Kanji Signs 4 U

Here at the top in large letters we have: はり紙禁止 Reading; はりがみ・きん・し Meaning:　No Posters (harigamikinshi) はり（hari) This means stick or paste and whilst this is written in hiragana it does have a kanji:  張る　stick, paste, stretch　はる (haru) 紙　paper　 シ、かみ　(shi, kami) 手紙　てがみ　letter (tegami) 折り紙　おりがみ　origami 禁　prohibition, ban   きん  (kin) 禁じる　to prohibit きんじる　(kinjiru) 禁煙　no smoking きんえん　(kinen) 止　stop, halt シ、と（まる）、や（める）　(shi, tomaru, yameru) 停止　suspension, check てい・し　(teishi) 止まる　to stop (moving) とまる　(tomaru) The writing underneath says: 兵庫県警察本部 ひょう・ご・けい・さつ・ほん・ぶ　(hyogo keisatsu honbu) Hyogo Prefecture Police Head Office Kanjisigns4U Directory Page 2018  If you liked this post please tell your friends,  subscribe and share to facebook, pinterest, twitter etc...  It will help me to continue produc ing interesting free material.  Please feel free to use any of the photos on this site  only for non commercial use ...

Here we have a very common van you will see in Japan it belongs to ヤマト運輸　やまとうん・ゆ　(Yamato unyu) which is a large courier company in Japan.   I like their logo which is a black cat carrying a kitten.  We have three kanji here; 宅急便　 Reading; たっ・きゅう・びん Meaning; courier service, express home delivery (takyuubin) 宅　home, house, husband タク　(taku) 自宅　one`s home/house じたく　 (jitaku) 宅配　home delivery たくはい　 (takuhai) 急　hurry, emergency キュウ、いそ（ぐ）、いそ（ぎ）(kyuu, isogu, isogi) 救急車　ambulance きゅう・きゅう・しゃ　 (kyuukyuusha) 急ぐ　to hurry, to rush  いそぐ　(isogu) 便　convenience, facility ベン、ビン、たよ（り）(ben, bin, tayori) 郵便　mail service ゆう・びん　(yuubin) 便利　convenient べん・り　 (benri) Kanjisigns4U Directory Page 2018  If you liked this post please tell your friends,  subscribe and share to facebook, pinterest, twitter etc...  It will help me to continue produc ing interesting free material.  Please feel free to use any of the photos on this site...

Welcome to Beginners Manga 2 Meitantei Conan (Case Closed) For Beginners Manga 1  please click here;  Yotsubato! Here is Conan or Meitantei Conan, one of the most famous anime and manga in Japan.  Every Japanese person knows this comic and it is extremely popular with elementary age children. Apparently overseas  it is called Case Closed due to copyright issues. The story is about a Junior High School boy Shinichi who is a detective, one day he comes across a mafia like organization and they try to kill him by giving him a poison.  However the poison does not kill him but shrinks him so he appears to be an elementary age child. He then lives undercover posing as a child and solves lots of crimes. The stories are quite good and like  Yotsubato!  each story can largely be read independently.  The difficulty level is quite a lot harder than  Yotsubato!  but again it is all daily Japanese, plus a lot of crime vocabulary....

Okay, so here we have a person crossed out for no entry and three kanji underneath.  All three of these kanji are really useful and all are in heaps of other compounds. Reading; さ・ぎょう・ちゅう　(sagyouchuu) Meaning; work in progresss This is kind of like an under construction sign, in this case it was gardeners up ladders doing pruning. Lets look at the kanji; 作　make, production さく、さ、つく（る）(saku, sa, tsuku(ru)) 作る　make つくる　 (tsukuru) 製作　manufacture せい・さく　 (seisaku) 業　ぎょう　work, business (gyou) 産業　industry さん・ぎょう　 (sangyou) 企業　enterprise き・ぎょう　 (kigyou) 中　ちゅう　middle (chuu) 中　inside, in なか　 (naka) 中国　China ちゅう・ごく　  (Chuugoku) Kanjisigns4U Directory Page 2018  If you liked this post please tell your friends,  subscribe and share to facebook, pinterest, twitter etc...  It will help me to continue produc ing interesting free material.  Please feel free to use any of the photos on this site  only for non commercial use , as long as y...

