Just a quick drive-by linking post (without even a kanji or katakana lesson, gasp!): Japanese food robots !
(Nothing to see, move it along.)
(But I might edit this post to have lessons later.)
Read More......
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Saturday, June 6, 2009
A lesson in kanji:
I worded this as unoffensively as possible, but some people still may be offended at the sexual nature of it, so the article is under the cut.
Did you know that the Japanese word and kanji for "clitoris" is the same as "blister" or "corn"? And the two kanji used for it are "meat" and "pain"?
It's hard to miss the relevance in that, isn't it?
It sounds like it might be older style or not commonly used, though; it doesn't show up in the kanji-a-day dictionary when you search "clitoris"; only when you search "mame" (which is bean...that's what I was originally looking up the kanji for, I swear O.O haha). I reviewed several other online dictionaries, and a little searching shows similar results.
That is really interesting in a way, though. Sorry if it's a little crass for your tastes; I didn't mean it to be. I just remember in my gender roles class, that our teacher made us make lists of slang for male and female genitalia, and it was amazing how many more positive terms there were for male genitalia, or even more words at all.
That is one thing I like about learning Japanese; a word can mean something but be represented by something else, and sometimes it shows how it's viewed in a culture (or used to be viewed). I'm sure many of our English words developed that way; we discussed the etymology of the words "good" and "bad" in Philosophy class, and it was really interesting.
The point is, kanji is sooooo interesting, and if it takes learning the etymology of the word "clitoris" to make people think it's interesting, well, so be it. A study in radicals would probably be even more interesting, but here are some examples of word values in kanji:
-There are two spellings of "gohan", or rice, and one of them has the kanji for "honorable" in it (the "go" part).
-Sushi is made up of "longevity", and "administrator" for some reason. There is no mention of "vinegared rice", even though that's what it is.
Read More......
Did you know that the Japanese word and kanji for "clitoris" is the same as "blister" or "corn"? And the two kanji used for it are "meat" and "pain"?
It's hard to miss the relevance in that, isn't it?
It sounds like it might be older style or not commonly used, though; it doesn't show up in the kanji-a-day dictionary when you search "clitoris"; only when you search "mame" (which is bean...that's what I was originally looking up the kanji for, I swear O.O haha). I reviewed several other online dictionaries, and a little searching shows similar results.
That is really interesting in a way, though. Sorry if it's a little crass for your tastes; I didn't mean it to be. I just remember in my gender roles class, that our teacher made us make lists of slang for male and female genitalia, and it was amazing how many more positive terms there were for male genitalia, or even more words at all.
That is one thing I like about learning Japanese; a word can mean something but be represented by something else, and sometimes it shows how it's viewed in a culture (or used to be viewed). I'm sure many of our English words developed that way; we discussed the etymology of the words "good" and "bad" in Philosophy class, and it was really interesting.
The point is, kanji is sooooo interesting, and if it takes learning the etymology of the word "clitoris" to make people think it's interesting, well, so be it. A study in radicals would probably be even more interesting, but here are some examples of word values in kanji:
-There are two spellings of "gohan", or rice, and one of them has the kanji for "honorable" in it (the "go" part).
-Sushi is made up of "longevity", and "administrator" for some reason. There is no mention of "vinegared rice", even though that's what it is.
Read More......
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Something else cool we won't get:
Coming soon to Japan: green tea flavored Coca-Cola.
(article foun via snopes.com)
The new green-tea flavored Coke is targeted toward health conscious females and will have the benefit of green tea antioxidants...
Aw, yummy! Do you ever notice how other countries get the coolest sodas? I'm not much of a soda drinker, but I was excited when I finally saw Manzanita Sol hit the shelves over here quite a while ago - a drink I had in Mexico that tasted like biting into a fizzy red delicious, only better. Apparently they even have melon sodas in Japan - it sounds totally worth the trip.
Vocabulary:
お茶 (おちゃ): green tea
Read More......
(article foun via snopes.com)
The new green-tea flavored Coke is targeted toward health conscious females and will have the benefit of green tea antioxidants...
Aw, yummy! Do you ever notice how other countries get the coolest sodas? I'm not much of a soda drinker, but I was excited when I finally saw Manzanita Sol hit the shelves over here quite a while ago - a drink I had in Mexico that tasted like biting into a fizzy red delicious, only better. Apparently they even have melon sodas in Japan - it sounds totally worth the trip.
Vocabulary:
お茶 (おちゃ): green tea
Read More......
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