Hello everyone,

After three straight weeks of rain it looks like we might have a beautiful sunny day to start our Silver Week. Yay! Time has gone by very quickly and you have been busy studying. Mid-term tests will be here before you know it!

In one of my recent classes I heard a student spelling her name for her online teacher. The English teacher was having trouble catching one particular letter. This is common in English between two sounds that are very similar. The letter “M” and “N” sound almost the same!

After the lesson I talked to the student abou the problem. In English we often use the pattern “~ as in ______”. If you want to say “M” you can say “M as in mouse”. If you want to say “R”, you can say “R as in rabbit”. This makes it clear what letter you are saying.

I think this is common in Japanese as well. Many different kanji have the same sound. So, for example, one of our teachers might saw “kami, as in paper” + oka. That helps people catch the correct character, especially when it is less common.

Do you know any other tricks like this for Japanese? If so, please tell me! I will be back with part 2 of this idea after Silver Week. Enjoy your holiday!