Sea Gull and March of Ducks etc;

                                                

                                                            My main header now is the original one for the new post;

*Late March at the city park*

I missed posting this birdies' topic in March.  It was surprising and happy to see many Gulls perching together on the fence of the lake in the park.  This year, we had more number than the last year. The black faced one is impressive♪

      *Gave me smile to see many Ducks marching together*
On the same day, I've seen many ducks marching on the hill from the lake side to the museum part.  Wished to ask why they are going up hill♬♬♬

Here are some flowers, mixture of mine and the lady key-board player of my husband involved sent for me.   For the flower links;      (sorry for the out of the season ones)

One on the right is Michelia Compressa；we call Ogatama.  Left side I can't identified.

Hydrangea my husband had from his friend;

 

(posted; Etymology page)
The governor  of Tokyo announced  resigning yesterday;

I thought about the word 'post' as the TV news is using the word trying to predict who will be the next governor, saying "who'll be  post Matuzoe, ' posuto Matuzoe' ". 
This word is now used as Japanglish.  I presume not many percentage of Japanese people can understand its real meaning. As someone once told me she thought "against" not "after".  I know it's used like "post world warⅡ".  
I wonder if this word is used for the people in the certain post(-:) ; like "who will be post Obama".

Linking this post to, "Outdoor Wednesday", "Wild Bird Wednesday"

"GoodFences", "Floral Friday Fotos", "Saturday's critters", "Scenic Weekends", 

"TODAY'S FLOWERS", "id-rather-b birdin", "Camera-Critters",

 "Our World Tuesday", "Nature Notes",  

So sorry for the very long post and I WILL be visiting you soon...

Nihon and Nippon;

(posted; Etymology page)

While I was preparing for the next post, I realized we have two ways of calling our nation in Japanese.  Oh My; if I didn't do blogging, I wouldn't have payed attention this differences p;)   We normally call our country "Nihon". But Japan '日本' is written "Nippon" in Roman Character for almost all the signs introducing Japan.

*Nihon*

This is the front cover of the book of learning Japanese. Saying "Everyone's Japanese". Nihon-go means 'Japan and language' and in one word "Japanese" for English..

*Nippon*

This is from picture page which introducing Women's Volleyball team. We can hear the shouts of rooting voice in harmony "Nippon cha-cha-cha" during the game.

Both pronunciations work when describing our country in Japanese. Hope you'd understand the different sounds♪  Here is my former post about Hepburn system writing for more information related this post.

Thank you very much for stopping by;

As this post and new one is connected, I decided to have your thoughtful comments in my next post, see you soon;    Sincerely, Miyako*

Choose Either Way;

(posted; Etymology page)

The letter paper and the envelope is mine. You might notice from the lines that we have both types of writing "Vertical" and "Horizontal" way. Although I have almost all written down topics for Etymology page, a foreigner's interest I found on TV made me reconsider about these two versions of writing direction.

*Japanese Paper and graduation certificate*

The foreigner was talking that he saw a business man reading a paper in the morning crowded train and found that the different direction of the letters gave him fresh image. (upper right is the TV program; lower right is the graduation certificate)

*Elementary School's Japanese Textbook*

This is my next neighbor's forth grade elementary-school boy's Japanese textbook. 

I believe it's easier reading Japanese vertically not horizontally as most of the novels are so.  This is my calligraphy pages link. There aren't many horizontal works compared to vertical ones. Haha, just a personal opinion.

 I was fascinated and didn't take it for granted to find this function in WORD at first :-) 

I'm NOT sure if it is beneficial fact for Japanese (language-wise) in designing. And I wonder if 'by any chance' there are any trouble or not for other languages which have only horizontal way.  

Linking this post to Our World Tuesday;

Thank you very much for stopping by;

Toughness of Mouth's Usages and Phonetic Symbols;

Sorry for the unmatched header, I've changed it for the newer post.

