Monday, March 5, 2007

Looking for Hiragana all around me

Lately I look out for Japanese written all around me. The only way I recognize it is when I see hiragana characters written. Riding the subway I look at the ads and the advisories from the MTA to see if they are written in Japanese. When shopping I look at the labels on the clothing and the shoes to see if there are care instructions in Japanese. I try to recognize words in movies where Japanese is spoken (like in BABEL, the only things I understood without closed captions was when a question was asked).

6 comments:

Minami·Eternal Thinker said...

nice picture, by the way :)

Unknown said...

こんにちは。TAの ますや です。
"Lost in translation"を みたことが ありますか? にほんごが きけますよ。

キンバリー・パットン said...

それはいいれんしゅうですね。私もよく日本語を見て、時々読みます。でもちょっとむずかしいですね。

georgeliao85 said...

I do the same. It's kind of interesting to see how much you can understand... and also kind of depressing when they talk so fast and all you can understand is the か at the end of a sentence.

Of course, reading is fun too. I have a Japanese friend who has a bunch of Japanese things in her room and so I get to read the labels. Too bad I can't read katakana. So much is written in it!

heggie said...

that's very interesting! my suitemate watches a lot of Japanese dramas so I watch it with her and try to pick up on phrases or words we've learned too. I get very excited when i hear something i know.

Olga said...

I've noticed that I'm doing the same thing completely unintentionally. And when I realize that it's in Japanese and that I can pronounce hiragana characters or recognize a few words I get happy like a child=) Learning a new language is difficult but if we could do it right it's very fun and rewarding.