century), give independent life to the hokku (opening verse) of the haikairenga (linked verse), and establised it as an art form dealing with life and nature, using aesthetic values such as austere elegance called, sabi, shiori, in which there is natural expression of delivate beauty, and karumi, which seeks a refined interest in plain everyday material.

General use of the name "haiku" for this form began with Shiki Masaoka, in the 3rd decade of Meiji Era (end 19th century).

A feature of haiku is inclusion of a "season word" referring to an animal, plant, event or custom of the season. For example, the season word sumireso (violets) will bring to mind the warmth of spring and violets in bloom along a mountain path. Thus, breadth and depth is given to haiku, the shortest of poems. Haiku give an obhetive, fleeting picture of its subject. As it is impossible to depict an actual scene in detail, it is necessary to abbreviate to the essentials, and the season word is one such abbreciation.


An example of haiku

古池 (俳句)

古池や       fu ru i ke ya

蛙飛込む   ka wa tsu to bi ko mu

水の音       mi zu no o to

One famous and traditional anthology style of compiling Japanese waka poetry is actually Hyakunin isshu. Hyakunin isshu (百人一首) is a where each contributor writes one poem for the anthology. Literally, it translates to "one hundred people, one poem [each]". It also refers to the card game of uta-garuta, which uses a deck composed of poems from one such anthology.

The most famous hyakunin isshu, often referred to as "the" Hyakunin Isshu because no other one compares to its notability, is the Ogura Hyakunin Isshu, compiled by Fujiwara no Teika (or Sadaie, 1162 – 1241) while he lived in the Ogura district of Kyoto. Teika's anthology is the basis for the card game of karuta, which has been popular since the Edo period.

Question Words

Basic Question words － 6W1H

• Who：誰（だれ）
• What：何（なに・なん)*
• When:　何時(いつ)
• Where:　何処(どこ)
• Which：どの
• Why：如何して(どうして)
• How：どうやって

Note on What：何 (When to use なに and when to use なん)

1. なに - General use other than rule 2 and 3
2. なん - When using 何 ですか with the purpose of asking 「What is this (N)?」
3. なんの - When の is added, it becomes what kind

Note on Whose：誰の (だれの)

1. By adding の to だれ, the question will which from who to whose in the question. Refer to Lesson 2a Possessive Noun.

Common Japanese symbols punctuation

読点 : とうてん Tōten
Symbol ( 、)=> Comma mark - Instead of  symbol (,), Japanese language use this symbol instead.

句点 : くてん Kuten
Symbol (。) => Punctuation Mark - Instead of symbol (.), Japanese language use this symbol instead.

中黒 : なかぐろ Nakaguro
Symbol (・) => Interpunct - Used for separating Japanese words/titles/names or items to aid reading

鍵 ：かぎ Kagi
Symbol (「」) => Single quotation marks

二重鉤括弧 : にじゅうかぎかっこ Nijūkagikakko
Symbol (「...『...』...」) => Double quotation marks (to be only used within single quotation marks)

感嘆符 : かんたんふ Kantanfu
Symbol (! ) => Exclamation Mark - However, interesting enough, exclamation mark isn't common used in formal sentences as one thinks. They are usually used in casual writing, fiction and manga.

疑問符 : ぎもんふ Gimonfu or commonly known はてな Hatena
Symbol (？) => Question Mark - Another symbol that is not commonly used in formal sentences but commonly used in casual writing, fiction and manga.

濁点 : だくてん Dakuten or commonly known as てんてん tenten
Symbol (゛) => Used with both hiragana and katakana to indicate a voiced sound. For example, ta (た) becomes da (だ), shi (し) becomes ji (じ). For full list of dakuten wordings, please refer to hiragana and katakana list

半濁点 : はんだくてん Handakuten or commonly known as ○・丸 maru
Symbol (゜) => Used with hiragana and katakana to indicate a change from a ha hi fu he ho sound to a pa pi pu pe po sound.

同の字点 : どうのじてん Dō no jiten or commonly known ノマ Noma
Symbol (々) => Kanji repetition mark.

郵便 : ゆうびんYuubin
Symbol (〒) => Postal sign used in Japan

Extracted from:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_typographic_symbols
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_punctuation

Pause Pronounication Sounds!