(posted; Etymology page)

This post is about how hard to pronounce English for Japanese, whereas my "Hepburn system writing" post was about the hardness of writing;  (sorry for the long writing today)

      Linking this post to Our World Tuesday;

The other day, my husband abruptly asked me what "Fast Food" means. He just knew the sound of the word, not spelling. I instantly understood his confusion, " fast/first".  

Japanese doesn't require us to use the tongue and lips much as it's a rather monotonous language compared to English. There are many Toughness of lips and Tongue Usages for us when we speak English. Let me introduce the major FOUR hard ones for us.
                                                     (These four are totally from my experience; no reference from pc. p;)

*Number 1*

We don't have sound which requires us to roll up our tongue into our mouth, so "R" sound is really tough for us.  light/right  fast/first  heart/hurt   These several two words will be pronounced the same as we are not used to say the sound of underlined part. 

*Number 2*

Almost all the students hesitate to imitate me pronouncing "th" sounds. My explaining them to put their tongue toward upper teeth and no need to stick out almost never work. So these several words on the left side will be sounded  like on the right side.    think→s(h)ink  three→su-ree  thank→sunk  this→di-su

*Number 3*

"f" and"v"  sound which requires us to put our upper teeth lightly on our lower lip will not be pronounced correctly.  So berry/very will be pronounced the same way here again.  The first 'F' sound of these words five, free, will be said putting the lips forward like the underlined part of  'what' sound. When I teach alphabet, "v" students pronounce it like "bu-i", like the word "buoy"

*Number 4*

It seems that we are not used to put our mouth side-way. These left side words sounds like right side word.  sea→she  sick→chic 
                                   

*Phonetic Symbols*

Pronunciation is always the hardest part when teach. In reality we don't teach Phonetic Symbols much. But if students can't read these symbols, they can't read new words in the textbook. (especially, high-school students have trouble) 

This one is from high-school English textbook.  At the bottom of the book, there are lists of new words and they need to read the symbols to know the sounds of them. I can easily guess you won't need these unless you are language specialist p;)  

Thank you so much for reading my rambling about the toughness Japanese students have to face when learning English. I must add that after several years of teaching, I thought that each language has its characteristics and  I shouldn't expect much(*^_^*)

Thank you very much for stopping by;
  I hope you all will have a wonderful new week. 

   

Can you read our names or Hepburn system writing?

(posted; Etymology page)
I'm linking this post to  Our World Tuesday, hope this post fits the idea of the site.

     I wish you can get the sound of Japanese from my Hepburn writing in my posts.

When Japanese children become third grade of elementary school, they should be able to write Hepburn system (one of Roman Alphabet; you can get the idea from the link), so that foreign people can pronounce their names as the same way with us.  That's how we tell them.


The letters in the bluish color in the chart is "hiragana" character one of our three characters. We have one of 5 vowels for the last of each sound of the word.    
      My name "みやこ;  mi-ya-ko"      I wish you can pronounce :-)                  

                                         Hepburn system 

It's been a wonder for me how much this way of writing can help you to pronounce words same way with us...   From checking through pc; I found that there are some cases that cause big differences. There are 2 major reasons causing the wrong image of the sound.  One is the "e" at the end of the word and the other is the way how you separate "syllable" in one word.

* "e" which comes last of the words*

We have vowel-based language, so each syllable has "a/i/u/e/o" sound at the end. Whereas in English, you don't pronounce the last "e" of the word.

          rope, lake, side, strike, cake   ←unpronounced

    As for the example,  you might know the baseball player Daisuke Matsuzaka.

       His name "Da-i-su-ke"  must be sounded like  "Dice-K" for you. 

       In English; the last "ke" pronounced "k, like cake".

       In Japanese; last "e" is pronounced like 'e' in "egg".  It is a vowel.

*How you separate "syllable"*

If the word has same kind of spelling with English, it may cause trouble for separating the syllables and pronunciation. 

     As for the example,  you might know the car company called "Toyota"

            Toy-o-ta  ←  You may separate this way because there are a word "toy"

            To-yo-ta   ←  This is how we (Japanese) separate this word.

                     This cause big pronunciation differences as well.

