http://100japanesethings.com In Which 100 Japanese Things Shall Be Revealed, So That You May Learn Much Japanese From Them Mon, 15 Jun 2009 05:31:54 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Somewhere near you, there is a festival and a stage and a young boy and girl are doing their first ever live performance of this song: Um, that is, if you live in Japan. This is a fairly recent track (lyrics by Ryouko Moriyama, music by BEGIN) that now turns up ... http://100japanesethings.com/2009/06/15/thing-12-what-is-playing-at-your-town-festival%e3%80%80%ef%bc%88begins-nada-sousou/ Aw, Kreva. You what? Made some kind of pimped out 3-D kanji speed reading drill?  With a beat? And put on a blue jumpsuit? Really, you shouldn't have. (Kanji 3-D Magic Land opens for business around the 1:00 mark) YouTube - 成功. And make sure you push HQ. Elsewhere on the internet, ... http://100japanesethings.com/2009/02/04/video-thing-11-a-kindly-rap-mans-effect-o-magic-kanji-lesson/ Fresh Japanese signs, ripe for the SRSing. Go! (As always, the English is just approximate) --- Hey Signs, whatchyou got to say about my dog? 犬を連れて境内に立入る事禁じます。大本山相国寺。 いぬ　を　つれて　けいだい　に　たちいる　こと　きんじます。　だいほんざんしょうこくじ。 Note:  大本山相国寺 is the name of the temple. The rest of the sign says, pretty much what you'd guess it would: You can't bring your dog into the grounds. ----- And ... http://100japanesethings.com/2008/12/16/signs-infrequent-sign-roundups-lives/ Booyah! A rush of signs! Hiragana and English explanations follow: 1) 海でやろう。 Detail of bottom: 駆け込み乗車は危険です。おやめください。 2) "Deleted" text reads: 献血いってエイズ検査してみよっか！ Red text reads: 感染病　（肝炎・エイズ等 ) 検査目的の献血は、絶対やめましょう！ 3) --- Explanations (note: English translations are rough as always, we're mainly here to get you signs) First up, one of my favorite signs of all time, as it links cramming into subways to ... http://100japanesethings.com/2008/09/02/sign-roundup-swimming-in-subways-blood-tests-the-impact-of-smoking/ Our own Jason Ho sent this from his commute to work today. He would like you to know that he enjoys signs that depict mutant figures. And they are cutest when in ambiguous spacial relation to a bike, aren't they? 自転車通行可 通行可；つうこうか This one means: Bicycle passage permitted [i.e. walking or biking okay, no cars ... http://100japanesethings.com/2008/07/11/signs-2-the-mutant-that-family-may-not-bike-here/ Ooh, our first sign submission: Gah, it's so wee and hard to make out! Do you hate it? * From Scott, who works as a translator in a building a few hundred meters from my desk. He says: the text reads: 月極有料駐車場 I think this is one of those signs that people see and ... http://100japanesethings.com/2008/07/10/sign-1-monthly-parking-in-the-land-of-dang-tricky/ Oh, we'll still be bringing you THINGS. But we're also going to be bringing you signs. Starting immediately. If you're in Japan, you can play along. See a Japanese sign that you don't understand? Take a pic and e-mail (or keitai-mail) it over to (type it just like that and ... http://100japanesethings.com/2008/07/08/the-japanese-sign-project-begins-plus-sign-1-the-rusty-crosswalk-buttons/ Exhibit A) Japanese text reads: カンヌ映画祭 あなたの映画の大ファンです。ぜんぶ海賊版にしちゃいました！！ Exhibit B) １）やれやれ！あっちも悲劇、こっちも悲劇だ！ ２）ガソリンの値段がこのまま上がり続けるなら私もバスを使わなければいけなくなるかも！ Exhibit C) １）考えてみたんだけどオバマとクリントンの「ドリームチケット」で2番目になるのも悪くないかなって ２）ばか言ってんじゃないの！ ---- Kind of hard to understand Japanese political comics, because to get the joke you probably have to understand concrete lobbies, LDP, etc. But (for Americans), American political comics in Japanese equal=Not so bad. On Exhibit A: All you need to know is that 海賊　（　かいぞく　）means "pirate"　(in both the ... http://100japanesethings.com/2008/06/02/thing-10-japanese-newsweek-cartoons-and-quotes-from-the-perspectives-page/ This method of Japanese language learning may be odd to some, but I couldn't resist at least introducing this blog which rather tastefully documents pop singers whose underwear has accidentally appeared in event photos over the 80's and 90's. I'm not sure of the practicality of this site, but as a ... http://100japanesethings.com/2008/04/08/thing-9-shortened-words-and-short-skirts-what-is-aichira/ If you're a Kurt Vonnegut fan, you'll know that homeboy urged us to: please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, “If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is. Which seems nice, and is easy enough to do back home. But how does one ... http://100japanesethings.com/2008/03/27/thing-8-the-january-issue-of-brutus-magazine/