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「日焼け顔　見合ひ（い）てうまし　氷水」　　　水原秋桜子 「（ひやけがお、みあいてうまし　こおりみず）」　（みずはらしゅうおうし） 高温多湿の日本では、七月から九月くらいまで蒸し暑い日々が続き、太陽もギラギラと照りつけます。そんな夏にひとときの涼しさを届けてくれるのが「かき氷」。氷を細かく砕いたものに、イチゴやレモンの味のシロップをかけて食べます。また、甘い小豆や白玉団子を乗せたり、抹茶の粉をかけたりといろいろなトッピングでも楽しめます。アイスクリームよりさっぱりとした食感で、日本の夏の風物詩です。 この俳句に登場しているのは、真っ黒に日焼けした友だち同士でしょうか。向かい合ってかき氷を食べています。「氷水」というのは、かき氷のことですね。 「ずいぶん日に焼けたな。どこかへ行ってきたのかい？」 「うん、海に。君も真っ黒じゃないか」 「あぁ。僕は川へ泳ぎに行ってきたんだよ」などと、 お互いの顔を見合わせながらおいしくかき氷を食べている様子を表現しています。 「うまし」というのは「うまい」「おいしい」という意味。 暑さが厳しい季節ですが、暑いからこその楽しみもあります。その一つがかき氷。ただし、おいしいからといって急いで食べたり、たくさん食べたりすると、キーンと頭が痛くなってしまいますけどね。 ＝＝＝＝＝ Tanned visages facing each other, delicious shaved ice By Shuoushi Mizuhara In Japan, the sun beats down hard during the humid days of summer from about July to... Show more

That’s right; we said it! We don’t think you can do it! Oh, don’t get us wrong, we believe you can do anything you set your mind to here at JapanesePod101.com… but how hard will you really try to bleed us of our money? Hmm… I guess we’ll see at the end of August. What are we talking about? Our $10,100 Summer Giveaway, that’s what! And what is THAT, you say? Well, first of all, we are giving away many, many, MANY free subscriptions - $10,100 worth of FREE Premium and 101 Basic subscriptions to be exact! And entering is a piece of cake! You can enter in JapanesePod101.com’s $10,100 Giveaway, by doing one or ALL of the following:  Follow JapanesePod101.com on Twitter  Become a fan of JapanesePod101.com on Facebook  Subscribe to... Show more

The Kanji for this week are as follows: (Remember, each compound must use the Kanji in the brackets .) Kanji Scrabble #15, Key Kanji: 車、中、上、道、高、足、金、水、火、目 (Learn How to Play Here) To start, all you need is a Twitter account and to follow our Twitter account @japanesepod101 (What’s Twitter you ask? Read our guide here.) Answers: Kanji Kana English 上下 うえした (n) high and low/up and down/unloading and loading/praising and blaming/(P)/ 上下水道 じょうげすいどう (n) water and sewer services/ 上中下 じょうちゅうげ (n) excellent-good-poor/first-second-third (class)/ 下下 したじた (n) the lower classes/the common people/ 下水 げすい (n) (1) drainage/ditch/gutter/sewerage/(2) sewage/black water/(P)/ 下水道 げすいどう (n)... Show more

Quick Links Welcome to Kanji Curiosity | The Basics | Glossary You might think that, as an inanimate object, a rod would be incapable of doing much. But 棒 (BŌ: rod, pole, stick) pairs off with several actions, as in the following expressions: 棒読み (bōyomi)     rod + reading 棒を引く (bō o hiku)     rod + to pull 棒立ち (bōdachi)     rod + standing Any ideas what these might mean? If I were guessing blindly, I might interpret 棒読み as a divining rod, an instrument to detect water or metal. Meanwhile, 棒を引く could refer to pulling a sword from a stone. As for 棒立ち, it could be a telephone pole. Wrong in every case! Let's take 'em one by one.   Reading Like a... Show more