Hopefully, my name Mi-ya-ko may be pronounced like we do from you(*^_^*)

Extra; As a teacher, I've noticed that this way of writing really makes children confused to learn how to write English. 

If you kindly read this long post, thank you SO much.

I know you may not be able to understand my explanation.  However, if you have anything you realized related with this post or questions, I'd really appreciate it and I will reply every comment from you here.

Yojijukugo (四字熟語);

(posted; Etymology page) 

Feb. 26th is the anniversary of my mother's death. I remember she felt proud of and happy for me when I passed a certain English proficiency test and started teaching at home. Especially she had seen me so down after giving up the fertility treatment. 

I thought I should post some topic in memory of her. 
I seem to run out of topic;  but I could find one I haven't posted.

*Yojijukugo (四字熟語)*

The idiomatic phrases are composed of 4 Chinese Characters; and in the sense, they have a particular meaning that is different from the meanings of the component words.  

       I'll just introduce some examples here;

The ones which may be easy for English speaking people;

          一石二鳥　(one/stone/two/bird） [isseki'nichou]
                 killing two birds with one stone 

          試行錯誤 （try/conduct/mistake/error） [shikousakugo]　 

                 trial and error

The ones I like;

          十人十色 （ten/people/ten/color） [juunintoiro]　
              So many people, so many minds; everyone has his own ideas and tastes;

          無理難題 （impossible/challenge）　[murinandai] 

                unreasonable [impossible] demand; asking the impossible; tall order 

          
          馬耳東風 （horse/ear/east/wind）　[bajitoufuu]
             turning a deaf ear (to); not paying attention to someone's opinions or criticism; 
                in one ear and out the other; praying to deaf ears 

      When my husband asks me 無理難題, I am like 馬耳東風  p;)

          順風満帆 （order/wind/fully/sail） [junpuumanpan]　
                smooth sailing with all sails set; 
               everything going smoothly [like a boat carried by favorable winds] 

*I DO hope everyone's life is and will be 順風満帆*

            ps;  You'll know more Yojijukugo from this page and this is Wikipedia page

                   And may surprise to see there are so many of them, not that we use many of them nor often.

Thank you very much for reading this lengthy topic 

and hope you could get what explained;

           

"Stroke Order of alphabet"

(posted; Etymology page) 

Until recently, I haven't checked about the "Stroke Order" of alphabet. I found that there is no definition how to write correctly in the textbooks for children. Through PC site, I also learned that it doesn't matter unlike for the Chinese character we normally have to be really careful.  Otherwise, you won't be able to write calligraphy easily. 

as you can see, there is no showing of how to write;

As I have a 3rd grade of elementary school girl student and having little guests from time to time, I needed to verify it.  To my surprise, I found that the different stroke from my way are shown on the penmanship for kids. For "E or F", I usually start from horizontal line, not vertical line. "M & N; v & w" also kind of hard to write that way. 

      Haha, just letting you know my surprise of  "no right way to write" 

Plus, really sad not teaching cursive writing any more at school. I wish technology won't deprive people of handwriting much. 

Thank you very much for visiting,  Love You Always from Japan♡♡♡

question about pronoun

(posted; Etymology page)
Today,  would you let me ask silly question about pronoun?

It is about the usages of "her, him, it; she, he, it".  I think you all may know my English level(^^;)  And I couldn't solve this nagging question even through checking with PC and no foreigner to ask.

I know the basic role and how I should teach. I'd really appreciated if you give me an answer how you use them in the daily conversation or in the blog comment. In the situation that you don't know the gender difference, how do you use them?

Whenever I see lovely picture of bird or animal in friends' blog post, I always get confused which one I should use.

        How adorable the heron is!  I love (her, him, it).  

        Look at that BMW.   How cool  (she, he, it) is!

I think her expresses the loveliness feeling you have for the bird well, haha. 　Are there any tacit role which one you use for particular animals or objects?  What is more, what about car or airplane, etc...  Or should it be always it？

Thank you very much for reading♡♡♡  It is excruciatingly hot and many heat stroke cases are reported.  Hope you are doing fine in your corner of the world, my friends.