Small tsu is known as 促音(そくおん)

• Soukon commonly known as small tsu or chiisai tsu or chisana tsu is actually a small pause pronounication sound inbetween a word.


Differenece between the size of normal tsu and small tsu

	Full-sized	Sokuon
Hiragana	つ	っ
Katakana	ツ	ッ



• The sokuon cannot appear at the beginning of a word, before a vowel kana (a, i, u, e, or o), or before kana that begin with the consonants n, m, r, w, or y. In addition, it does not appear before voiced consonants (g, z, d, or b), or before  (single), except in loanwords, or distorted speech, or dialects.
• Personal thoughts: meaning that it can only appear before consonants k, s, t, h.

Long pause in katakana is known as 長音符(ちょうおんぷ)

• Its form is a horizontal or vertical line in the center of the text with the width of one kanji or kana character. It is written horizontally (ー) in horizontal text and vertically in vertical text. The chōonpu is usually used to indicate a long vowel sound in katakana writing, rarely in hiragana writing, and never in romanized Japanese. The chōonpu is a distinct mark from the dash, and in most Japanese typefaces it can easily be distinguished.
• Personal thoughts: meaning that usually it is writen for katakana - foreign objects name.

Example of Pause sounds of similar words:

Slope :　坂(さか) saka
Writer :　作家(さっか) sakka
Scoccer :　サーカー(さーかー) sa-ka-

Refer to :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokuon

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ch%C5%8Don

Understanding Japanese Writing System

Japanese have 3 type of writing style - Hiragana, Katakana and Kanji.
To start off, most non-native Japanese will learn Hiragana 1st before moving on to Katakana and Kanji. However, interesting to note that most native Japanese might start off learning Katakana and Hiragana at the same time during their kindergarden days.

Hiragana - 平仮名(ひらがな)
Hiragana is the basic form of writing Japanese similar to English basic A-B-C
Example : a, i, u, e, o (あ, い, う, え, お).
To form a word, you need to join the hiragana together like the sentence "I am ____ " - "watashi wa ____." (わたし は _____ です。)

Katakana - カタカナ(かたかな)
Katakana is the writing style for foreign object/names like camera カメラ.
Example : a, i, u, e, o (ア,イ,ウ,エ,オ).
Generally, items that is imported into Japan are adopted using Katakan like
ラメン　- ramen (China),
パン　 - pan (means bread in French),
アルバイト - arubaito (Arbeit means part time job in German).
Foreigners learning Japanese, generally write their name in Katakana.

Kanji - 漢字(かんじ)
Kanji is the Chinese character writing style that migrate from China to Japan
Example : watashi -　私　(also can be written in hiragana as わたし as a break down for people who don't understand Kanji). Generally, Kanji is a set of words form from hiragana.

Furigana - 振り仮名(ふりがな)
Japanese generally write their name in Kanji with same hirgana above or below to aid with pronouncation as Kanji might have multiple pronouncation. The same hiragana used for reading aid is known as furigana.

Kanji vs Chinese Characters
A lot of people ask this on Yahoo Answers where I used to be very active in giving out answers and asking questions. I also posed this same question to my 1st sensei before on the difference on Chinese characters and Kanji.

As far as I understand, Kanji and Chinese characters have up to 70% similarity in meanings. Meaning a Chinese might be able to understand Japanese without learning Japanese! However, some Kanji have totally different meaning to their Chinese counterparts. For example, Kanji characters like 勉強(べんきょう) means study but same Chinese characters means compel!

Therefore, it is still advisable for Chinese students who are learning Japanese to be able to differentiate the meanings to avoid confusion.


Romanji ロマン字（ろまんじ）
Most non native Japanese learners started off with Romanji, which is the English alphabets of the Japanese pronouncement. However, it is strongly to recommend one to move off to Hiragana and Katakana as soon as possible. In most Japanese language school, sensei (Japanese teacher) will only use Romanji during Elementary class and will drop almost entirely of Romanji by the end of the course.


Hope with this mini explanation of Japanese writing system, you can understand Japanese better!!!

Cya and stay tune for my 1st Grammer lesson in Japanese!!! (^u^)'')