I’ve decided to call these music vocabulary days Teaching Tunes Tuesday because what’s more important than the alliteration, people? WHAAATTT?!
*ahem*
I’m trying to learn both Spanish and Japanese, so this week we go nihongo-style (Japanese) with a video those who follow Gloria’s blog may be familiar with: Pon Pon Pon by Kyary Pyamu Pyamu. As always, lyrics video first with ten vocab words below it.
THE VOCABULARY
machi (まち) – town
tsukamu (つかむ) – to seize; catch; grasp
(adding the –mitai changes the meaning to a ‘try and see’ so to see if you can seize, etc.)
suteru (すてる) – to throw away; cast aside; abandon; break up with (someone)
shimau (しまう) – to finish; to put and end to
(the form shimaeba in the song is conditional, an if you finish)
tsumaranai (つまらない) – boring
noseru (のせる) – to sing along with (in this case, that’s the trouble with Japanese, contextual meaning, in song as nosete)
kousaten (こうさてん) – crossing; intersection
mannaka (まんなか) – middle; center
chyansu (チャンス) – chance; opportunity (English word turned Japanese)
naku (なく) – to cry; to weep
What does Pon Pon Pon mean? Heard of the word onomatopoeia? One thing about Japanese is they have a lot of words for sounds. Kind of like we say a duck sounds like quack, quack. Well, they’ve got a whole slew more of words for sounds. Pon could be translated as “pop” (the sound). Basically she’s talking about dancing to the sound of pon pon pon.
Something else you should know about the Japanese is they are obsessed with cuteness. So even though this video is crazy to us, well, it may be a little crazy to the older Japanese peeps, but for the youth it’s very hip and cute.
Okay, now that we’re 10 words more fluent in nihongo let’s watch the official music video. Hopefully you’ll enjoy this Row80-inspired series as much as I have. Goal to learn more Japanese: CHECK!
Lit and Scribbles with Jae 
Part of the reason I do writing music on Monday is the alliteration. Totally approve of TTT (which is also alliteration as Triple T)! 🙂
Can’t wait to see your choices to come!
Triple T! 😀 By the way, Japanese is much harder to do and explain than Spanish… Maybe it’s that romance language influence. Well, either way I’ll keep it up.
I wish I could learn Japanese, but I think it’s a lost cause at this point. When it comes to learning foreign languages, I’m living vicariously through my kids! They’ve been taking Spanish for almost two years, and I’m hoping to introduce other languages in the future (whatever they want to learn; I’m trying not to be too pushy). As for alliteration, I like it too, except when it comes to the naming of twins.
I’d love to do a bilingual thing with my future kids. It’s not a requirement, but I’d like to marry a guy that speaks a second language and then do the whole talk to Dad in said language, talk to Mom in English (cuz my skills aren’t super awesome yet). Of course it may have to be me doing the bilingual thing. Guess I’ll keep working on my Spanish in the meantime. 😉