Ni-no-mae

Shukkeien (time-lapse)

admin — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 07:46:06 +0000

A time-lapse video of Shukkeien Garden, in the centre of Hiroshima.

Random Japanese: 桜前線

nathan — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 13:52:32 +0000

Reading: さくらぜんせん

This literally means ‘cherry blossom front’ (as in ‘front line’). It refers to the way that the cherry blossoms bloom first in the south of Japan, and then bloom in succession across the country, moving further and further north. The line of places where the cherry blossoms have bloomed on a particular day, a little like the isobars on a weather map, is the 桜前線.

Random Japanese: 二の腕

nathan — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 10:32:06 +0000

Reading: にのうで

This word means ‘upper arm’.

Random Japanese: ドタキャン

nathan — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 07:23:26 +0000

This word is a shortened form of 土壇場キャンセル（どたんばきゃんせる）. It means ‘cancelling (or going back on a commitment or promise) at the last minute’.

土壇場 itself means ‘at the last monent’ or ‘at the eleventh hour’.

Random Japanese: ズラ

nathan — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 06:35:47 +0000

This word, sometimes written ヅラ, is slang for ‘a wig’.

Commemorative platform tickets

admin — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 13:34:10 +0000

Today is February 2, 2010.

So what?- you might ask. Well, 2010 is, in the Japanese ‘nengo’ system, Heisei 22, which means that today is 22.2.2.

To commemorate this, Saijo Station (amongst others) has been selling special platform tickets today. No doubt there will be more such tickets on sale in just under three weeks, on February 22- 22.2.22.

Useful phrases for writing letters in Japanese

admin — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 10:51:31 +0000

If you need to write formal or semi-formal letters and emails in Japanese, then this page is a useful resource. It’s all in Japanese, but, if you’re writing letters in Japanese, that shouldn’t be a problem.

桑原政則オンライン：手紙文例集

Random Japanese: へそを曲げる

nathan — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 05:03:14 +0000

Reading: へそをまげる

This literally means ‘bend your belly button’, but it comes to mean ‘get cross’, or ’sulk’.

Random Japanese: 呟き

nathan — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 04:52:06 +0000

Reading: つぶやき

This word means ‘a murmur’. However, of late it is used as the Japanese term for a tweet- that is, a posting to Twitter.

Pumpkin Chocolate

admin — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 04:36:42 +0000

After Tomato Chocolate and Spinach Chocolate comes… Pumpkin Chocolate.

Similar to the tomato and spinach varieties, Pumpkin Chocolate comes in a packet containing two sticks. It has the same crunchy bits as the tomato and spinach varieties, too. What it doesn’t have, at least in my opinion, is any obvious pumpkin taste. There is some taste over and above the chocolate, and that taste is not entirely unpleasant, but I just wouldn’t recognise it as pumpkin.

So far, the spinach chocolate still has my vote.