How to write days of the week in Japanese

When I went to the nursery school to pick my 5-year-old daughter up, she showed a paper to me.

"Look at this mom, I practiced writing!"

She said.

I told her:

"Wow! You wrote numbers. Fantastic! Some numbers are written in mirrored though."

"These are not bad!"

She doesn't like her mistakes pointed out.

I couldn't help smiling at her writing of days of the week.

She wrote:

"げつ　かぁ　すい　もく　きん　どぅ　にち ( Mon. Tue. Wed. Thr. Fri. Sat. Sun.)"

The correct way is:

"げつ　か　すい　もく　きん　ど　にち ( Mon. Tue. Wed. Thr. Fri. Sat. Sun.)""

But when we pronounce these, the sound is as my daughter's wrote.

Tuesday (か) sounds like "かぁ", and Saturday(ど) sounds like "どぅ".

But it is pronounced like her examples only in the situation of saying "げつ か すい もく きん ど にち".

If you say "かようび (Tuesday)"  or "どようび(Saturday)", we never say it like "かぁようび" or "どぅようび".

I explained this difference to her, but it was a little difficult for her to understand.



I realize how the Japanese language is difficult.

I think those who are learning Japanese are amazing.

Maybe it is difficult for those who are non-native Japanese to remember Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji.

Even Japanese children need more than 10 years to remember various kinds of Japanese language.

It is still difficult for me to write, read, speak and listen to English.

If you find a mistake which you couldn't help smiling at, please feel free to post your comment and teach me!


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A little happiness

"Do you want ham and eggs?"

I asked my 7-year-old son when I was preparing breakfast yesterday morning.

"Yeah, I want it."

He answered.

After the Karate tournament match, I try to add some dishes for him because my husband pointed out that he needs to eat more, especially obtain enough high-quality protein to be stronger.
Furthermore, I also love ham and eggs!


By the way, we usually call ham and eggs "ハムエッグ( ham egg)".

It is one of the English words coined in Japan.

Most of Japanese don't know that they are not proper English and believe that such kinds of English words are used in English-speaking countries.

< Wasei Eigo (Japanese-made English) examples >

サラリーマン sarary man = office worker

ノートパソコン note Pasocon = laptop

クレーム claim = complaint

コンセント　consent =  wall socket

トランプ　trump = playing card

ガソリンスタンド  gasoline stand = gas station

ナイター　nighter = night game


While eating ham and eggs, he said:

"Oh! I am lucky! There are two slices of ham!"

"Really? I didn't notice to use two slices of ham. Good for you."

He was glad innocently and ate it up.

After I finished working, I picked my son from the children's house then came home because he told me that he wanted to come home soon.

I walked to the nursery school to pick up my 5-year-old daughter.

On our way home, she skipped happily.

I asked her:

"Did you have something good today?"

"Yes! I played with my friend. I enjoyed it very much!"

I thought that I used to skip when I was a child but I have not skipped at all recently.

Both examples were only a little happiness, but if we can feel small happiness, it would pile up and become bigger happiness.



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An adorable misunderstanding

My husband took my 7-year-old son to the clinic and I took my 5-year-old daughter to the music school Saturday morning.

His doctor wrote a the certificate of recovery from Infectious Disease for him, it means he can go to school from Monday!

We went to Sushiro, one of the famous sushi-go-round restaurants for lunch.

We enjoyed eating Sushi.

Since my husband went to work after lunch, my children and I went to the library.

On my way there, My son told my daughter:

"We bought Jyoa for you at the clinic!"

It is a drinkable yogurt and they like it very much becaue they have drunk it at the nursery school.

Since there is a vending machine including it at the clinic, whenever we go to the clinic, I buy it for my children.

My daughter looked at Jyoa and said:

"It says Sashiro!"

 

"Sashiro???  What's Sashiro? Do you mean it says Sushiro(the name of the sushi-go-round restaurant where we went for lunch)? "

My son and I didn't understand what she wanted to say.

After a while, he and I realized what she said.

"You mean, さしぐち(Sashiguchi), right?

 ロ of Katakana and 口 of Kanji look similar, but they are completely different.

 口 is pronounced as くち(Kuchi)!"

さしぐち（Sashiguchi） means the pouring port of the straw.

She can read Hiragana and a few Katakana now,but she can't read Kanji.

She read さし口 (sashiguchi) with さしろ(sashiro) by mistake.

