I am seeing a lot of advertisements for Nikkei Newspaper around town recently…

Ad Text in Japanese:

「日経で育つ」

This doesn’t have much large text to tackle.

「日経」is the name of the newspaper. 日経新聞. The full name is 「日本経済新聞」 「経済」means “economics”. This newspaper is said to have an unbiased viewpoint when compared to Asahi or Yomiuri, the other major papers in Japan.

The verb 「育つ」means to “grow” or “raise”, in terms of a parent raising their children.

There is an expression in Japanese which goes, 「親は無くとも子は育つ」. It means even without parents, a child will grow up. This is a good way to remember the difference between the verbs 「育つ」and「育てる」. The verb 「育つ」is intransitive, so will occur without effort by a certain subject. There is a list of a few transitive and intransitive verb pairs online here.

The 「で」here means “with”, so the ad means “grow (up) with Nikkei Newspaper”.

I guess the lady in the image is getting ready to become a high-powered salary-lady.

がんばれ！

- Harvey

Remember you can use the Popjsyo to read the Japanese characters  on this site. Give it a try!

I love these unagi-don dishes.

Ad Text in Japanese: 

「美味しいうなぎつかまえた。」

This ad isn’t too difficult, just a vocabulary issue, and one particle trick.

「美味しい」is the Kanji for the word we all know, 「おいしい」, delicious!

「うなぎ」is Japanese eel. Now you can order it at sushi shops! Seriously though, I love unagi-don, the dish you see pictured in the poster. It can be very expensive though… So I haven’t had it for a long long time…

「つかまえた」This is the past form of the verb 「つかまえる」which means “to catch”. It can also be written in Kanji as 「捕まえる」. A typical time to use this verb would be when you’re chasing a cockroach around your house and you finally grab it, you can yell 「つかまえたぞ！」 Or you can use it to say the cops caught the bad guys. 「警察が犯人を捕まえた。」

The particle 「を」is missing in this sentence, it should be between the 「うなぎ」and 「つかまえた」.  Not sure why they left it out. Just being casual, or to save space it seems.

That’s it!

- Harvey

Ad Text in Japanese:

「あなたと、コンビに、FamilyMart」

This advertisement text looks deceptively simple, but in reality it has a fun twist just waiting for language geeks like us to discover!

「あなたと」there is nothing deceptive about this. 「あなた」means “you”, and 「と」is the particle which means “with” in this case. So, “with you”.

「コンビに」These four Kana are packed with meaning!

FamilyMart is a famous convenience store in Japan. They’re on about every corner of the major cities, and you can buy anything from business black socks, to steamed meat dumplings in case you get the munchies. In Japanese, the term for “convenience store” is 「コンビニエンスストア」, which is the English word spelled out in Katakana. As we have seen before, Japanese like to shorten things, so these days 「コンビニエンスストア」 has been shortened to 「コンビ二」.

But wait, the 「二」in 「コンビニ」is written in Hiragana in this ad… What’s going on?

The word 「コンビ」in Japanese, is the Katakana way to say “combi”, as in, “combination”. It is often used to refer to two people who complement each other, good friends, or especially in Japanese stand-up comedy known as “manzai” 漫才.

The final 「に」here is a particle, and it is using that “dropped verb” technique… The verb that is dropped is likely 「する」.

So, “becoming a combi with you”. Yet, it is a pay on the word for “convenience store”. So, FamilyMart can be your partner…

Okay. This joke gets less funny the more it is explained. So I’ll leave it at that.

- Harvey

Green Tea in pet bottles. Only in Asia huh? This tea is made by Sapporo, however, Coca-cola also has a brand of green tea, and other teas for sale in Japan.

This is likely one of the “green-est” of the bottled green teas, if you ask me.

Ad Text in Japanese:

「極めれば、玉露」

「まろやかな旨味 、さわやかな香り」

Let’s break it down!

「極めれば、玉露」

This one is pretty tough. The verb 「極める」means to “master” or “take to the extreme”. To understand the nuance behind this, let’s look at some other verbs that use the same Kanji.

「極端」means, “extreme”, such as 「そんな発言、極端過ぎない？」meaning, “Isn’t that statement just a bit too extreme?” Individually the Kanji mean “extreme”, and “edge”.

「極低温」means, “extremely low temperatures”. The Kanji mean “extreme”, “low”, “temperature” (that’s easy).

「極楽」means, “paradise”. The Kanji mean, “extreme” and “fun”. Check the pronunciation, it’s different than the others.

「極東」means, “Far East”, as in the part of Asia that includes Japan.

Okay, you get the point of 「極」… and 「極める」means “to master”, and 「極めれば」is the 「ば」form of that verb, which makes it into the “if” form.

