Monday, April 23, 2007

Kanji for your country

As you may know, we usually use katakana for foreign words like "coffee" (コーヒー), "boots" (ブーツ), "Canada" (カナダ), "Julia" (ジュリア)...

But we also have kanji for some countries.
For example, we use for describing France.
means "Buddha", but the meaning of the kanji is not relevant to the country's name at all.
The important point is the pronunciation.
We read "butsu" "futsu" "hotoke".
The sound "fu" of "futsu" is similar to "F" of "France".

Kanji for countries is often used for headlines of newspapers.
I'm posting some countries' kanji and the meaning of the kanji.
If you would like to know other kanji, let me know!

: Japan (sun)
: U.S.A (rice)
: U.K. (English)
: Russia (dew)
: Germany (alone)
: Italy (a sage from a legend)
: Canada (add)
: Australia (luxury)
: India (stamp)


大統領訪
(bei daitouryou hounichi)
President of the U.S.A is visiting Japan

日英協会
(nichi ei kyoukai)
The Japan-British Society

ワイン
(i wain)
Itarian wine

Note:These phrases are usually used as written language.

4 comments:

  1. hello, can you please add the kanji for Jamaica, Trinidad and the Bahamas; those are the countries in which i have lived,I'm Jamaican by the way

    ReplyDelete
  2. >Sade

    Hello!

    Jamaica : 牙買加
    Trinidad and Tobago : 特立尼達和多巴哥
    Bahamas : 巴哈馬

    I haven't been to these countries, but my friend went to Jamaica and she liked there. (^_^)
    By the way, where is Trinidad?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous9:16 PM

    Thank you for the kanji!

    Trinidad in the southern most Caribbean Island(above Venezuela), it's very nice and very rich in culture. Are you familiar with the singer Minmi? She was here in Trinidad for Carnival a few months ago.

    ReplyDelete
  4. ooohhhh.... hw bout mine, Malaysia????

    ReplyDelete