Name of the month in Japanese & English

(posted; Etymology page) 　
Hi, how are you doing, my friends;
In Japan, rainy season has started and it is very important season for the rice crops.

As you can see from this "name of the month" page, we have two types of way calling the name of the month. Commonly, numbers are used like 6 month (6月).  The other traditional one has meaning behind the Chinese Characters and sounds elegant.  June has confusing traditional name for us with the letter "無,without". 

Besides this "new style dates" & "old style dates" theory, it seems there is another one.  Well, let me skip here -:)) 

                 ………………………………………………………………………………　　

*English version*

I'm pasting from this page, found so interesting especially after September.

Most months are derived from Latin words or from the names of Roman gods and rulers.January, for instance, comes from Janus, the Roman god of doors and of beginnings and endings. Janus had two faces, one that looked forward and another that looked backward. January was named after Janus because the month looks both at the end of the previous year and the beginning of the new one.

February comes from the Latin februare, "to purify." The Latins celebrated the festival of forgiveness for sins on February 15.
March is named after Mars, the Roman god of war.
April is likely named after the Latin aperire, or "to open," signifying the opening of buds in the spring.
May comes from the Roman goddess Maia, a deity associated with fertility.
June comes from the goddess Juno, the chief Roman goddess.
July is named after Julius Ceasar.
August is named for Augustus Ceasar.
The last four months are named after numbers. The original Roman calendar had only ten months and began in what is now March, so the ninth, tenth, eleventh, and twelfth months of our calendar coincided with the seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth months of the Roman calendar. Septem is Latin for "seven," octo is latin for "eight," novem is Latin for "nine," and decem is Latin for "ten."

      Even though I can name the Japanese traditional version, 

I only knew some of the traditional meaning. 
First to know the meaning behind the English version.   

I feel so happy to have the chance to know through posting them to blog♪

ps> So sorry for posting before visiting you! I'll be able to tonight, my friends♡♡♡  

      I was busy last couple of days and will be for a while tending farther etc.  

      Also, thanks again for visiting this long post.  Hope to come back soon♬♬♬ 

Linking this post to "Our World Tuesday" 

Animals in Proverbs (part 2)

(posted; Etymology page) 

I was wondering if Japanese proverbs with animal would be comprehensible for the other language speakers when I teach them to my students.  Hopefully or I really appreciate if you read another versions from (part 1) in Etymology page here .

*even Homer sometimes nods 「猿も木から落ちる」

In Japanese proverb 'monkey' version is popular. "even monkeys fall from trees".  I was bit surprised to find "pride comes before a fall" as I think this version is slightly different in meaning. But this one can be a good moral lesson as well; not to be too bold (hope my interpretation is correct)

*The dog that trots about finds a bone 「犬も歩けば棒に当たる」

I knew Japanese version is also used in both positive and negative meaning even though I personally uses in fortunate situation. We only have this English version 'even a dog, if it walks, will bump into a pole', but used in both good and bad connotation.

My husband 'who used to be a bank clerk' said, this proverb was kind of his motto when he was doing outside sales work while young. 

 

*a cornered rat will bite a cat ｢窮鼠猫を噛む」

This one has the exact literal translation with Japanese version''.  As it means 'despair turns cowards courageous', I sometimes feel this way towards my husband when I desperately need to talk back p;) 

* 'like carp' on the chopping block(board)　「まな板の鯉」

We use 'carp' for this proverb. It derives from the state which carps get quiet once they are on the board unlike the time they were caught. I found that this one can be translated like 'there's nothing I can do. I'm doomed. My fate is sealed'. 

*eyes of a cormorant, and of a hawk  「鵜の目鷹の目」

This one requires no explanation, I think.  Seek with eyes of a predator; or keen eyes; 

*example sentence with the same meaning*

The new boss is the kind who keeps a sharp eye out for every mistake.

 

Thank very much for reading; I got this one drafted when I wrote "part 1"

Hoping a lovely spring or autumn new week for everyone♡♡♡