Dear Sensei No.44

Technology for the classroom
	Why in Japanese?
	Using Search Engines in Japanese
Practical Exercises for Searching in Japanese
	Task 1
	Task 2
	Task 3
	Task 4
	Task 5
日本語アラカルト
	もういくつ寝るとお正月？
	New Year
	New Year's cards
	Beginning and end-of-year cards
	Food for good luck
	Beginning-of-year words

In the last issue we showed you how to set up Japanese and read Japanese websites on your computer, and introduced some useful internet tools. In this issue we build on this and show how to search the web for information in Japanese.
We will work on the assumption that your computer is now set up to read and write Japanese. If not, please refer to the last issue.

Some of you might think that you don’t need to look at Japanese websites at all because there are many websites about Japan written in English. But as we mentioned in the last issue, most of the Japanese websites are in Japanese only, so if you can use Japanese websites, you will get far more information about Japan.
For example, when you want to know about Japanese “kagamimochi” (rice cake displayed at New Year), only 429 hits come up by searching with the roomaji keyword “kagamimochi” in Google (search engine; see below), but when you use the Japanese keyword 鏡餅(かがみもち), you get 21,000 hits. Searching with Japanese keywords enables you to access a wide variety of Japanese resources.
If you find it too difficult to read authentic Japanese pages, you can use the dictionary web tools introduced in the last issue.

To search for information on the web, you use search engines. In Japan, as in other countries, of all the search engines on the Internet the most famous and frequently used sites are “Google” and “Yahoo!” In order to find information efficiently, it is necessary to know about the features of each search engine.

Google (http://www.google.co.jp/)
Yahoo! JAPAN (http://www.yahoo.co.jp/)

To see the difference, enter the keyword 「日本語(にほんご)」 and search in both search engines. You will find that the results are quite different. In Google you will get 6,650,000 websites containing the keyword, while Yahoo! will give you 33 categories and 1,352 sites.

Google data is automatically gathered by a robot, referred to as a spider, which ‘crawls’ huge numbers of websites from around the world every day. So if you search in Google, you will find a large number of pages that include the keyword, regardless of its context. This means that Google is the best choice when you want to find concrete and specific information, using a specific keyword, multiple keywords, phrases and/or sentences.

In the case of Yahoo! however, in order to be registered in its directory creators of each web site have to send the information themselves, and technicians at Yahoo! put the data onto the site manually. Because this data is thus refined and well sorted out, it is convenient when you are searching for a general concept, a famous organisation etc.

Goo (http://kids.goo.ne.jp/)
This is a useful search engine for non-native speakers キッズGoo, which was originally designed for Japanese kids, enables you to add furigana to the search result, and even to the web pages linked to it.
Put keywords into the text box at　「キッズGooサーチ」 , and click on the 「けんさく」　button. In the search result page, go to 「ふりがなの設定(せってい)」, tick 「ふりがなあり」, and then click on the 「ひょうじ」 button. The list of items will have furigana. Furthermore, if you go from this furigana added list to the linked websites, the target pages also automatically appear with furigana.

In order to become skilled at searching for information, here are some tasks you can try. As it will soon be New Year, the theme of the tasks is . Suppose that you are teaching the topic of　お正月(しょうがつ) to your class!

Task 1

You are not very familiar with Japanese New Year’s customs. Get general information about them from the web.

To get general information it is better to use Yahoo!. If you use Google, you will get a large number of hits, and it will be difficult for you to choose the site that will be most useful to you. With Yahoo! you will get information related specifically and only to New Year, and categorised according to various subtopics such as New Year food, New Year greeting cards and so on.

Task 2

You are asked by your student why 「お正月(しょうがつ)」is written with the kanji for 「正(ただ)しい」. Search the web and find the reason.

For this kind of specific search, you should use Google. The more keywords you use (divided by spaces), the more refined and specific a result you will get. When you use Google, at least two or three keywords, a phrase and/or a sentence are recommended. For this task, you should use keywords like 「お正月(しょうがつ)　正(ただ)しい月(つき)　なぜ」, and you will find websites that include an explanation.
Similarly, if you are looking for an explanation of what each おせち料理(りょうり)means, you could use a phrase like　「おせち料理(りょうり)の意味(いみ)」 . If you want to know how to get a ticket for Tokyo Disneyland’s countdown event this year, the keywords would be　「東京(とうきょう)ディズニーランド　カウントダウン　2004　申(もう)し込(こ)み」 .

Task 3

You are making a handout to introduce Japanese New Year. Find pictures of　「鏡餅(かがみもち)」 and　「門松(かどまつ)」 .

Google has a function 「イメージ検索(けんさく)　(image search)」 , with which you can look for pictures from the web. When you look for an image of kagamimochi, click first on the 「イメージ」tab and input the keyword 「鏡餅(かがみもち)」into the text field, then click on the 「Google 検索(けんさく)」button. You will get thumbnails of kagamimochi images. For image search you don’t have to put in multiple keywords, because there is not so much image data. It is not a good idea to use two keywords 「鏡餅(かがみもち)」 and 「門松(かどまつ)」 for one search. Rather, you should put in the keyword 「門松(かどまつ)」 separately and search again for kadomatsu pictures.
You can copy these pictures and paste them into your handout (Word document etc.), but be aware that each image on the web has a copyright, so there are restrictions on using them (for example, school teachers can only use the images for their classrooms etc.).

Task 4

You are planning to sing the song in your classroom, but don’t remember the whole melody. Search for a web page which enables you to listen to the song.

