Today's kanji : 兄

This kanji as a whole describes "a person who has huge head".

A Child who should have a "good brain" is...


Can you guess the meaning?

See the comments page for the answer!

Today's kanji : 嫌

The blue part describes "woman".
The red part describes
"the hand + two rices = feel dissatisfaction".
(If it was just one rice, it should be easier. Why do I have to carry two rices? ...)

My girlfriend complains all the time!


Can you guess the meaning?

See the comments page for the answer!

NOVA's telephone number

NOVA is the biggest English conversation school company in Japan.
(They have 500,000 students now!!)
http://www.nova.ne.jp/

I remember NOVA’s telephone number, because it’s very easy to remember.

0120-324929

Can you guess why the number is easy to remember?

The reason is that in Japanese we can use number as “sound”.
In this case,

3 is “mi” : we say “mittsu” for 3 when we count something
2 is “ni” : 2 is “ni” in Japanese
4 is “yo” : we say “yottsu” for 4 when we count something
9 is “ku” : September is “kugatsu”
2 is “tsu” : 2 is “two” in English, “two” sounds like “tsu”

0120 is a common number for toll-free dial.
You can read 324929 “mi ni yokutsuku”.

身によくつく(mi ni yokutsuku) means “you learn a lot”.

Most of companies are trying to find a telephone number which customers can remember easily, right?
Do you know any other telephone numbers which have meaning like NOVA?

There are some other companies’ numbers.
If you don’t understand the sound, let me know!

REVE21 (Company for wig)
0120-783640
783640 : 悩み無用 (nayami muyoo)
“You don’t have to worry.”
http://www.reve21.co.jp/campaign/


Staff service (service for finding employment)
0120-022022
022022 : オー人事 オー人事 (o- jinji o- jinji)
“Oh Human Resources! Oh Human Resources!”
http://www.022022.net/


OCN (internet service)
0120-506506
506506 : コールコール (ko-ru ko-ru)
“Call call!”
http://www.ocn.ne.jp/hikari/application.html?gnavi1