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Fruits
I took: Yuzu, Wasabi, Yurine, Biwa, Kabosu.

-ppoi
Usually it's said by giving a VERY small pause between the word and -ppoi.
e.g- Iro (small pause)-ppoi. Say it with a little more power than the rest of the word. Treat the 2 P's as just one when you say them.

Names
Most words have more than one meaning, so someone with the name "Aki" for example might not have it coming from the meaning "autumn". Fuyu is a quite rare name though yes. You do get people called "Fuyuki, Fuyuko, Fuyunari, Fuyuo..." though, but they're rather old names and you don't hear them very often now.
 
Thanks for the pronunciation help.

I thought what fruit/vegetables could there possibly be that i havn't heard of, but i have never heard of any of those appart from Wasabi
 
Something a few of my friends from other sites are wondering but how popular is Fullmoon Wo Sagashite in japan, and not just with the girls

i know its a girly anime but i've noticed quite alot of boys (including myself) seem to love it.
 
Ok, so what fruit/vegetables do we have here that they don't in japan, if any?
Also, Pokemon has pretty much out of fashion here, how popular is it still in japan
 
Fruit/Veg
English fruit and veg that we can't get here, hmm, let me see.
Elderberries, gooseberries, parsnips, rhubarb(you can get it in northern Japan but it's not very good), turnip, thats all I can think of at the moment.
Japanese fruit is a lot sweeter than European and VERY watery, making it not very good for use in cooking (cakes etc). Apples are usually HUGE too which can be suprising when you first see them.

Pokemon
It is still very popular with young kids here. The Pokmon Centre is usually filled to overflow during the holidays causing a snake-like line of people out into the streets :shock:
 
No parsnips, my gosh (i have an occasional parsnip fetish)

I was just wondering about the pokemon thing as i saw a program the other day talking about the popularity of the pokemon centre and i wondered if it was old information, as i kind of presumed that since pokemon was not very popular here anymore and since it came out in japan before here it must be the same there
 
I've had a bit of a weird week. I was having a nice chat with MangaMinx on the IRC, when abruptly, my friend turned up and asked me (or should I say made me go with him- he had got my passport and a bag of stuff from my wife and dragged me off to Korea!
My GOD is that country full of gorgeous women :!: The 2 of us spent 4 days wandering around and eating Kimchee.
It was quite fun though, perhaps my love of Korean TV dramas has more to do with it though.



No, Pokemon is still popular here- with kids that is. Most adults don't watch too much anime although if you ask someone what the favourite anime is they almost always say "Sazae-san", can you get that in the UK? I've only ever watched it once- and fell asleep.

Other anime that is popular with kids:
Yakitate Japan, Bobobo-bo bo-bobo, One-Piece.
 
Hi! Chris. Was wondering if you would give me some colours please?
I know hikaru/purple, midori/green and aoi/blue, but what is the Japanese for these?

pink, yellow, black, brown, orange, grey, white. Plus I was wondering about the colours that are shades of others, like beige, turquoise, maroon etc.
Plus could you tell me what yayoi means? It was a name I wanted to use as Sakura's second name, but I could never find a proper definition!
Thankyou :D
 
As an add-on to the colour question, I read ages ago that the three main characters in Dai-Guard (Akagi Shunsuke, Momoi Ibuki and Aoyama Keiichirou) were named after the colours blue, green and pink. Am I right in thinking that Momoi is pink, and Aoyama is based on aoi for blue- and if so, what connection does 'Akagi' have to green? (hope this makes sense).
 
Purple is actually- murasaki :)

pink-
momo-iro (literally, "peach colour")

yellow-
kii-iro

black-
kuro

brown-
cha-iro (lit. "tea colour")

orange-
most people use "orenji" a Japanese version of the English "orange", but an older way of saying it is "daidai-iro" (comes from the Bitter Orange tree/fruit)

grey-
again, most people use "gure-" from the English "gray" but also used is "hai-iro" (lit. "ash colour") or "nezumi-iro (lit. "mouse colour")

white-
shiro

beige-
most use the version taken from English "beiji" also used is "usucha-iro" (light brown)

turquoise-
"toruko-seki" (Turkish stone") or "aomidori-iro" (blue/green colour)

maroon-
They use a version of the English word, and also an older version is "ebi-iro"- "Shrimp colour".



Yayoi is a bit of a mystery, I even asked my wife/friends and they didn't know. All I know is that "Yayoi" is a "Yayoi Jidai" a "Yayoi period" in Japanese history. Also, the name for "March" is also "Yayoi" (see below).

