Japanese
English
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MP3 Midi MP3 Midi 
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- - this song has sheet music
- Midi - this song has a Midi tune
- MP3 - this song has an MP3 recording
- - this song has a Video recording
Jeff Gilpin sent this lullaby with the following note, "Here is a song I wrote after visiting my wife’s sister in Ayase which is outside of Tokyo, Japan. I think it is very kid friendly and I hope you like it add it to your list of children songs. It is called Ayase Lullaby. Here... Read more »
Debbie wrote from Japan about cherry blossoms, which are called sakura in Japanese. Spring is a favorite time to view the sakura and have picnics. Here’s what Debbie wrote: Everything comes in sakura colors right now. Doughnuts. Noodles. Even the exercise ladies in my morning exercise show were wearing sakura-colored t-shirts. Never mind that the cherry... Read more »
Every year, in December in Japan, a word is chosen that represents that year. There’s a Kanji Character that represents that word. Kanji are the characters used to represent the Japanese language. They originally come from China. The kanji character of the year is unveiled for the 1st time at Kiyomizu Temple each year. Ayako wrote... Read more »- Debbie was kind enough to share her experience of tipping and gift-giving in Japan... There are two gift-giving seasons in Japan: summer and winter. Gifts are often seasonal agricultural produce, or commercial products that are useful in daily living, like boxes of soaps or tea or seaweed. But the gifts usually go to people like your... Read more »
Today’s Akira Yoshizawa’s birthday. He lived from March 14, 1911 - March 14, 2005. He was a master at origami. Check out the photo of him holding an origami peacock he made in the photo above. Here’s how Google is celebrating his life… Photo: Wikipedia Read more »
Open Culture has a page of free language learning links covering 40 languages. Here are some of the languages you can find links for… Arabic, English, Chinese, French, Spanish, Bulgarian, Catalan, Danish, Dutch, Esperanto, Finnish, Gaelic, German, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latin, Lithuanian, Luxembourgish, Maori, Norwegian, Portuguese, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Swahili,... Read more »
We take a lot of hikes and recently we’ve been coming upon arrangements of stones stacked on top of each other like those in the photo. I couldn’t help but wonder if there’s a significance to these sculptures? My cousin, James Yannucci, who has travelled all over Asia and lives in China saw my photo and... Read more »
Yuzu is a citrus fruit they enjoy in Japan especially near the Winter Solstice and the New Year. I’ve never seen the actual fruit here to try it. But today I found a Yuzu drink you can buy at the American chain store Trader Joe’s. You simply empty a packet into a cup, add hot... Read more »
Ayako wrote from Japan about special New Year’s traditions and the food they eat… "I visited my mothers home yesterday and ate osechi ryouri which is a new years special meal and went to a shrine too." "This is my yuzu dish I made this new year… Yuzu is a spcial citrus fruit... Read more »
Ayako Egawa wrote from Japan about Kamaboko, a sort of gelled fish cake that’s eaten there. The one pictured below was made for the New Year. The character on these Kamaboko is called Kizuna (meaning bond) which is the symbol for 2011. (A character is chosen annually in Japan that best symbolizes the year that... Read more »
Romaji Transliteration Tool
(In English)
A free Japanese to Romaji transliteration tool. You can translate Japanese text (Kanji, Hiragana, Katakana) into Romaji or Hiragana.
Cherry Blossoms in Twilight
(In English)
Site about a book about the memoirs of a young girl growing up in Japan during the Depression and World War II.
Japan National Tourist Organization
(In English)
Gateway to Japan Information
(In English)
Kids Web Japan
(In English)
Ayako's Ikebana Page
(In English)
Read a little history about Ikebana, the art of Japanese flower arranging, and see some arrangements done by Ayako Egawa.
Japanese Songs
(In English and Japanese)
On this site you'll find the Japanese lyrics to many Japanese children's songs and folk songs. You'll find transliterations of the songs, recordings, midis and sheet music. It's a great find for anyone interested in Japanese music!
Knock Knock English's Super Simple Songs
(In English)
A small school in Tokyo, Japan that specializes in children's ESL. They create cd's of simple English songs for young children and for children learning English as a second language. You can visit their site with your children or students to watch their fun online videos and for activities that go along with the songs.
Knock Knock English
(In Japanese)
A small school in Tokyo, Japan that specializes in teaching children's English as a second language.
JapanesePod101.com
(In English and Japanese)
Learn Japanese with Daily Podcasts – Parts of it are free and parts of it are subscription based.
