Do you know...

• Singapore and Tokyo are 5,320km apart?

• Singapore and Tokyo are not in the same time zone? Singapore is GMT +8  while Tokyo is GMT +9.

• flying from Singapore to Tokyo takes around 7 hours while flying from Tokyo to Singapore takes around 8 hours?

• Singapore have tropical rainforest climate while Japan have temperate climate of 4 seasons?

• Singapore's tallest hill is Bukit Timah hill (164m) while Japan's tallest mountain is Mt. Fuji (3,776.24m) ?

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.

Learning How to Wear a Yukata

How to Wear Yukata

Hi Folks, it's summer and alot of places in and out of Japan are having summer festival, commonly known as natsu matsuri. With that in mind, it's time for YUKATA! That's right! YUKATA is really something that is associated with SUMMER! So I decided to share my yukata manual for you! 

In case you cannot read off the blog pic, please click them instead. The pictures are in pretty sharp resolution as individual.

Names of Yukata Parts:

Wearing Yukata Part 1:

Wearing Yukata Part 2:

Wearing Yukata Part 3:

Typing Obi Part1:

Typing Obi Part 2:

Gestaltzerfall of Kanji

Gestaltzerfall refers to a psychological phenomenon where delays in recognition are observed when a kanji character is stared at for a while. A study has shown that delays are most significant when the characters are of the same size. When characters to recognize are of different sizes, delays are observed only when they are of different patterns

 Extracted from Wikipedia : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gestaltzerfall

I was talking to my friend over msn when he give me this term along with the meaning on this website: koohi forum topic. In short, this is actually a form of recongised mental blockage due to excessive expourse to a particular kanji. It is quite common among people who is learning Japanese and Chinese. Have you ever suffer from this before? Care to share?

Introducing my editor/fellow author for article contribution.

I just realised that I'm a pretty ungrateful person as I have totally left credits for my cousin's handiwork for editing out my stuff and inputing her ideas for this blog. ^^,)//

So let's welcome Jiali san! \(^-^)/

List of numbers without counters

0　     -　零 (ぜろ・れい)・〇(まる)
1　     -　一 (いち・ひと[つ])
2　     -　二 (に・ふた[つ])
3　     -　三 (さん・み[っつ])
4　     -　四 (よん・よ[っつ]・し)
5　     -　五 (ご・いつ[つ])
6　     -　六 (ろく・む[っつ])
7　     -　七 (なな[つ]・しち)
8　     -　八 (はち・や[っつ])
9　     -　九 (きゅう・く・ここの[つ]）
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.
10　   -　十 (じゅう・とお）  
20　   -　二十 (にじゅう)
30　   -　三十 (さんじゅう)
40　   -　四十 (よんじゅう)
50　   -　五十 (ごじゅう)
60　   -　六十 (ろくじゅう)
70　   -　七十 (ななじゅう)
80　   -　八十 (はちじゅう)
90　   -　九十 (きゅうじゅう)
 ~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.
100　  -　百 (ひゃく)
300*　 -　三百 (さんびゃく)
600*　 -　六百 (ろっぴゃく)
800*　 -　八百 (はっぴゃく)
1,000 　-　千 (せん)
3,000*　-　三千 (さんぜん)
8,000*　-　八千 (はっせん)
10,000　-　一万 (いちまん)
100,000,000　-　億 (おく)
*Special pronunciation.
 ~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.
So how to I read numeric value?
For numbers 1-10, just read the 1st hiragana pronunciation in the bracket - ichi,ni,san,yon,go,roku,nana,hachi,kyuu,jyuu....

For numbers that is in between 1-999,999,999, you just need to read according to their value.
For example
341,758,629 - 三億四千百七十五万八千六百二十九
(さんおく　よんせん　ひゃく　ななじゅう　ごまん　はっせん　ろっぴゃく　にじゅう　きゅう)

Special Pronunciation
1) 百、千、億
 For 100, 1,000 and 100,000,000, we will omit out 1(ichi) digit in front.
However, one should take note that for 10,000, it is pronounced as 一万(いちまん).


2) 四、七、九
Usually, one would just pronounce 4,7,9 as よん、なな、きゅう as modern Japanese way of reading. This is to avoid using the pronunciation of し、しち and they can also mean death (死、死地) and pronunciation of く also means suffering(苦).
However, one would use the old reading style for calender date and time.
For example, April, July and September are pronounced as 四月(しがつ)、七月(しちがつ)、九月(くがつ).


3) 三、六、八
This is perhaps some of the most confusing numerical that most non native Japanese learners will have problem memorising. The changing of sounds in 3,6,8 are due to rendaku. It's pretty hard to explain at elementary level by itself.
Sad to say, I can only offer one advise: forced memorisation.


4) 零 or 〇
Both are accepted in modern Japanese speaking. But sometimes, in quick pronunciation by native Japanese for numerical terms, one may use 〇 instead of 零.
However, in written context, only 零 is used.


What is つ?
That's a counter usage. However, there's quite a few counters in Japanese so we will touch on this topic in another post soon :)

Inner Elbow

Once during our elementary lesson where we are learning body parts, one of my classmate ask Sensei on the proper term of inner elbow. Sensei could not give a proper term for this (>.<)|||

Interesting enough, I search Yahoo answers and post the question there.

And soon enough someone managed to fill me up with an answer  :

While, 肘(ひじ) hiji means elbow. There was an old term for inner elbow call 肘窩(ちゅか) chuka. Modern way of say inner elbow will be 肘の内側(ひじのうちがわ) hiji no uchigawa.

Interesting, isn't it?