Skip the notes if you don't need them.
I assume the reader knows how to read kana, plus the basics of Japanese sentences, －て form,and particles. For kanji, you may want rikaichan or rikaikun for automatic furigana.
Kanji notes: 牛 means cow. (I tend to think of the left top tweak as a messed-up horn.) Put it together with something that looks like it has long tusks (an elephant, though it's not the kanji for elephant), and you get 物, meaning "stuff" in a very general sense. You can find it in many compounds: 食べ物、飲み物、どう物 and どう物えん ("animal" and "animal park"; yes, I'm leaving part of that in kana, to keep the words simple).
第１章, meaning "Chapter 1," is a combination of 第, which is an ordinal marker, and 章, "chapter." 第 shows up in other compounds: 第１号 ("the first"); 第１話 (also "Chapter 1").
I assume the reader knows how to read kana, plus the basics of Japanese sentences, －て form,and particles. For kanji, you may want rikaichan or rikaikun for automatic furigana.
Kanji notes: 牛 means cow. (I tend to think of the left top tweak as a messed-up horn.) Put it together with something that looks like it has long tusks (an elephant, though it's not the kanji for elephant), and you get 物, meaning "stuff" in a very general sense. You can find it in many compounds: 食べ物、飲み物、どう物 and どう物えん ("animal" and "animal park"; yes, I'm leaving part of that in kana, to keep the words simple).
第１章, meaning "Chapter 1," is a combination of 第, which is an ordinal marker, and 章, "chapter." 第 shows up in other compounds: 第１号 ("the first"); 第１話 (also "Chapter 1").
| 牛肉 | beef | とら | tiger |
| サンドイッチ | sandwich | フー！ | Whew! |
| 父 | father, daddy | 持つ | have, hold |
| 食べ物 | food | やった！ | [I] did it! |
| どう物えん | zoo, animal park | 私 | I, me |
| どうぞ | Please have... | 思う | think |
父はどう物えんにいます。牛肉のサンドイッチを持っています。
父： すみません。どこにいますか？
とら：どう物えんにいます。私はとらです。
父： 私は男です。
とら：いいえ。食べ物です。
父： いいえ！ 牛肉をどうぞ。
とら：いいですね。
父（おもう）： フー！
とら（おもう）：やった！*
*I later learned this word: うまくいった, meaning something like "That did the trick!" Too complicated for such a basic story, but... cool.
It's not basic at all. We Japanese think it's surrealism. we would say "それシュールすぎでしょ～。全然基本じゃないと思うわ～".
ReplyDelete"どう物えん" is not common. We can easily understand "動物園" or "どうぶつえん" but "どう物えん" is a bit difficult because it's not common. We don't say "牛肉のサンド". We usually say "牛肉のサンドイッチ".
A Japanese father doesn't say "私は父です" because he is not a tiger's father. "私は父です" basically means "I am your father".
Thanks! Especially for catching 私は父です。
ReplyDeleteどう物えん is a mix of kana and kanji because I hadn't gotten to the kanji 動 and 園 yet. That gets fixed in the next few posts.
Thanks again!