This advertisement won’t win any design awards, but really the majority of the train ads in Japan are of this quality. So I guess it is representative of what you’ll see if you come to Japan.

Just because it’s lame and pink doesn’t mean we can’t learn Japanese from it though!

Ad Text in Japanese:

「この春、つかしんは１周年」

Very bottom:

「ありがとう１周年フェア開催中！！」

Let’s have at it.

「この春、つかしんは１周年」

「この春」isn’t so tough, it means “this spring”. 「つかしん」is the name of this company. 「１周年」means “one year anniversary”. The 「周」character literally means “perimeter”, “circumference”, or “lap”. For example, if you ride your bicycle around a small island in Okinawa, you can say, 「自転車で一周した！」meaning “I rode all the way around it on my bicycle!” So, the logic behind the phrase 「１周年」meaning “one year anniversary”, is that we have done the entire “loop” of one year.

「ありがとう１周年フェア開催中！！」

「ありがとう一周年フェア」the only question remaining about this is the katakana word 「フェア」. It means, “fair”, as in an event like fair. 「開催中！」means, skillfully translated, “now open”. The verb 「開催する」means to “organize” or “hold” a meeting or convention or fancy party… something of that sort. The verb is very formal, but you’ll see it a lot in print. So it is worth remembering.

As a geek bonus, the verb form of the second kanji in「開催する」is 「催す」「もよおす」which means basically the same thing, to hold an event. You’ll probably hear this one on the news.

So, this spring Tsukashin has it’s one year anniversary! The “thank you one year anniversary fair” is now being held. I got this shot in Osaka, so anyone in the area, go check it out… Unless you’ve got better things to do… Which you probably do…

Bonus, on the bottom in fine print, the ad says…

「 感謝の気持ちを笑顔に込めて、みんなの楽しいをこれからも。」

Anyone have any questions about that phrase? If so I’ll do a follow-up post.

- Harvey