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Learn Japanese at JapanesePod101.com! We are about to return to the year of the rat, so today Miki is talking about the jūnishi, the famous Chinese Zodiac. We’ll learn one of the famous stories about the origin of the order. After listening, stop by JapanesePod101.com and be sure to leave us a post!
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This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 16th, 2008 at 6:30 pm and is filed under Advanced Audio Blog 1 . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
19 Responses to “Audio Blog #68 - The Chinese Zodiac”
Wednesday at 6:30 pm
みなさんこんにちは、美樹のブログです。
みなさんは十二支を知っていますか?日本には十二種類の動物の年があり、それが順番にぐるぐると回っています。そして新年に贈る年賀状には、その年の動物の絵や漢字が書かれることが多いです。
十二支の順番は、一番から「子、丑、寅、卯、辰、巳、午、未、申、酉、犬、亥」です。これは順番に「ねずみ、牛、虎、うさぎ、竜、へび、馬、羊、猿、鳥、犬、猪」を意味しています。2007年は猪年だったので、2008年の今年は始めに戻ってねずみ年です。
どうして十二支がこの順番になったのかということについては、いくつかの逸話がありますが、今日はその内の一番有名な話をしたいと思います。
昔、神様が十二支の順番を決めるために動物たちにレースをさせました。一月一日に神様の所へ挨拶に来た順番を十二支の順番にすることにしたのです。自分の足が遅いことを知っていた牛は、どの動物よりも早く出発しました。そのため、一番にゴールできそうだったのですが・・・牛の背中に密かに乗っていたねずみが、ゴールの直前で牛から飛び降りて先にゴールしてしまったのでした。こうして牛は二番になりました。
ところで、十二支の中に猫がいない理由もねずみにあります。猫はゴールの日にちを忘れてしまったので、ねずみに聞きました。するとねずみは「一月二日」と嘘をついたのです。ねずみの嘘を信じて二日にゴールした猫は十二支に入ることができませんでした。今日も猫がねずみを追いかけているのは、この時の恨みがあるからかもしれませんね!
みなさんの国には十二支はありますか?
十二支についての逸話はありますか?
それでは、また来週!
Wednesday at 8:23 pm
中国であるよ!
The Chinese zodiac is often used by people in China as a crafty way of finding out someone’s age. Instead of directly asking how old you are, they ask “so what animal are you?” If I don’t want to answer, I usually just say something silly like “ペンギン!”
Here’s an interesting story about 漢字. The 12 漢字 were used in Asia in ancient times as markers for time. 子 is the sign of 11pm to 1am, 丑 represents the next two hours, and so on. So in ancient times, if someone asked you the time, you’d respond with one of those characters.
The character which corresponds to 11am - 1pm is 午. From this we get the words 午後 (behind 午) to mean “afternoon” and 午前 which mean “before 午” (”morning”).
午 is also used in modern Chinese to tell time. Like in Japan, the other 11 characters aren’t used to tell time any more, but (again, just like in Japan) 午 is still used. Chinese is a little different though: midday is 中午, afternoon is 下午 and morning is 上午.
Wednesday at 8:28 pm
i like to use お申instead of お猿
Wednesday at 9:52 pm
猿?I don’t get it. (The bonus track)
Wednesday at 10:17 pm
I really like this story ! I learned about it in high school… 今日レッソンも、懐かしいなぁ~マーキースターさん、why do you preferお申?I think 猿 is a very beautiful character…by the way, what’s the difference between 十二支 and 干支 ?
Thursday at 2:56 am
羅子傑さん、i did that as a personal request to yuuki. he found that in one of our old lessons as asked me use it somewhere…. it was a bit esoteric, but had to do it for my friend!
プチクレアさん、i prefer 申 because that kanji has a nice balance to it. 猿 is more mundane, but there is something magical about 申. seems like good luck or something, right?
Thursday at 6:15 am
Hello Miki san and mina sama
this is a very interesting topic , i really liked the story about the rat and the cat
besides the zoodiac , are numerology and tarot readings ” popular” in japan ?
楽しかった
i
Thursday at 9:46 am
美樹さん、
アメリカにはZodiac Killerだけ居ます。怖いですね!
Thursday at 10:21 am
スコットさん、Zodiac Killerってなんですか?
Thursday at 11:53 am
のりさん、これを読んでください:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zodiac_Killer
http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%BE%E3%83%87%E3%82%A3%E3%82%A2%E3%83%83%E3%82%AF_%28%E9%80%A3%E7%B6%9A%E6%AE%BA%E4%BA%BA%E7%8A%AF%29
Thursday at 2:51 pm
今年はネズミの年だが、ネズミの時代は四百万年前らしいです。
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23061300-30417,00.html
Thursday at 4:48 pm
“Zodiac”って…面白い映画ですよね!
Friday at 1:30 am
美樹さん、面白い話、ありがとうごまいます! 十二支の事と関連して、言葉って、やっぱり人の考えを限る力を持っているんだなぁーと思ったことがあります。何かというと、僕だけかも知れませんが、誰に会っても、どの動物の年で生まれたかに対する話が出たら、必ずその人とその動物の似ている所を探してる自分に気がついたりするんですよ。実はどんな動物とでも言いはずなのにね。
Friday at 4:19 pm
16日の夜、東京にはこの冬初めて雪が降りました。
とっても寒いです!!!!!
みなさんはもう雪を見ましたか?
>maxiwawaさん
ペンギンの干支、私も使おうかな
干支の漢字を時間に使うのはおもしろいですよね〜
>markystarさん
なんでマーキーはお申が好きなのー?
>プチクレアさん
干支について勉強したことがあるんですね
干支 and 十二支 are same
>rigoさん
numerology and tarot readings are also populur in japan.
there are lots of TV show about spiritual world.
>スコットさん
Zodiac Killerは今どこにいるんでしょうね
>Bob1さん
ねずみの歴史は古いんですね!
did you watch the movie Ratatouille produced by Pixar?its really nice
mouse play an important role in the movie.
>ヒョヌさん
そうですね〜、言葉にはいろんな力がありますね!
私も同じようなことを占いをするときに感じます。占い師に言われたことは本当だと思い込んでしまう人が多いような気がします。「あなたはこういうタイプの人間です。」と言われると、自分のそういう部分を探して、少しでもそういう部分があれば納得してしまいます。
実は多くの人に当てはまることだったりしますよね!
Friday at 5:09 pm
I don’t understand the bonus track - it seems to be only one word long ?
Is it a joke or a technical problem ?? :kitty:
Tuesday at 2:04 pm
Miki-san,
I don’t think they ever found out who it was!
Wednesday at 8:38 pm
みなさん、追加されたオーディオはいかがでしたか?
ゆういち先生ときよこ先生はかなりカジュアルに話しているので、日本人が普段どんな風に話しているか参考になると思います。
ちなみに私は巳年(みどし)、巳はヘビの事です。蛇年生まれの人間は冷血だといわれることがあります。私は気に入ってますけどね。
Tuesday at 10:18 am
みきさんとJAPANESEPODのみんなさん、たくさんのレッスンをありがとうございました!JAPANESEPODを聞いて初めて本当によかっただと思います
みんなさんは「フルーツバスケット」って漫画は知っていますか?その漫画には十二支がテーマですしとても面白いです。
Tuesday at 2:27 pm
ゆりさん、
すてきなコメントありがとうございます!
「フルーツバスケット」は、アメリカで、「もっとも売れた少女まんが」として、ギネスブックに載っているんですね!知りませんでした!情報、ありがとうございました。
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