Here is a modern sign that you never would have seen 20 years ago... Reading; ながら・けい・たい・き・けん・ご・えん・りょう・ください （nagara keitai kiken goenryou kudasai) Meaning; Danger Please do not (walk) whilst using a cell phone. So 携帯　means portable or mobile and to mean cell phone technically you have to say 携帯電話　けいたいでんわ　(keitaidenwa), but it is commonly used by itself to mean cell phone. Another use of 携帯 is; 携帯灰皿　けいたいはいざら　portable ashtray (keitaihaizara) 危険 (Warning)　is very common and consists of 危 dangerous 危ない　あぶない　dangerous (abunai) 危篤　きとく　critical condition (kitoku) and 険　precipitous, danger 保険　ほけん　insurance (hoken) Kanjisigns4U Directory Page 2018  If you liked this post please tell your friends,  subscribe and share to facebook, pinterest, twitter etc...  It will help me to continue produc ing interesting free material.  Please feel free to use any of the photos on this site  only for non commercial use , as long as you link back to thi...

Fish, fish, lots of fish... I found this cloth with fish kanji... So we have 32 characters here all with the same radical 魚 (fish.) Some of these characters even most Japanese won`t know as they are usually written in kana, such as octopus, but some you will see in restaurants and sushi shops... As a kanji 魚　is read さかな (sakana) （other readings include ギョ、うお　and ~ざかな) gyo, uo, zakana, and as a radical it is called うお　(uo) Then we have another part of the character on the other side so everything will be something fish. So from left to right and top to bottom: 鮗 winter fish このしろ (konoshiro)　konoshiro gizzard shad (type of sardine) 鯏　profit fish　 あさり   (asari) Manila Clam (also written 浅利） 鮹　resemblance fish たこ　(tako) octopus 鮃 flat fish ひらめ　(hirame) flounder 鱈 snow fish たら　(tara) cod 鰻 (no  stand alone kanji) sun, net again fish! うなぎ　(unagi) eel 鰈  (no  stand alone kanji) World tree fish かれい　(karei) righteye flounder 鮟鱇 (my PC and phone don`t...

You will often see little booths displaying this character in front of supermarkets or shopping malls. Reading; たからくじ　 Meaning; Lottery (takarakuji） The kanji 宝 means treasure and is made up of a roof うかんむり　(top part)　and ball/sphere 玉 Related vocab; 宝石　ほう・せき　gem (houseki) 宝塚　たから・ずか　Takarazuka (suburb between Osaka and Kobe) Kanjisigns4U Directory Page 2018  If you liked this post please tell your friends,  subscribe and share to facebook, pinterest, twitter etc...  It will help me to continue produc ing interesting free material.  Please feel free to use any of the photos on this site  only for non commercial use , as long as you link back to this site. Thank you

For years I have been sitting on Japanese toilets and sitting in Japanese baths looking at signs I could almost but not quite read (OK most of the time I didn`t have a clue!). So I made this site...  I am happy to present our first toilet sign!  I believe it`s from a urinal, it`s not a particularly common sign but the kanji and vocab are. Reading; す・いがら　かみ　ガムなどをすて・ないでください (Suigara, kami, gamu nado wo sutenaide kudasai) Meaning; Please do not throw away cigarette butts, paper, gum etc. Grammar note; 等　など　nado means; etc Related vocab; 吸血鬼　きゅう・けつ・き　vampire (kyuuketsuki) 折り紙　おり・がみ　Origami 捨てる　すてる　throw away (suteru) For toilet signs part 2 click here Kanjisigns4U Directory Page 2018  If you liked this post please tell your friends,  subscribe and share to facebook, pinterest, twitter etc...  It will help me to continue produc ing interesting free material.  Please feel free to use any of the photos on this site  only for non comm...

For all of those who are interested in other blogs about Japan I recommend you visit Japan blog list; www.japanbloglist.com/ They have a huge selection of blogs on all kinds of Japan related topics, so please have a look and leave a comment about any sites you found interesting If you liked this post please tell your friends, leave comments, subscribe and share to facebook, pinterest, twitter etc...  It will help me to continue produc ing interesting free material.  Please feel free to use any of the photos on this site  only for non commercial use , as long as you link back to this site. Thank you .

Again one of the most common signs you will ever see in Japan. 立入禁止 (also written 立ち入り禁止） Reading; たち・いり・きん・し　(tachiiri kinshi) Meaning; No Entry We have four characters; 立　Stand 入　Enter 禁　Prohibition, Ban 止　Stop Here is some common vocabulary using these characters; 立つ　たつ　Stand (tatsu) 入口　いり・ぐち　Entrance (Iriguchi) 禁煙　きん・えん　No Smoking (Kinen) 中止　ちゅう・し　Suspension, stoppage (Chushi) Kanjisigns4U Directory Page 2018  If you liked this post please tell your friends, leave comments, subscribe and share to facebook, pinterest, twitter etc...  It will help me to continue produc ing interesting free material.  Please feel free to use any of the photos on this site  only for non commercial use , as long as you link back to this site. Thank you

