This week, the students learned how to count numbers from 11 to 100, months of the year, and hiragana さ, し, す, せ, and そ.
Counting in Japanese is actually really easy. In order to count up to 99, all you need to know is the Japanese terms for 1 through 10.
one = ichi
two = ni
three = san
four = yon/shi
five = go
six = roku
seven = nana/shichi
eight = hachi
nine = kyu /ku
ten = juu
Above ten, you would say something to the effect of "10 and 2" to stand for "12." Therefore:
11 = "ten (and) one" = "juu ichi"
12 = "ten (and) two" = "juu ni"
13 = "ten (and) three" = "juu san"
14 = "ten (and) four" = "juu shi" or "juu yon"
15 = "ten (and) five" = "juu go"
16 = "ten (and) six" = "juu roku"
17 = "ten (and) seven" = "juu nana" or "juu shichi"
18 = "ten (and) eight" = "juu hachi"
19 = "ten (and) nine" = "juu kyu"
For numbers from 20 through 99, you would say something like "3 tens and 6" to mean "36."
Therefore:
36 = "3 tens and 6" = "san juu roku"
43 = "4 tens and 3" = "yon juu san"
71 = "7 tens and 1" = "nana juu ichi"
99 = "9 tens and 9" = "kyu juu kyu"
In Japanese the months are simply numbered from one to twelve. For example, January is the first month of the year; therefore it is called "ichi-gatsu."
January=====ichi-gatsu
February====ni-gatsu
March======san-gatsu
April=======shi-gatsu
May=======go-gatsu
June=======roku-gatsu
July=======shichi-gatsu
August=====hachi-gatsu
September==ku-gatsu
October====juu-gatsu
November==juuichi-gatsu
December==juuni-gatsu
As you guess, "gatsu" means 'month.' Quite simple, isn't it!
Also, the students learned more hiragana, one of Japanese phonetic characters. This week, we covered hiragana さ/sa/, し/shi/, す/su/, せ/se/, そ, /so/, ざ/za/, じ/ji/, ず/zu/, ぜ/zee/, and ぞ/zo/.
The mark ゛, resembles a quotation mark placed at the top right corner of a hiragana character, (daku-ten in Japanese, colloquially ten-ten "dot dot"), is a diacritic sign used in the Japanese hiragana syllables to indicate that the consonant of a syllable should be pronounced voiced; thus by adding a dakuten marker ゛, an unvoiced consonant such as s or z is turned into a voiced consonant such as さsa → ざza, しshi → じ ji, す su → ず zu, せ se → ぜ ze, and そ so → ぞ zo.
Have a wonderful weekend.