The old Japanese calendar used different names to what they use now.
1. ichigatsu - mutsuki
means something like "get together and be nice month"
2. nigatsu - kisaragi
comes from something like "wear more clothes" because its cold, and also something to do with plants getting ready for spring.
3. sangatsu- yayoi
basicly something like "young trees/plants starting to grow.
4. shigatsu- uzuki
something like "the month of eggs" .
5. gogatsu- satsuki
from when the feilds start to grow.
6. rokugatsu- minazuki
the strong sun makes a lot of water go away.
7. shichigatsu- fumizuki
people used to practice writing poems at this time.
8. hachigatsu- hazuki
from the leaves falling
9. kugatsu- nagatsuki
meaning "long month"- the nights get longer
10. jyuugatsu- kaminazuki
"no god month"- all the gods in Japan leave heaven and to Izumotaisha temple.
11. jyuuichigatsu- shimotsuki
snow starts to fall.
12. jyuunigatsu- shiwasu
"shiwasu" means "running monks/preists" because december is a very busy time for them.

These translations are very rough, but it's the basic meanings for them. Most Japanese don't know what the mean, so I guess it's the closest you'll get :)
 
Red XIII said:
As an add-on to the colour question, I read ages ago that the three main characters in Dai-Guard (Akagi Shunsuke, Momoi Ibuki and Aoyama Keiichirou) were named after the colours blue, green and pink. Am I right in thinking that Momoi is pink, and Aoyama is based on aoi for blue- and if so, what connection does 'Akagi' have to green? (hope this makes sense).
Click to expand...

Are you sure it's not; red/blue/pink? Aka or Akai= red
Unless it's a REALLy weird way of writing the kanji using ateji to make "aka" or "akagi" to mean green?
 
Chris said:
Purple is actually- murasaki :)
Click to expand...
Thanks Chris!
In Prince of Tennis, hikaru was used as a reference to the colour purple, which is why I thought purple was hikaru! - what does hikaru mean then?

Thanks also for the info on Yayoi. Kinda glad I didn't use that one now! I have heard it used as a name in anime quite a few times and I kinda liked it.
 
Hikaru does mean shining. It comes from the word Hikari, which means a shining light.
 
Hm. Well... First of all what are the purposes or stone lanterns?
And I learn Hiragana, but there is also romanji and kanji. What are they?
How you say things and how you actually write things out? o_O
 
I have no idea what stone lanterns are for :cry: Sorry!

Romaji
I basicly Japanese written in the Roman alphabet, the same as English.
Katakana
Is a version of writing, similar to Hiragana. It used to be used only in official documents. Then it became used to write words that came from forign countries (Gairaigo). It's usage was outlawed during WW2, so all forign countries/cities/people etc.. were written in Kanji (like how it is in China still now). Like Hiragana it has its roots taken from parts of Kanji.
Kanji
Is the Chinese "block" style of writing. Used mainly for writing nouns, adjectives, and verbs. There are 2 ways of reading Kanji. "on-yomi" is the Chinese way of reading it, the sound is different to the "kun-yomi" which is the Japanese way. There are sometimes many different ways of reading on-yomi and kun-yomi, as the same kanji can me used for different words. In schools kids learn around 2000 Kanji.

Furigana
is Hiragana OR katakana written above Kanji to tell you how to read it. It is used for difficult or rare Kanji, also used for all kanji in childrens books (manga included).

There is only one way of pronouncing vowel and consenant sounds in Japanese, so written Japanese is very easy to read out loud. There are a lot of words that are written the same way in Hiragana or Katakana but written differently in Kanji. Some words sound the same so sometimes there is a difference in intonation (stronger at the start/end etc...)

This is probably a bit confusing, so please feel free to ask anything that you're not sure of :)
 
Just a quick question. What does 'wa ichigo ga dai suki' mean, one of my MSN contacts has it as his display name and i always wonder what it means
 
Charter_Mage said:
Just a quick question. What does 'wa ichigo ga dai suki' mean, one of my MSN contacts has it as his display name and i always wonder what it means
Click to expand...
Although i dont know much Japanese, I think its something along the lines of "I really like/love Ichigo".

Ichigo, im guessing, is a persons name, and im pretty sure "dai suki" means to like/love a lot.

Obviously this person admires this character... or perhaps its just a quote from an anime he has seen.
 
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