Since it was right after we went to Sushiro, we mistook さしろ for スシロー(Sushiro).

We laughed together.

It takes a long time to learn a language.


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Language test 2

My 7-year-old son told me last night when we were taking a bath:

"Mom, can you press your elbow to Tatsumaki?"

"What?? What do you mean? Maybe you are talking about Tsumuji (a hair whorl), right? "

"Oh, I mistook it."

"Why do you think that you misunderstood it? "

"Because both are in a whirl! Don't you think they are similar?"

"Yes, I agree!"

His misunderstandings were really funny.

When we ate snack yesterday evening, my son was eating small chocolates.
s
"I want to eat all of these by myself, but if you want it, I can give you one."

He said.

"OK. Why don't you barter? I have a small chocolate pie."

"But, can I exchange this chocolate? It isn't pimply."

I couldn't stop laughing.

Barter is called Butsubutsu-koukan ( 物々交換／ぶつぶつこうかん) in Japanese.

This Butsubutsu has a lot of meanings in Japanese : mutter / nag somebody / grumble about something / have a rash /cut into small pieces  /make holes in a piece of paper with a pin

Those are wriiten in Hiragana, but Barter is written in Kanji like 物々, and it means thing and thing.

He mistook 物々for a rash.

It is difficult to learn the language, but fun.


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Language test

My seven-year-old son asked me yesterday:

"What does Otome (maiden) mean?"

"Otome? Well, it means young girls, maybe about from10 to 20-year-old girls. Do you find the word in the comic?"

"Yes."

He often asks me the meaning of the words which he doesn't know.

Other than that, he asked me Simei-tehai (fugitive warrant) yesterday.

He can read books by himself if there are Furigana above the Kanji which indicate how the Kanji sound.

 

But he still has a lot of words which he doesn't understand the meanings.

 

He sometimes misunderstands the meaning of Japanese idioms.

 

For example, I told him before:

 

"I want to fly there."

 

It means I want to go there as soon as possible, but he asked me:

 

"Do you really fly to the sky? How?"

 

It was so funny that my husband and I couldn't stop laughing on hearing that.

 

It takes a long time to master a language even if we are native speakers of it.

 

Whenever I answer his question, I feel like taking a test of Japanese language.

 

It is a little difficult to explain so that children can understand, I need to chose the simple and plain words.

 

But I think that it is also a good opportunity to  acquire Japanese language skills.

 

 

 

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UITEMATE

Since my 6-year-old son asked me to go to swim, my children and I went to the swimming pool yesterday.

It is a heated indoor pool owned by a city, so we can swim there all year around and it is cheap.

It was not crowded though during Silver week.

In fact, I don't like crowded places, so I prefer to stay near my house than go out far during long holidays recently.

When we arrived there, we were able to monopolize the kids pool because there was nobody.

They were so excited and swam with me.

I also practised "UITEMATE".

It means the way of protecting ourselves from a accident at sea, river, lake, pool, and so on, and floating face up in the water to ensure breathing, and to wait for the rescue.

According to the news, this word is Japanese language and it spread out to the world and it became a common word of the world after the Great East Japan Earthquake.

Actually, my husband told me that he had been washed away by rip current and had drifted in the sea for one hour when he was young.

Fortunately he was able to come back to the beach.

I think it was really amazing that he was able to come back alive.

It is difficult for me to float for an hour in the sea, but I want to do it better to protect my life from the accident.

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Let's crack the code written in Japanese!

My 5-year-old daughter wrote me a letter at the nursery school 2 days ago.

It was like a cipher.

It is written like this.

This is my decoding result.

 

( I will do my best for getting ready for school today. )

The red parts are complete mirror letters.

I really wonder why children write such letters.

In fact, I have not ever taught how to write Hiragana (one of Japanese characters) to my daughter.

She remembers characters by imitating.

Probably it might be still difficult for her to write characters only by her image.



The blue parts are common mistakes.

First one is a mistake of postpositional particle.

わ and はhave same sound (wa) when は is used as a postpositional particle.

Children often mistake this.

Second one has a mistake of a position to put Dakuten (a voiced consonant mark).

We put them on the right upper side of some letters.

Last one, there isn't a point on the upper right side of お.


I could barely read her letter but I didn't point out her mistakes because I thought she did a good job though she is only 5 years old.

I was glad to recieve her letter.

I could imagine that she was writing this letter with heart and soul for me.


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