書き方 THE JAPANESE HOUSE Japanese Writing ACTIVITIES Learn about Japanese writing and give it a try yourself! TIME: 25 minutes MATERIALS: • Video: Many­Homes­ in Kyoto, Japan—Ran •­Kanji and Hiragana activity worksheets 1. Learn about Japanese Writing In Japanese, there are three writing systems called Hiragana, PRONUNCIATION Katakana, and Kanji. Hiragana and Katakana are both made up of 46 GUIDE: basic letters. Each of these letters represents one syllable. Hiragana Kanji: Kah-n-gee is used to write Japanese words, and Katakana is often used to write words from foreign languages. Japanese children start learning to Hiragana: Hee-rah-gah- write with Hiragana and Katakana in first grade. nah Kanji, originally from China, is the writing system made of thou- Katakana: Kah-tah-kah- sands of characters. Each character represents specific meaning. By nah putting characters together, you get new words with new meanings. Once first grade students have mastered Hiragana and Katakana, they start learning Kanji, but that takes a lot longer. By sixth grade, students will have learned 1,000 characters; to read newspapers, it’s said you need to know 2,000 Kanji characters. Besides these three writing systems, Rō­­maji, the romanization of Japanese, is also commonly used. Hiragana あ い う え お Katakana ア イ ウ エ オ Romaji a i u e o Kanji 一 + 人 = 一人 ichi (one) hito (person) hitori (one person or alone) 1 © 2013 Boston Children’s Museum KYO NO MACHIYA ACTIVITIES 2. Practice Writing in Japanese 1. Watch the chapter “Ran” in the video “Many Homes in Kyoto, Japan” and find her calligraphy done in brush and ink. 2. Review stroke orders in the activity sheets. Stroke order is important: it often helps one to remember how to write let- ters and characters correctly, especially those with many strokes. In general, stroke order goes from top to bottom and from left to right. 3. Follow the stroke order and trace the dotted line. 4. Write on your own in the empty boxes. Remember to follow the stroke orders! 2 © 2013 Boston Children’s Museum 3. Things to Talk about • If you want to learn more about Japanese writing, here are some books you might like! —Jimi’s Book of Japanese: A Motivating Method To Learn Japanese (Hiragana), by Peter X. Takahashi —Jimi’s Book of Japanese: A Motivating Method To Learn Japanese (Katakana), by Peter X. Takahashi • To see more Hiragana, Katakana, and Romaji, check out the chart on page 4. •­ Kanji developed from pictures of the words they represented. For example, below is how the Kanji character ki (tree) was developed. See more Kanji evolution on pages 5 and 6. ki (tree) 3 © 2013 Boston Children’s Museum Hiragana Hiragana Katakana あ THE JAPANESE HOUSE Romaji Romaji a ア Katakana ACTIVITIES ん わ ら や ま は な た さ か あ n ン wa ワ ra ラ ya ヤ ma マ ha ハ na ナ ta タ sa サ ka カ a ア り み ひ に ち し き い ri リ mi ミ hi ヒ ni ニ chi チ shi シ ki キ i イ る ゆ む ふ ぬ つ す く う ru ル yu ユ mu ム hu フ nu ヌ tsu ツ su ス ku ク u ウ れ め へ ね て せ け え re レ me メ he ヘ ne ネ te テ se セ ke ケ e エ を ろ よ も ほ の と そ こ お (w)o ヲ ro ロ yo ヨ mo モ ho ホ no ノ to ト so ソ ko コ o オ © 2013 Boston Children’s Museum THE JAPANESE HOUSE Kanji Evolution ACTIVITIES kawa (river) tsuki (moon) yama (mountain) 5 © 2013 Boston Children’s Museum THE JAPANESE HOUSE Kanji Evolution ACTIVITIES (eye) hi (sun) kuchi (mouth) me 6 © 2013 Boston Children’s Museum THE JAPANESE HOUSE Writing in Hiragana ACTIVITIES 3 2 1 yuki snow 3 fuyu 1 winter 2 1 yama 3 4 mountains ie 2 home 2 1 2 2 1 1 3 1 1 2 2 4 7 © 2013 Boston Children’s Museum THE JAPANESE HOUSE Writing Kanji Numbers ACTIVITIES 1 ichi (one) 1 2 ni (two) 1 2 3 san (three) 8 © 2013 Boston Children’s Museum THE JAPANESE HOUSE Writing Kanji Characters ACTIVITIES 1 2 3 kawa (river) 1 2 3 yama (mountain) 1 2 3 tsuki (moon) 4 9 © 2013 Boston Children’s Museum THE JAPANESE HOUSE Writing Kanji Characters ACTIVITIES 1 2 3 hi (sun) 4 1 2 3 kuchi (mouth) 1 2 3 me (eye) 4 5 10 © 2013 Boston Children’s Museum.