Vocabulary

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Lesson Transcript

みなさんこんにちは。(Mina-san, konnichiwa) Hi everyone, I am Chihiro and welcome back to JapanesePod101.com’s Kantan kana series. In the last lesson, we learned the katakana characters ハ(ha), ヒ(hi), フ(fu), ヘ(he) and ホ(ho). If you remember your hiragana that will really help with this lesson. If you see some characters you don’t know, be sure to review some past lessons. Now let’s take a look at the next five katakana characters.
We will begin with マ(ma). 1, 2. This one might look familiar. The number one we talked about ア(a). These two start out the same but the second line is completely different. Here is ママ(mama), “mother” and here is マスク(masuku) “a mask”.
Next up is ミ(mi). 1, 2, 3. Three lines on a slanting angle with the middle line slightly shorter. Here is ミニ, “mini”.
Next up is ム(mu) 1, 2. Now you can write ハム(hamu) “Ham” as in the Lunch Meat and チーム(chīmu) “team” as in the sports team.
Here is メ(me). 1, 2. Be careful not to make this look like an X. Make sure that the first stroke is curved slightly and the second stroke is shorter and straight. Let’s write メキシコ(Mekishiko) a beautiful country; and メス(mesu) is Dutch for the scalpel used by doctors.
Our last character is モ(mo). 1, 2, 3. Remember hiragana も(mo). The katakana モ(mo) is quite similar but slightly angular looking. Now you can write モナコ(Monako). The country Monaco in Europe and an onomatopoeia word that might be similar in other languages モーモー(mōmō).
Can you guess what that is? Right, it’s the sound a cow makes.
Now let’s have a short quiz. I will show you a word in katakana and you read it. Bonus points if you remember what it means.
ハム(hamu) “Ham”
メキシコ(Mekishiko) “Mexico”
モナコ(Monako) “Monaco”
Now it’s time for Chihiro’s tip. A lot of loan words or phrases that are long are often shortened in Japanese. For example, a television is テレビ(terebi) and a remote control is simply リモコン(rimokon). Now remember a few lessons ago that actor Brad Pitt was an example. Do you now have a Japanese nickname to him? It’s just ブラピ, short and sweet.
Do you like playing with ヨーヨー(yōyō) or eating ショートケーキ(shōtokēki). If you don’t, but at least in the next lesson, you will learn how to write yo-yo and strawberry shortcake. Well I will see you then.

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