100 Japanese Things

In Which 100 Japanese Things Shall Be Revealed, So That You May Learn Much Japanese From Them

The Japanese Sign Project Begins, PLUS: Thing #11: The Rusty Crosswalk Buttons July 8, 2008

Filed under: Uncategorized — Saleem @ 8:26 am
Tags: , , , ,

Oh, we’ll still be bringing you THINGS. But we’re also going to be bringing you signs. Starting immediately.

Canes and Rust Mean Age and Flavor

If you’re in Japan, you can play along. See a Japanese sign that you don’t understand? Take a pic and e-mail (or keitai-mail) it over to e-mail address to mail signs to (type it just like that and you’ll save me the trouble of filtering it. Pop it on in your keitai now, you never know when you’ll need it.)

Better yet, just pop your sign up on flickr and mail me a link to it.

THEN: Me and/or the Japanese dudes in my office will post it here and write a quick explanation like so:

横断歩行者はボタンをおしてください。

( 横断:おうだん

歩行者:ほこうしゃ )

( Crosswalkers: Please push the button. )
からだの不自由な方の押ボタンです。

( 不自由な 方: ふじゆうな かた)

( 押ボタン: おし ボタン )

(Handicapped people’s button [this is])

NOTE: The translations will be quick and rough, just enough to get you able to understand the sign, and, more importantly, get you the kanji/ reading so you can look it up yourself if so inclined.

AND: As always, I make no claims to be some kind of kanji-supergod or anything like that. I’m far, far, far, from it.

BUT I work in an office full of Japanese folks, and they are all kanji-supergods and would find it fun to check and make sure that their handy foreign pal is reading the signs right/answer questions about obscure signs folks find.

—–

WHY ARE WE DOING THIS? I’m in Japan, and I like putting things on the internet that aren’t already on the internet.

PLUS: It’ll help me with kanji/actual Japanese signage.

PLUS: It might help you with kanji/actual Japanese signage.

PLUS: If you don’t live in Japan, this is some real stuff that you can study before you get here.

PLUS: If you’re an SRSer (or use any computer based flash card program), you can just drop the images into your flash card program. More fun than typing sentences, right?

PLUS: It gives me an excuse to pay more attention to all the signsI usually just ignore while walking around my town.

Send me any suggestions that you have. And, of course, signs.

BONUS POINTS FOR: Funny/ weird ones.

…and last of all, a SHOUT OUT: To Learn Japanese Through Advertisements. They focus on print ads, and do a great job of transcribing/explaining. Harvey seems to have the project on hiatus, but lots of good stuff there.

I’m afraid we won’t be explaining all the grammar like they do (props to them for doing it, though). Our strategy is more throw some Japanese at you and run away as fast as we can.

 

3 Responses to “The Japanese Sign Project Begins, PLUS: Thing #11: The Rusty Crosswalk Buttons”

  1. I am happy that I stumbled on your site. Adding you to my feed reader right now.

  2. Promotion needs to concentrate on the unique selling point / differentiator of the product you are selling, so this would be promotion through media (the choice of which depends on place ie internet, leaflets, direct sales force, tv etc etc) with a strong emphasis on the reliability, durability and quality of the desk drawer slide heavily focussing on the life of the product compared to cheaper ones; a lifespan comparison could show the cheaper one to be a false economy both in cost and effort of replacement, so this could communicate it quite well.Hope this helps :-) Thank you for this article! I’ve just found a truly full news archive about panda marketing Try it!

  3. Two guys are sitting on a bar stool. One starts to insult the other one. He screams, I slept with your mother! The bar gets quiet as everyone listens to see what the other weasel will do. The first again yells, I SLEPT WITH YOUR MOTHER! The other says, Go home dad youre drunk.


Leave a Reply