Japan with kids

This year for our family holiday we took our girls to Japan.

Euan and I both lived in Japan while teaching English several years ago. Our girls have been studying the Japanese language at school since they were 5 and have both wanted to visit Japan for some time. We thought it would be good to take them there to show them the country and be able to share our knowledge and experiences of the country with them.

The Language and Trains

Since both girls study Japanese language, the holiday provided a great opportunity for them to try out their skills and continue learning.

The first written script learnt in Japanese is Hiragana. This is a phonetic script, so the letters all have a fixed pronunciation. Both girls know this script and had plenty of practice reading it on signs, in particular at the train stations.

Each station has a sign with the station name in Kanji at the top, then Hiragana underneath and finally under that in Romanji - the English script that we can read.  At each station, the girls would practise reading the Hiragana and checking it against the English written version below.

Reading a different alphabet and getting instant confirmation whether you've got it right is like cracking a code - so satisfying! Gradually they both started to recognise some of the more common Kanji too, through repetition of seeing them so often.

The trains were also a great source of Japanese language listening practise.  There are endless announcements on the trains, telling you what to be careful of, where the trains are heading, what the next station is called and which side the doors will open on.

There's a lot of Japanese speaking going on, so it was a challenge for the girls to pick out the station names and 'migi' and 'hidari' (right and left) from what they were hearing so they could tell us which side of the train the doors were opening on.

As well as being a great source of language practice, we found all the trains and subways in Japan to be very easy to navigate, always ran on time and were totally safe. We would have been happy to let our girls travel the trains and subways even in the heart of Tokyo without us and felt sure they would be safe.  There were always Japanese people willing to help us out buying tickets and finding our platforms and trains.

The Food

Food was an adventure in Japan. It is so different to the food we're used to eating here in Australia and our girls were great - happy to try almost everything.  There was plenty to try - and having lived there for a couple of years, we knew several dishes we wanted to share with the girls.

Sukiyaki

Sushi

Shabu Shabu

Ramen

And Okonomiyaki.

Plenty of different tastes and the spectacle of the meals being cooked before you, right at your table at times and sometimes even by yourself was an amazing experience!

Accomodation

We stayed in a variety of accommodation - some hotels, guesthouses, a beautiful youth hostel where we had a small dorm room to ourselves and an indoor and outdoor onsen to enjoy in the evening;

and a traditional Japanese Ryokan where we slept on Futons on a Tatami Mat floor.

Everywhere we stayed, people were friendly, welcoming and so happy when we all tried speaking Japanese, encouraging and helping us in our endeavours!

Sights and Culture

We were travelling in Japan at peak cherry blossom viewing time (end March / beginning April),  so everywhere we went had a tinge of pink!

The Big Buddah in Kamakura

Japanese people meet friends and eat and drink under the cherry blossom trees. It always seemed to be blue coloured tarps that were spread under the trees to sit on!

 Cherry Blossoms and Temples on Miyajima

The famous, and much photographed Miyajima Tori

We saw endless impressive and beautiful temples,

(Golden Temple, Kyoto)

Some in the most surprising of places!

and just had to visit the money washing temple, as it is said money washed in the shrine's water will be lucky money!

 We hiked up lots of stairs,

Saw beautiful views,

and castles.

We saw a Geisha girl in Kyoto,

And the Peace Dome in Hiroshima, where we also visited the Peace Memorial Museum. A sobering experience and a real eye opener for the girls, in particular the personal stories of school kids during time of the Hiroshima bombing.

Going to Japan was an amazing experience for us as a family. For Euan and I to revisit somewhere we used to live and see things that had and hadn't changed, but mostly to see Japan through our girls' eyes.  Their wonder at all things Japanese, the differences between the Japanese and Australian culture but most of all their easy acceptance of everything.

They learned and experienced so much in our two short weeks in Japan. It has given them a greater understanding of a country and culture whose language they will continue to study in the coming years.

Have you ever visited Japan?

How to practice Japanese numbers in a fun way

Our girls learn Japanese at school. They started in prep (aged 4) and have had 2 lessons each week throughout junior school. 

Both girls enjoy learning a new language.

Our eldest moved up to high school this year and for the first half of the year she doesn't have any Japanese lessons - instead she is studying French. Although she enjoys the challenge of learning a third language, she doesn't want to forget the Japanese she has learnt so far.

In the recent school holidays we found some time to practice Japanese together. One game we played to do this was Bingo!

It was a nice simple game to play and a great way to practice both listening to and speaking the numbers in Japanese. 

We played mostly with 3 of us, sometimes 4, and all helped each other with the numbers.  It was definitely a great way to practice the numbers - it was more about playing a fun game than 'studying'.  Perhaps we might use it for French too in the future!

Have you ever played bingo in another language?

Learning Japanese words

A little while ago, I wrote about helping our elder daughter with learning her Japanese writing characters - Hiragana.  She's been going really well with it and practising a little every day. 

We've also downloaded a great little app onto my phone and her tablet called Learn Japanese Hiragana. She's been using this quite a lot to practice her hiragana recognition and in doing so has been learning Japanese words. Although the app says it's for 2 to 5 year olds - I think that must be for Japanese kids learning their own language. It's fun and nice and easy to use. The same company also has another app with the same format for learning Katakana (another form of Japanese writing used for foreign words). Our daughter will download that next when she's got the hang of the Hiragana.

For now, I've just given her some resources to help her learn all the words she's finding through her hiragana practice.  This is how I used to learn French, German and Spanish words when I was at school and university!

Basically, it's using small cards. On each card you write the

Japanese word on one side, and the English translation on the other side.  I used to keep my word cards in a big empty chocolate tin (we had a few left over from Christmas presents).

So, earlier this year, when I received a large tin of chocolates for my birthday, I saved the tin with this in mind!

Today I got out a box of card off-cuts and the tin for her, and she's been writing out the words that she has been learning onto them - English on one side, and the Japanese word - in hiragana on the other!

Now she can use her word cards to practice her Japanese vocabulary and hiragana by testing herself just reading the words and speaking them, but also writing them.

Have you ever learned a foreign language? How did you learn and practice the words? Do you have any tips and ideas to share?

Learning Hiragana (Basic Japanese writing)

One year, I decided to help my eldest daughter achieve her goal of learning all her Japanese Hiragana symbols.  Both our girls study Japanese at school, and I asked our younger daughter if she would like to learn too - even though she won't study them at school until next year.  She said she would - so I looked into how I could help both girls with this.

I found a few resources online and downloaded some hiragana practice writing sheets for the girls to use.

Each day for the past couple of weeks we've been spending just a

few minutes looking at some symbols - mnemonics to help remember the shape, how to write them, and practice recognising them.  As it's only a few minutes at a time, and they can do it together, they are both enjoying this so far.

I also decided to make some cards to help them. Some shown in the photos above - with the Japanese symbol on one side, and the equivalent 'English' sound on the other side.  These cards they can pick up any time to practice by themselves or with each other.

I'm also making up a memory game as I did for all their times tables. This proved very successful in helping them learn their tables and they love playing the game - which helps immensely! 

(the templates for the times tables memory games come with my free ebook about teaching your kids times tables - free to all Be Our Best Subscribers - click here, or see the link in the sidebar!)

Now we just have to stick to this learning plan - just a few minutes each day and the girls should soon pick up the symbols, then we have to find fun ways to continue practising them regularly so that they remember them!

Do your kids learn languages at school? Do you help them?  Are their any good resources you have found to do this?