JAPAN

1. JAPAN Fourth Year Japanese KENDRA MURPHY

2. Table of Contents • A Few Quick Facts About JAPAN… • Writing JAPANESE… • Schools in JAPAN… • Festivals in JAPAN… • Let’s Learn Some JAPANESE… • End Slide

3. A Few Quick Facts About JAPAN… • Japan has the world's third-largest economy by nominal GDP • Currently, the Japanese emperor, Akihito, is just a figurehead. • The current capital of Japan is Tokyo. • Japan actually has 6,852 islands, but four main ones: • Honshu • Hokkaido • Kyushu • Shikoku .

4. Writing JAPANESE… • Japanese has three different writing systems! >.< • Hiragana • Katakana • Kanji • Each character has a specific stroke order- you can’t just write it how you want! • You need to know about 1,000 kanji just to read a newspaper • Calligraphy is a very important traditional Japanese art form, known as shodo.

5. Schools in JAPAN… • Students stay in the classroom. All day. • Students clean their own school at the end of every day. • Most Japanese students are very active in school clubs, including tennis, kendo, karate, tea ceremony… • Students wear uniforms- girls, sailor suits and boys, pants and jacket

6. Festivals in JAPAN… • Japan is known as the Land of Festivals; there are a ton! • Hinamatsuri- Girl’s Day- People display court dolls in their homes, eat special crackers and dishes. • White Day- In Japan the women give chocolate on Valentines Day. White Day is when the men are supposed to respond by giving the women chocolate! • Bon Festival- a Buddhist celebration honoring the dead.

7. Let’s Learn Some JAPANESE… • こんにちは • Konnichiwa • Hello • さようなら • Sayonara • Good-Bye • 日本に行こう • Nihon ne ikou • Let’s go to Japan

8. Come Visit JAPAN! ^^