hehe, i have just started listening ta jpod101 (listening ta 10 podcasts a day ta catch up) & i was gonna make my “debut post” after i catch up to the latest podcast, anyways ~

just wanna take part in the info sharin’ & i would like to list the 7 “hanabi taikai” that were being mentioned in today’s podcast ~

first of all, some vocabs ~

fireworks is 花火 (はなび)
hanabi taikai’s kanji is 花火大会 (はなびたかい)
yukata (the summer kimono) is 浴衣 (ゆかた)
the wooden shoes peter-san has mentioned is 下駄 (げた)
shredded ice is 欠氷 (かきごおり)
- most of the time it’s written as カキゴオリ), the kanji form is usually not being used

then the 7 花火大会s are…

1) 隅田川花火大会
- すみだがわはなびたいかい
(sumidagawa hanabi taikai)

this is located in (浅草.あさくさ.asakusa)

- expected crowd: 100,000 people

2) 諏訪湖祭湖上花火大会
(*there are 2 ways to pronounce it)

- すわこまつりこじょうはなびたいかい)
(suwako matsuri kojou hanabi taikai)

- すわこさいこじょうはなびたいかい
(suwako sai kojou hanabi taikai)

the 祭 can be pronounced as まつり or さい
the “official” one should be まつり
but since natsuko’s pronounced it as “sai”, i believe the latter one’s used more frequently (as it’s easier to pronounce, hehe ~)

this is located @ (長野.ながの.nagano)

- 40,000 shots

3) 伊勢崎利根川花火大会
- いせさきとねがわはなびたいかい
(isesaki tonegawa hanabi taikai)

- 35,000 shots

4) 全国選抜長良川中日花火大会
- ぜんこくせんばつながらがわちゅうにちはなびたいかい
(zenkoku senbatsu nagaragawa chuunichi hanabi taikai)

- 30,000 shots

the following 3 are the ones that are located at the kanto area (関東)

5) エクサイチング花火2006
(exciting hanabi 2006)

6) 江戸川区花火大会
- えどがわくはなびたいかい
(edogawa ku hanabi taikai)

7) 市川市民納涼花火たいかい
- いちがわしみんのうりょうはなびたいかい
(ichigawa shimin nouryou hanabi taikai)

if you would like to know more, you could copy and paste the name of the hanabi taikai to the japanese wikipedia ~ (it’ll be in japanese though) ~ but you can always copy and past the info there to a japanese-to-english translator right?

hehe okie that’s it ~

皆さん、 頑張りましょう ~

It sounded to me in the podcast like the Gunma hanabi taikai location was pronounced Isezaki. I used to live there and it’s actually Isesaki which brings up the question: Is there any rule for どこどこ崎 being prounced -さき or -ざき? Or even lots of other names which could be said with or without the tenten at the beginning of the second character. e.g. We all know Shinjuku（新宿）but I once passed a small town called 新宿 but the romanization was written as Shinshuku.

Thank you for joining our little group.

Ganbatte kudasai!

ネイト