Hi everyone! Welcome to Everyday Kanji! In this series, we present pictures of kanji seen in various places in Japan taken by the team members at JapanesePod101.com. That's right - kanji seen and used everyday! In this blog and on Twitter we'll be presenting pictures with kanji based on a theme, such as kanji seen on road signs, shop signs, restaurant menus, product packaging, and lots more! You can also see the kanji pictures everyday on Twitter if you follow us! We’ll be changing the theme of the pictures every week. This week's theme was kanji seen on caution and prohibition signs. ① 駐車禁止(chuusha kinshi) This means “NO PARKING”. “禁止” means “prohibited”, so you should watch out for these kanji! 駐車・chūsha = parking -  ... Show more

The Kanji for this week are as follows: (Remember, each compound must use the Kanji in the brackets .) Kanji Scrabble #14, Key Kanji: 火、目、牛、車、道、大、中、生、出、口 (Learn How to Play Here) To start, all you need is a Twitter account and to follow our Twitter account @japanesepod101 (What’s Twitter you ask? Read our guide here.) Answers: Kanji Kana English 中水道 ちゅうすいどう (n) gray-water system/grey-water system/recycled waste-water/ 出水 しゅっすい (n,vs) flood/freshet/inundation/ 大水 おおみず (n,adj-no) flood/(P)/ 水中 すいちゅう (n,adj-no) underwater/(P)/ 水口 みずぐち (n) a spout/(P)/ 水火 すいか (n) fire and water/ 水牛 すいぎゅう (n) water buffalo/(P)/ 水生 すいせい (n,adj-no) aquatic (life)/living in the water/ ... Show more

On the third Monday of July each year, the Japanese celebrate what is known as Marine Day ("Umi no hi"). This is a relatively new national holiday to celebrate the honor of the ocean and wish for the prosperity of Japan as an ocean country. In the past, the sea has played a very significant part of Japan's economy.  Marine Day was originally designated in 1941 as the anniversary of the day when Emperor Meiji returned in 1876 from his boat trip to Hokkaido after an inspection. When it was became a national holiday in 1996, Marine Day fell on July 20, but it has since been moved to the third Monday in July to create three-day-weekend, which is part of a movement called the "Happy Monday System" where a handful of designated holidays... Show more

Welcome to Forum Spotlight! Here we’ll be introducing interesting and useful posts made by members at our very own JapanesePod101.com Forum. This week's forum spotlight post is by Taurus, who shared a great site that features Japanese songs lyrics in the original Japanese with nice English translations. After posting this, many other forum members jumped in with their own Japanese lyric site links. Singing in Japanese is actually a great way to improve your Japanese pronunciation, so why not give it a try! ==== Posted by Taurus: I'm sorry if this has been posted before but, inspired by my quest to find surprising karaoke songs, I've just come across a website that has a load of song lyrics in both Japanese and English. It might be... Show more

There is an old saying that when you eat eel on "Doyo no Ushi" Day in the summer, you won’t suffer from the summer heat.  As a result, many people in Japan eat eel on this day. “Doyo no Ushi” Day is the day of the ox (from the 12 symbols of the Chinese zodiac) during the 18 days before autumn starts.  According to the ancient Chinese calendar system, autumn starts on around August 7, so the 18 days before autumn starts usually fall in the period from around July 20 to August 7. This year we have two “Doyo no Ushi” days which are July 19 and July 31. There are actually “Doyo no Ushi” Days in spring, summer, autumn and winter.  But when we say “Doyo no Ushi” Day, we usually mean the "Doyo no Ushi" Day in summer. As mentioned above, people... Show more

Quick Links Welcome to Kanji Curiosity | The Basics | Glossary You know the expression "adding insult to injury"? The following term captures that feeling perfectly: 説教泥棒 (sekkyō dorobō: burglar who preaches at the victim about methods of preventing similar crimes)     to preach + to instruct + thief (last 2 chars.) First he breaks into your house, ties you up, and robs you. Then, as if that weren't bad enough, he looks at you sternly and launches into a lecture: "You really need to be more careful about security, or else you'll continue to be the victim of such crimes." He has redeemed himself for his crime by teaching you a valuable lesson. Why, quite possibly you're indebted to him! We could... Show more