Winter’s Words 冬の言葉 （ふゆのことば）

Konnichiwa

It has been cold hasn’t it! Winter makes us less active, well at least for me. It takes courage to step outside and even walk.. However, may be a perfect time to study at home. Specially due to the pandemic most of us are working from homes or studying at homes. Why don’t you take this opportunity to take up leaning languages you are always keen on to.

I must say that learning Japanese is far more difficult than learning English. While English language has one character of alphabet, Japanese language has three characters of hiragana, katakana and Kanji and grammatically how to structure sentences is totally different from English. For that reasons, it is sometimes discouraging to study. However, learning simple words can be easy way to start.

Today I introduce some simple words which are related to Winter. Do you happen to know them? I state English words, Japanese words, it’s kanji and it’s hiragana.

Let’s try!!!

SNOW yuki 雪　ゆき

RAIN ame 雨　あめ

NORTH WIND kita kaze 北風

きたかぜ

FROST shimo　霜しも

GLOVE tebukuro 手袋　てぶくろ

SNOWBALL yuki daruma 雪だるま

ゆきだるま　

SLED sori ソリ

CHARCOAL FIRE sumibi 炭火　

すみび

JAPANESE IGLOO kamakura　

かまくら

FIREPLACE danro 暖炉　だんろ

HIBERNATION to-min 冬眠　

とうみん

DROPLETS shizuku 雫　しずく

ICICLE turara 氷柱　つらら

SLEET mizore 霙　みぞれ

Japanese Onomatopoeia can be used for Winter

ぎおんご

We express various sounds, which are surrounding us and hear, in words, that is onomatopoeia (giongo). Compare with English language, Japanese language has much more onomatopoeia. We quite often use them. Describing animated lives, vehicles, human beings, nature and our life style. I have outlined some of them below which may be used to express for Winter. Do you know them?

For example, sleeping calmly and quietly we says “suya suya” to nemuru. Nemuru means “to sleep”.

English	PRONOUNCENSION	JAPANESE ONOMATOPOEIA
sleep calmly	suya suya	すやすや眠る
powder snow flutters	hira hira	粉雪がひらひらと舞う。
sleet falls so hard and wet	bicho bicho	みぞれがびちょびちょ降る
crust snow	gari gari	がりがりな雪
light and fluffy snow	fuwa fuwa	ふわふわした雪
snow falls softly	shin shin	雪がしんしんと降る
snow falls actively	kon kon	雪がこんこんと降る
snow pilling up thick and deep	zun zun	雪がずんずん積もる
harden snowballs tightly	gyu gyu	ぎゅっぎゅと雪だるまを固める
burn vigorously	bou bou	火がボウボウ燃える
Pouring rain	za-za-	雨がザーザー
wind whizz	hyu hyu	風がヒューヒュー
shivering	buru buru	寒くてブルブルふるえる
Droplets drop	pota pota	雫がぽたぽた落ちる
become warm	poka poka	ポカポカ暖かくなる
hands are stiff	kachi kachi	手がカチカチになる
snap the icicle	poki	氷柱をポキッと折る
sliding smoothly on a sled	suru suru	そりでスルスル滑る

THANK YOU arigato ありがとう

Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoy and learn something new. Let’s keep on learning more Japanese words!!!