Manga is an excellent way to study Japanese and learn kanji and vocabulary, there are manga for almost any interest you may have, however many manga are very difficult in the beginning if they don`t have furigana (Hiragana reading above the kanji).  On this blog I hope to review some manga that I have read that are suitable for beginner to intermediate students.  Yotsubato! よつばと！ Yotsubato! is definitely my first recommendation for starting to read manga.  There isn`t a  lot of text on each page and most of it is hiragana but there are enough kanji in there to learn new characters and to stop it becoming confusing as to where one word ends and the next begins (I find hiragana only books or manga like Doraemon a nightmare to read).  Each book holds about 7-10 chapters and they usually read like separate stories so you won`t get bogged down if you don`t understand something. There are only 13 books in total, so it isn`t a huge series. ...

This picture is from a standard post box in Japan.  They look a little like the British ones so its possible their design was copied from the English during the Meiji period when Japan brought in many ideas and systems from overseas.  (But that`s just a guess so please correct me in the comments if I am wrong!). 郵便 Reading; ゆう・びん Meaning；mail service, postal service Below it is the symbol for post in Japan a T with a line over it.  According to Wikipedia the symbol comes from katakana テ　and is called  郵便記号 ゆう・びん・き・ごう You can read more here;  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_postal_mark Some useful vocabulary; 郵便局　ゆう・びん・きょく　post office 郵便物　ゆう・びん・ぶつ　mail 郵便屋さん　ゆう・びん・や　postman Kanjisigns4U Directory Page 2018  If you liked this post please tell your friends, leave comments, subscribe and share to facebook, pinterest, twitter etc...  It will help me to continue produc ing interesting free material.  Please feel free to ...

Another very common kanji you will see especially on the signs for convenience stores. Reading;　さけ Meaning; alcohol This picture was taken from a beer vending machine.  This character does not just mean Sake as in Japanese rice wine but alcohol in general and covers sake, beer, wine, vodka etc... The radical on the left is water (さんすい）and the radical on the right is a bottle (or a bird) (ひよみのとり). Some common words with 酒 日本酒　に・ほん・しゅ　sake 居酒屋　い・ざか・や　bar, tavern 酒屋　さか・や　liquor store Kanjisigns4U Directory Page 2018  If you liked this post please tell your friends, leave comments, subscribe and share to facebook, pinterest, twitter etc...  It will help me to continue produc ing interesting free material.  Please feel free to use any of the photos on this site  only for non commercial use , as long as you link back to this site. Thank you

Yesterday we had　駐車場　ちゅう・しゃ・じょう and 月極駐車場　つき・ぎめ・ちゅう・しゃ・じょう。　Here is another sign you will see in a parking lot. Reading: あきあり Meaning; Vacancy, available So if you are looking for parking there is a space available. The character is an elementary school first grade kanji and means sky or empty. It is actually the kanji for Karaoke although most Japanese do not know this as Karaoke is always written カラオケ　in katakana.  The original name for Karaoke comes from empty から and orchestra (abbreviated to オケ）. Some words with 空 空港　くう・こう　airport 青空　あお・ぞら 　blue sky　 お腹が空いている　おなかがすいている　I`m hungry Kanjisigns4U Directory Page 2018  If you liked this post please tell your friends, leave comments, subscribe and share to facebook, pinterest, twitter etc...  It will help me to continue produc ing interesting free material.  Please feel free to use any of the photos on this site  only for non commercial use , as long as you link back to this site. Thank yo...

This is one of the most common signs you will see in Japan. Reading: ちゅう・しゃ・じょう Meaning;　Parking lot We have 駐 (ちゅう）Stop over 車　（しゃ）Car and 場　（じょう）Place Now lets  make it longer... Reading; つき・ぎめ・ちゅう・しゃ・じょう Meaning;　Parking lot rented on a monthly basis. So now we have added 月（つき）Moon or in this case month, and 極（ぎめ）poles (North and south), extremely. Here are some other common words using these kanji... 月 月曜日　（げつ・よう・び）Monday 来月　（らい・げつ)  Next month 極 積極的　（せっ・きょく・てき）Assertive 南極　（なん・きょく）South Pole Kanjisigns4U Directory Page 2018  If you liked this post please tell your friends, leave comments, subscribe and share to facebook, pinterest, twitter etc...  It will help me to continue produc ing interesting free material.  Please feel free to use any of the photos on this site  only for non commercial use , as long as you link back to this site. Thank you