Learn Japanese for travel or interest - Calling Japanese speakers and those who want to learn Japanese, or to visit Japan

 

For travellers, you can use the phrasebook in Wikivoyage. Pick your country, in this case Japanese, or several countries if you have a multi-destination holiday. You get a long list of handy phrases. Print off the entire list of phrases, or those you are most likely to need. Print in a conveneint size, large enough to read, small enough to be lightweight, to go in your pocket. If it gets lost in a wad of papers, print a japanese flag and attach it to the front as a cover, or just to the top left or right corner of the first page.

Wikipedia makes everything comoplicated and I have to look up technical terms. Simple Wiki is useful. 

So is Wikimedia Commons, for pictures.

OOOZU - Compact, Pocket Size

You can get a small card from Ooozu.com to carry around and consult.

Duolingo 

I am using Duolingo to learn Japanese. It has a lot of repetition.

LILT Polyglot Club

I run an online polyglot languages group with my good friend Carolyn Street, who used to teach French and German at a Polytechnic in Singapore. You can attend  this clubon Zoom every Sunday, 9.30 pm Singapore time on Carolyn's Zooom. Send her your name, your full name, so she recognizes you and can admit you to the meeting. 

You can contact her or me by direct message on Facebook and on the Lilt page. (Earlier version were WILL but that got confused with [ages on writing a will so we changed it to LILT.

We are probably doing a reprise of Japanese at the future meeting on Sunday 25th February 2024 if requested. This week is Greek. To attend 1-to 3 meetings is free. We hope that if you become a rgular supporter you will want to join Toastmasters and pay the 60 dollars fee for 6 months access to the TI website, pathrway programme innluding videos on public speaking and managing meetings, the online magazine, and opportunities to take attend and take part in speaking contests. These two online clubs can be contacted via Advancity in Singapore which is in Toastmasters International Find a club. Advancity also meets in person in Singapore.

SGI Dynamic Toastmasters International Club

I often do a rehearsal on Friday at SGI Dynamic. The club started in the evening in Singapore but moved to later in the evening so that members and visitors from the USA could join. The timing is early morning in the USA and Central and South America. Lunchtime in London, after lunch in France and Europe, evening in Singapore, which is the same time as Japan and China.  

Resources

Duolingo

diolingo.com

ooozu.com

busuu

toastmasters international find a club

Learning and Recognising Numbers And Placenames From Mandarin Chinese Signs On Singapore's MRT

Problem
I was learning the Chinese (Mandarin) symbols for numbers, with only the number one to three and ten fixed in my mind. How can I learn more words easily, with repetition?

Answer
Then I spotted Sixth Avenue in English on the MRT Downtown line and recognized the number six in Chinese!

Photo by Angela Lansbury.

Japanese
The symbols are the same in Japanese. Like non-smoking symbols, the words are different in each language but the signs are the same.)

Useful Websites
amazon
ebay

Mutafa Centre, Singapore
They have several pages which come up. I looked for and clicked on the floor plan.
I got a blank screen, but after a minute the floor plan map loaded up
http://www.mustafa.com.sg/mustafalocationmap/
Nearest MRT stations are Farrer Park and Little India.

How To Remember Zero To Ten In Chinese With Jenny
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Ow3SXtz5i4 

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and phtographer, learner and teacher of English and other languages.

Learn Chinese Months and numbers one to twelve

Chinese months
The second symbol is the symbol for month. The first symbol is the sign of the number. The easiest ones to recognize are January, month one, single line. February, month two is a double line. Four is like the four sides of a window with curtains. April, curtains. June is the sixth month.

July is the seventh month, and the Chinese seven looks like an upside down English seven. August is the eighth month and instead of two circles making the eight you simply have two curved lines. September looks like the ltter r in Italic script. October is the tenth month, like a Roman number ten turning anticlockwise. November, is ten plus one, the eleventh month.
一月 one month (January)
二月two month (February)
游行
四月 four month (April - four sides of a square, like a window, with curtains)
可能
六月six month (June)
七月seven month (July - looks like an upside down European seven and a backwards J)
八月eight month (August like two circles written in a hurry)
九月
十月 ten month (October - looks like Roman ten turned sideways)
十一月 eleven month (November looks like Roman ten turned sideways plus one line = 11)
十二月 twelve month (December - looks like Roman ten turned sideways plus two lines = 12)

Chinese Pronunciation

One, two - yi, èr.

1 Yī yuè
2 èr yuè
3 yóuxíng
4 sì yuè
5 kěnéng
6 liù yuè
7 qī yuè
8 bā yuè
9 jiǔ yuè
10 shí yuè
11 shíyī yuè
12 shí'èr yuè

After looking at the simplified Chinese, I decided to try traditional Chinese to find out if it was more complicated and if I could recognize it.

1 一月
2 二月
3 遊行
4 四月
5 可能
6 六月
7 七月
8 八月
9 九月
10 十月
11 十一月
12 十二月

1 Yī yuè
2 èr yuè
3 yóuxíng
4 sì yuè
5 kěnéng
6 liù yuè
7 qī yuè
8 bā yuè
9 jiǔ yuè
10 shí yuè
11 shíyī yuè
12 shí'èr yuè

It comes out the same. So, no trouble reading the signs, including today's date displayed on the hotel TV or above Reception in the hotel or in a bank.

Japanese uses the same symbols.

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.