Ohayo gozaimasu students,
Did the title of this entry catch your attention? Any fourth grader in my school who is working on his writing portfolio entries should know about "hooks". If the title intrigued you enough to want to read on, then it did its job of hooking you.
Since I've been practicing my Japanese more, today I will share a little of what I've learned. Perhaps many of you already know the meaning of the word "san". In one of my blogs I used the Japanese word "san" to refer to Mt. Fuji, but I didn't receive any comments as to why I called Mt. Fuji, Fuji-san, or Mr. Fuji. That is, in fact, what the Japanese call this mountain.
The word "san" in Japanese can mean Mr., or Mrs., when following a name, or it can mean the number three. The Kanji symbol for san is shown above. It is composed of three lines, the last longer than the other two.
I've learned that Japanese is one of the most difficult languages to write because it uses 3 different scripts to convey meaning. One is Kanji; these are modified Chinese characters. Hiragana and Katahana are characters based on the syllabic sounds of Japanese words, and are to the right in the above picture. The third, which allows Westerners to read Japanese and to pronounce the words is romanji, the Roman letters we use for our writing. This enables me to read Japanese, although I still don't understand the meaning of many of the passages. Here are few of the phrases and sentences I have learned: dohzo yoroshiku = pleased to meet you, ichi(e-chi) ji(gee) han dewa = thank you very much, and kehki o onegai shimasu = may I have some cake please,( this I thought was an important sentence for me to learn, since I really have a sweet tooth and like any kind of cake).
I'll be leaving a week from today, and I'm getting nervous about being able to communicate with the host family I will be staying with. But at the same time, I'm becoming excited about using the new words, phrases and sentences that I've been learning.
Dewa Mata (see you soon)
