Chibi's ワン-Point English: "Japanese Holidays"

Hi everybody,

I hope that you had a good "Silver Week," which included both "Respect for the Elderly Day" (敬老の日) on the 21st and the "Autumnal Equinox" (秋分の日）on the 23rd.

Here is a list of several holidays that we celebrate in Japan. Do you know when they are and how to say them in English?

（１）節分、（２）元旦、（３）七夕、（４）ひな祭り
（５）天皇誕生日、（６）文化の日、（７）昭和の日
（８）アランの誕生日、（９）みどりの日、（１０）こどもの日

How many did you know? Here are the answers:
（１）February 3rd or 4th - The Bean Throwing Ceremony
（２）January 1st - New Year's Day
（３）July 7th - The Star Festival
（４）March 3rd - The Doll Festival
（５）December 23rd - The Emperor's Birthday
（６）November 3rd - Culture Day
（７）April 29th - Showa Day
（８）February 8th - Alan's Birthday (VERY IMPORTANT!)
（９）May 4th - Green(ery) Day
（１０）May 5th - Children's Day

What's your favorite holiday? I like "Respect for Dogs Day" (敬犬の日）best. It's on April 1st.

Later,

Chibi

Scrabble

The other week I introduced my intermediate class to a popular English board game called Scrabble. In the game you have to make words from a limited number of letter tiles. Each letter has a different score with unusual letters like "x" scoring the highest.

The rules are not that complicated but would be difficult to explain without looking at the board, so please follow the link below for an explanation of the game and its rules in Japanese:

http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/スクラブル

After reading that if you feel like giving it a go, click the link below for an online Scrabble game:

http://macsinfarlands.com/scrabble.htm

I think that Scrabble is a fun game both for native and non-native English speakers and is a great way to build your vocabulary (and test your brain!). My class certainly seemed to enjoy it and I highly recommend it to all English learners.

If you are interested in buying the real game, it is available from Amazon Japan with both English and Japanese instructions: