This is a sea lion in Yokohama who can write the kanji for 'tiger', 寅, pronounced とら, in honor of the Year of the Tiger, 2010. So come on people! If a marine animal can learn it, so can we!
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Three students of Japanese, one French, one Turkish, one Dutch, use this blog to record and publish helpful links, interesting info and general observations about the Japanese language. Hajimemashite!
Have you already seen this? : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qM5AipswFEk
ReplyDeleteIt shows the two different kanji for Tora; one for the animal, one for the zodiac.
Just watched it. This playing with kanji (as in, showing the word for SALE in the tiger kanji) is cute but also sadistic for us gaijin. It's a bit like the word 'kunoichi', spelled くノ一, which means 'female ninja': if you put the three characters on top of each other, you get the kanji for 'woman'.
ReplyDeleteI also found out that the movie about Pearl Harbor is called Tora! Tora! Tora! because that's what the Japanese shouted during the attack, referring to the tiger's capability of stealth attack.