One of the more iconic types of poster you’ll find in Japan are the fire safety posters. Often adorned with a cute girl or popular celebrity, they aim to raise awareness of accidental fires in the home and encourage people to be vigilant.
Tag Archives | Beginner
Please Do It Subway Posters
Tokyo Metro produce refresh their series of subway posters annually, with an unique design for each month. In recent years, the posters by graphic artist Bunpei Yorifuji have been particularly stylish and easy to understand, utilising clever visuals and bright colours to grab the attention of commuters.
Complete – コンプ
Here’s a neat little conversation that I just spotted on Facebook that has a slang term and some pretty simple language. It definitely gives you a better feel for how an actual conversation between two young guys would play out! As you may have guessed from the title, コンプ simply means ‘complete’. As with many [...]
Haikyo Hiragana Reading Practice
Recently I had an article published in the Hiragana Times (on sale in Japan this month) about Haikyo – Japan’s abandoned buildings. The main article is only available in the magazine, but there’s a small summary on the Hiragana Times homepage that makes for some good reading practice for beginners. Enjoy!
Mothers’ Meetings – ママ会
Something you’ll see a lot of in Japanese is the Kanji 会 (かい), which symbolises a grouping or meeting. Its uses are quite broad, from titles, such as ‘International Association’ (交際交流会 – こくさいこうりゅうかい) to birthday party (誕生日会 – たんじょうびかい) . The trick is simply to look for the Kanji on the end and think of [...]
Japanese School System
Have you ever wondered exactly how old school children are in Japan? Quite often the students are called by their school year and not by their exact age. Various types of media also use the Japanese school year system to break children up into groups.
Lady Men – ギャル男
A interesting sub-culture found in Japan, particularly around the fashionable, young districts of Shibuya and Shinjuku, is that of Gyaru-oh, the so called ‘lady men’.
Henohenomoheji
Heno-heno 変じゃないのぉ？？ What’s all this heno-heno business then? We take a brief look at this classic idea known by all Japanese people.
Withdrawing Cash in Japan
Using an ATM machine is a rather simple task, but one that can be somewhat stressful when you aren’t sure what buttons to press. Add to that an ever-growing line of impatient people behind you and it could just be enough ruin your day! Let’s take a look at the process of withdrawing money.
My Mean Senpai!
Film posters can be good sources for a quick bite of Japanese without much effort. You have a large image to help you understand context and usually a catchy phrase that shows some of the more creative uses of the language.