Nationality & HIRAGANA "TA", "CHI", "TSU", "TE", "TO"

This week, your child learned how to say his/her nationality and ask someone's nationality.


To say your nationality, put JIN, which means person, after the name of your country.



For example, "I am an American citizen." would be "WATASHI WA A ME RI KA JIN DESU.", 

and “I am a Japanese citizen.” would be “WATASHI WA NIHON ( = Japan) JIN DESU.”

However, please do not confuse NIHON JIN and NIKKEI JIN. In Japanese NIHON JIN means a person who is a Japanese citizen. A person who is ethnically Japanese, but a citizen of a country other than Japan (i.e., America, Brazil, etc.) is NIKKEI JIN. Therefore, Japanese Americans are called NIKKEI JIN.

By the way, America ("A ME RI KA" in Japanese) and Canada ("KA NA DA" in Japanese) fit the Japanese syllabary very neatly but some countries have to be changed quite a bit. 

Can you guess what these countries are?

    

1. CHUU GO KU
2. FU RA N SU
3. OO SU TO RA RI A
4. KA N KO KU
5. SU PE I N
6. DO I TSU
7. GI RI SHA
8. I GI RI SU
9. RO SHI A
 
Answers:
 
1. China 
2. France
 3. Australia
 4. Korea
 5. Spain 
6. Germany 
7. Greece
 8. England  9. Russia


Also, we covered more hiragana:

た        /TA/

ち       /CHI/

つ       /TSU/             

て       /TE/

と       /TO/

*つis pronounced like “-ts” at the end of the word “cats.”　It is then lengthened with the /U/ sound.

Last, but not least, several students and their parents have shown interest in the Japan trip during 2014 Spring Break. The seats are limited, but we still have some openings waiting for your child. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions or comments.