The important point here is that to find a specific type of file (audio, movie, image, document etc.), it is best to put in a file type as a keyword. In order to play music on a website, a file type called MIDI is usually used. So in this task you could use as keywords 「お正月(しょうがつ) midi」 to search in Google. You will find several pages on which the お正月(しょうがつ) melody is played as MIDI data. If you want an actual recording of the song, or want to burn it on CD-R to play to your class, your keywords would be 「お正月(しょうがつ) wav」 (for a further explanation for the difference between MIDI and WAV, search in Google with the keywords midi wav what’s the difference ).
Similarly, to get a video showing 餅(もち)つき, put 「餅(もち)つき　wmv」 (mov, mpg, avi are also OK: these are all names of a movie file type). If you want to play the 福笑(ふくわら)い game, search with 「福笑(ふくわら)い pdf」 get a printable board and parts for the game (PDF is a file format used to distribute printed documents on the web).

Task 5

You are writing explanations in Japanese, and not sure which is correct, 「お正月(しょうがつ)には」 or 「お正月(しょうがつ)では」 for “at New Year”. Use the Internet to find out.

With Google you can see the context in which a certain expression is actually used. If you look up the phrase in Google, you will get a large number of sentences like which refer to events at New Year. For the phrase , you will see far fewer pages, and most of the sentences will contain . As a result, you can tell that is the right phrase for “at New Year”.
With this method you can also check, for example, which of the following, or , is correct for “ozoni” (New Year soup with rice cake) or which kanji is correct, or . Be aware that expressions found on the Internet are not always correct. A writer may use the language incorrectly, for example a number of hits come up when you search in English for “Sydny” or “Quensland”.

We hope the above information will serve as a reference to you and help you become a professional surfer of the Japanese web!

Section co-ordinated by Kazuhiro Isomura (Kazuhiro_Isomura@jpf.org.au)

Although the word refers to New Year, it has two specific meanings; it is January, the first month of the year when, as the word implies, you ‘put things right’ (正(ただ)す月(つき)), and it also refers to the festive period from the first to the seventh day of the year. The specific word for the first day of the year is 元日(がんじつ).

From around the end of November, the Japanese start to send out New Year’s cards. They are predominantly in the form of , New Year postcards. Many have a picture of the zodiac animal for the coming year, which for 2004 is , the monkey. However, people in mourning ( ) send a bereavement notice that year rather than a , and you do not send a to someone who has had a death in the family. Recently people have started to send greetings by E , and the Internet is often blocked around New Year.
Here are some of the ways of saying ‘Happy New Year’ in writing:

あけましておめでとうございます
新年(しんねん)おめでとうございます
謹賀新年(きんがしんねん)
賀正(がしょう)
恭賀新年(きょうがしんねん)

Note: 賀(が) means ‘felicitations, congratulations’, and 謹(きん) and 恭(きょう) mean ‘respectfully’.

Right up till 31st December, people greet each other with 「よいお年(とし)を（おむかえください）！」 Literally, ‘May you see in a good New Year!’ Then from　元日(がんじつ), New Year’s Day onwards, you say 「あけましておめでとうございます」 .

Words influence what the Japanese eat at New Year. In special New Year food おせち料理(りょうり), , sea bream is eaten because the word for it is 鯛(たい) , the last two syllables of めでたい‘auspicious’. 昆布(こんぶ), kelp is eaten because it sounds like the last two syllables of 喜(よろこ)ぶ, to be glad, and 豆(まめ), are eaten because this word has a homonym which means ‘healthy’. 栗金団(くりきんとん) is eaten because it contains the word for gold　金(きん),. おせち料理(りょうり) is beautifully arranged in a four tiered lacquer box, 重箱(じゅうばこ), and recently some Western and Chinese food has come to be included along with traditional food.

「初(はつ)」 meaning ‘the first’, has a special significance in the following expressions:

初詣(はつもうで)	The first visit to a shrine or temple in the new year. People make the visit soon after 除夜(じょや)の鐘(かね), when the temple bells peal out the old year, or during the following week. (The 除夜(じょや)の鐘(かね) peal 108 times to dispel 108 煩悩(ぼんのう) , worldly desires.)
書初(かきぞ)め	The first calligraphy of the new year. Formerly this was a custom involving adults, but now it is mostly done by schoolchildren as their New Year’s homework!
初夢(はつゆめ)	The first dream of the new year. This dream will reveal your fortune for the coming year. 「一富士(いちふじ)、二鷹(にたか)、三茄子(さんなすび)」Your dream is particularly auspicious if you dream about Mt Fuji, an eagle or an eggplant!

ディズニーカウントダウンパーティ
A popular place to see in the New Year is　ディズニーランド. People compete in a lottery to buy tickets to go to the カウントダウンパーティー, which starts with a　パレード and finishes with　花火 (fireworks). The event is so popular that tickets are resold in auctions at high prices on the internet!

家でごろごろ Relaxing at home
However, many people stay at home for 大晦日(おおみそか)(New Year’s Eve) and watch the Red-and-White Song Contest, 紅白歌合戦(こうはくうたがっせん) . Performances of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony 「第九(だいく)」 are often screened in the days leading up to 大晦日(おおみそか), and there is usually a screening of the story of the 47 Ronin 「忠臣蔵(ちゅうしんぐら)」 late on the night.

Section co-ordinated by Cathy Jonak (Cathy_Jonak@jpf.org.au)