Counting in Japanese - Part Deux

Ok. Now that you can count to 10 in Japanese, it is not a good time to start lounging around leisurely praising yourself for being able to do such a thing! Its fantastic that you can count and you should feel proud of yourself, pat yourself on the back and lets get moving.  Precept by Precept, line by line, towards better Japanese.

1 - ichi

2 - ni  (as in your knee, the one between your calf and your thigh)

3 - san (more like the sam of samba than the sun of sun, think drop the jaw and say ah and close it with an n.)

4 - yon, shi ( like saying, "Hey Yo! Wassup? and closing into an n and also the other way of saying 4 sounds like, "She said what.!?

5 - go - Just like it looks

6 - roku - (Now if you misprounounce this on,e you will be thought to have said doku or the word for poison. Make this one sound a little more on the L side of the D between the R of Japanese if you can understand what I mean).

7 - shichi, nana (almost as in pee-chee but she-chee or banana all long drop your jaw high upper palate good choir mouth alelujiah's ah so it's nah-nah)

8 - hachi - Do you remember the game Tekken's Heihachi Mishima? Well, hachi sounds like the sound you make when you are almost sneezing

9 - kyu, ku (The word for suddenly in Japanese is kyu^ with a long u but the shorter cucumber's cue ball sounds like its que'd up ready to rock and roll baby!)

10  ju, to (The Jewish people turn 10 years of age at some point in their lives. Why not capitalize on that fact and tell yourself, ok this is how I'll remember the word 10 in Japanese so I'll never forget. By using the statemnent and repeating it to yourself. Jewish people or even a Jew turns 10 years old or jusai.(see the age counters page)

O.K. now on to a little history of the situation. Since the Japanese weren't heavily nfluenced by the Holy Roman Empire, the turks or even the Greeks, their calendars, ways of counting things like that  came out a little different from their western counterparts. Instead of having a name for each of the months like we do in English, the Japanese simply number the months 1 - 12 ,and add the kanji for moon, in this case gatsu, after the number.  So for January you get ichigatsu. February you get nigatsu. The following are the months of the year in Japanese.

January - Ichigatsu (ichi gatsu)

February - Nigatsu (ni gatsu)

March - Sangatsu (san gatsu)

April - Shigatsu (shi gatsu, never yongatsu)

May - Gogatsu (go gatsu)

June - Rokugatsu (roku gatsu)

July - Shichigatsu (shichi gatsu)

August - Hachigatsu (hachi gatsu)

September - Kugatsu (ku gatsu)

October - Jugatsu (ju gatsu)

November - Juichigatsu (ju ichi gatsu)

December - Junigatsu (ju ni gatsu)

...and there you have it... instant plug and play Japanese wordage for you to enjoy. Now go out there and use it on somebody!

Ganbatte ne! Do you Best! Makurasuki sensei.

If you missed part I or would now like to be taken to part trois of the Count in Japanese© series by Makurasuki Sensei, then click either 

http://squidoo.com/ichinisan or http://squidoo.com/japanese123456 (part trois)