So, “if you master, 玉露”…

What’s 「玉露」… It’s just a high quality green tea. As far as I know, 玉露 is not only a brand, but it is a general type of high quality tea.

This sentence has the nuance of, “If you want to master (as in, really get the best of it, the best tea…), gyokuro.” As in, chose gyokuro.

「まろやかな旨味 、さわやかな香り」

「まろやかな旨味」

「まろやか」means mellow. I’ll keep that short. 「旨味」is pronounced 「うまみ」and explained simply is the noun form of “delicious”. You know how when you eat something good, you can yell, 「うまい！」, this is where it comes from.

So, direct translation, “a mellow, deliciousness”. More natural translation, “a mild flavor”.

「さわやかな香り」is more straightforward, 「さわやか」means “fresh” or “refreshing” and 「香り」means “smell” or “aroma”.

So, there you have all the pieces, I think you can understand what this ad is saying now!

Tough stuff!

- Harvey

Hey everyone,

I just stretched the width of the blog, so post from now on will have larger ad images! This should allow for easier Kanji reading…

楽しみにしておいてよ！

- Harvey

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 “overseas” or sometimes could be translated as “abroad”. Usually when Japanese say it, they mean “any country other than Japan”.

「行き」means “to go”. That’s easy enough. The next part is fun.

「春」means “spring”, as we just saw in the previous post, did you remember?

You may be wondering though, why is 「春」placed where it is? This is a joke, or pun, on Kansai dialect, or more precisely, Kyoto dialect.

Kyoto-ben 「はる」crash course!

As you can see from the link, in Kyoto-ben, you can put 「はる」after a verb to make it polite. For example in this case, they are making a pun with 「海外に行きはる？」which means “You’re going overseas?” in polite Kyoto dialect… And replacing the 「はる」with 「春」which means spring.

Get it? Pretty tricky.

「キャンペーン」just means “campaign”, or “special promotion”.

「誘ってお得、３人目半額！」

The verb 「誘う」means to “invite”. 「お得」literally means “value”, but is used often in advertisements, and conversation about shopping to mean “a bargin!” or, “to save money”.

For example, 「今日マックのチーズバーガーは50円だから、今 買うとかなりお得だよ！」would mean, “Today McD’s cheeseburgers are 50 yen, so if you buy them today it’s a real bargin!”

So that 「誘ってお得」means, “invite and save”.

「三人目半額！」

「三人目」means “the third person”.「半額」means “half price!” The Kanji individually literally mean that, so this is a good word to add to your long term memory.

So this last section means, “Invite (people) and save! The third person gets half price!

That’s a wrap.

- Harvey

You though you could escape the onslaught of repeated Yukie Nakama advertisements didn’t you?

Well, in Japan, one thing you get used to is repetition. And the Japanese Ads Japanese language learning curriculum includes… Let’s call it… Cultural Assimilation… as an important feature.

You can see a TV ad for AU featuring Yukie Nakama on YouTube at the links below.

Yukie Nakama - AU Customer Satisfaction

Yukie Nakama - AU Music, Flowers…

As a bonus, I have inadvertently found a Japanese website with links to an insane number of Yukie Nakama TV commercials and TV spots.

マニアック。

Oh btw, the other actress in the poster is 篠原涼子 Ryoko Shinohara.

Okay, language.

Ad Text in Japanese:

「auデビューしませんか」

「auデビューしました」

「auデビューの春」

「番号そのまま、みなでau!」

Here we go.

「auデビューしませんか」 This isn’t too tough. 「デビュー」is Katakana for the English word “debut”. The grammar at the end, 「しませんか」means “won’t you?” or “why don’t you?”

For example you can say, 「お茶しませんか？」which would mean, “why don’t we have some tea?”

So, this means “why don’t you have an au debut?” In Japanese, the Katakana of 「デビュー」has a little broader meaning, and can also be used to “start something” if not a little dramatically. I guess in English we can do the same… For example, “Today is my tennis debut!” Even though you’re just going to the park to play tennis for the first time with some friends.

「auデビューしました」 this is the same as above, only the grammar is in the past tense. “au debuted!”

「auデビューの春」 once you know that 「春」is spring, this one isn’t too tough. This is the spring in which au debuts.

「番号そのまま、みなでau!」

Finally some interesting stuff! 「番号」is “number”, in this case, “phone number”. 「そのまま」is an interesting phrase. It basically means to keep the same state, or to remain just as it is. You can use it like, 「髪の毛をそのままにしておいた方がいいんじゃない？」which would mean, it would probably be better if you left your hair just the way it is now…

Let me know if you want more examples of 「そのまま」!

「みなでau!」 is simply, let’s do (join) au all together!

So basically, you can keep your phone number the same, and join AU with all your friends!

Isn’t that great?

- Harvey