I love the great big 宿題 (しゅくだい) stamp that my son’s tutor puts on the pages he has to do for homework that week. I’m sure it makes a really satisfying kerchunk when she puts it on there.
Japanese Emoji
If you’ve ever paged through your device’s emoji keyboard, you may have noticed an overrepresentation of emoji which are particularly Japanese. Of course, the word emoji itself comes from the Japanese 絵文字. The 絵 (え) means picture and the 文字 (もじ) means character. Due to the initial rise of emoji usage on cell phones in Japan prior to the introduction of the iPhone and subsequent expansion of smartphone usage globally, there were simply a lot of Japan-specific emoji in use that were grandfathered in when emoji became standardized by the Unicode Consortium.
Naturally, there is a fascinating 99% Invisible Podcast episode about the emoji standardization process, which I highly recommend.
I’ve assembled a table of Japan-related emoji below. How many do you know? Are there any missing?
Kanji | Kana | English | Emoji |
---|---|---|---|
寿司 | すし | Sushi | 🍣 |
弁当 | べんと | Bento box lunch | 🍱 |
お握り | おにぎり | Nigiri rice ball | 🍙 |
鍋 | なべ | Hot pot | 🍲 |
煎餅 | せんべい | Rice cracker | 🍘 |
団子 | だんご | 🍡 | |
カレーライス | Curry rice | 🍛 | |
鳴門巻 | なるとまき | Fish cake | 🍥 |
焼き芋 | やきいも | Roasted sweet potato | 🍠 |
おでん | Oden | 🍢 | |
かき氷 | かきごり | Shaved ice | 🍧 |
河豚 | ふぐ | Blowfish | 🐡 |
酒 | さけ | Sake | 🍶 |
天狗 | てんぐ | Tengu | 👺 |
雛人形 | ひなにんぎょう | Girls day dolls | 🎎 |
鬼 | おに | Demon | 👹 |
鯉のぼり | こいのぼり | Carp streamer | 🎏 |
月見 | つきみ | Moon viewing | 🎑 |
富士山 | ふじさん | Mount Fuji | 🗻 |
日本の地図 | にほんのちず | Map of Japan | 🗾 |
北斎 | ほくさい | Hokusai wave | 🌊 |
東京タワー | とうきょうタワー | Tokyo tower | 🗼 |
城 | しろ | Japanese castle | 🏯 |
鳥居 | とりい | Shinto torii gate | ⛩️ |
もやい | Moyai statue in Shibuya | 🗿 | |
郵便局 | ゆうびんきょく | Japanese post office | 🏣 |
桜 | さくら | Cherry blossom | 🌸 |
風鈴 | ふうりん | Wind chime/bell | 🎐 |
七夕 | たなばた | Tanabata | 🎋 |
新幹線 | しんかんせん | Bullet train | 🚅 |
門松 | かどまつ | Gate pine | 🎍 |
提灯 | ちょうちん | Paper lantern | 🏮 |
花札 | はなふだ | Hanafuda playing cards | 🎴 |
初心者マーク | しょしんしゃマーク | New driver sticker | 🔰 |
温泉 | おんせん | Hot springs | ♨️ |
怒 | いか | Anger symbol | 💢 |
花丸 | はなまる | Hanamaru, "Well done" stamp | 💮 |
幼稚園の名札 | ようちえんのなふだ | Kindergarten name badge | 📛 |
Nursery Rhymes
It is well known that music is a great memory aid and, in our family, we’ve used Japanese music to great effect as a fun way to improve language skills. We were lucky enough to have received these Kumon nursery rhyme / folksong CDs from a cousin in Japan when our first child was born and we’ve gotten a ton of use out of them. We received three CDs with 30 songs and lyric cards each and have played them a lot with the kids over the years.
A non-obvious benefit that we received from immersing the family in this music has been a big dose of Japanese cultural reference in addition to merely reinforcing vocabulary and grammar. A few years ago, we were visiting Kyoto and dropped by こどもみらい館 for some morning activity time. When song time started up, we were ecstatic to realize that we knew all the songs and our kids could participate fully as a result! These traditional Japanese children’s songs are also used all the time in Japanese day care and it’s been beneficial for our kids (and us parents!) to be able to join in effortlessly due to an existing familiarity with this fundamental cultural element.
Of course, there are plenty of other sources of music & videos online, often with accompanying subtitles to aid in understanding for kids and non-native Japanese parents alike. Some favorites of ours have been useful for fundamentals like hiragana, days of the week and even this wild one filled with puns and Japanese counters:
たね
When our oldest was in yochien, a common homework exercise was to come up with a word that starts with a specified kana and then draw a picture of it.
The clever little bugger always tried to pick words whose pictures are easy to draw. Once, for は, he came up with はり (needle) and just drew a little line. For た, he chose たね (seed) and drew a little dot. We made him draw the plant sprouting from it.