Ad Text in Japanese:
「紫外線によるダメージから、
ハリのある透明感の高い白 肌をまもります。」
「コエンリッチQ10から、日焼け止めが新登場。」
Teaser, give it a try. I’ll break it down soon!
- Harvey

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 […]

Click here for larger image.
Major Ad Text in Japanese:
「海外行き春？キャンペーン」
「誘ってお得、３人目半額！」
This advertisement is by H.I.S., a great discriminating travel agency in Japan. You can see the two not-so-Japanese looking old-school types with their suitcases all ready to go. I found this advertisement in Osaka… That will be important later.
Let’s get down to the text.
「海外行き春？ キャンペーン」
「海外」means […]

[Ad Text in Japanese]
「あなたのカゼはどこから？」
「私は鼻から」
「それなら黄色のベンザ」
「ボクはのどから」
「それなら銀のベンザ」
「私は熱っぽさから」
「それなら青のベンザ」
「ベンザブロックは、あなたのカゼのタイプで選べる黄・銀・青の３タイプ。」
Notice the girl in the lower left. This is Yukie Nakama, a Japanese actress from Okinawa. She’s not hard to look at… She is in a lot of commercials now in Japan, including car commercials, AU cell phone commercials, and is even doing commercials for JR Railway. She was also in […]

BREO, a product made by everyones favorite Osaka based company, GLICO! Is here to save the day…
GLICO is a gigantic Japanese snack and producer. They make famous snacks such as Pocky and Pretz to name a few. Their catch phrase “glico” (you can hear it if you check the GILICO official website) is also memorable.
Anyway, […]

The lack of insulation in Japanese homes and absence of central heating always has me freezing through Japanese winters… Maybe this stuff will keep me warm…

Ad Text in Japanese:
寒いあなたをほっとケン。
「寒いあなた」
In Japanese the noun modifiers come before the noun. 「寒い」means “cold” as in weather, and 「あなた」means you. So this simply means literally, “cold you”, or stated more […]

Let’s finish up this Nivea ad!

More Ad Text in Japanese:

前向きに生きる男に、Q10フェイスケアシリーズ。
「前向き」
This is a very useful phrase that comes up a lot even in spoken Japanese. 「前向き」just means someone who is has a positive, proactive outlook on life. If you break down the words literally, 「前」means forward, or front, and 「向き」means towards, in terms of direction.
You can […]