Neglecterinos

Sorry, sorry, hige sorry!! Blogs have been thin on the ground due to the season and a minor bout of illness. I've been in Tokyo the last few days and was unlucky to miss the snow that fell in my Japanese hometown of Podunk. It's kinda rare to see snow in my part of Aichi so it's a shame I couldn't be there to see it. The only kinda snow I've seen so far was some remnant crystals up on 高尾山Takao San, just out of Tokyo. Still, looking forward to seeing my first proper snow fall though :) Anyway, as I have the chance now, I'd just like to wish you all a happy new year! May it be productive and see you closer to accomplishing your goals. All the very best. Kappas and Kangaroos.

Nahhh, get outta here!

Na. Or rather な. I just had a mini revelation about something that is probably common knowledge amongst those with basic Japanese. If you take away the squiggly bottom right hand side from hiragana*, な (na), you get katakana** ナ (na). I mean, duhh!! I have noticed other relationships betwen hiragana and their katakana counterparts, but am surprised I didn't catch this one earlier on. Ha!

*hiragana is the normal Japanese phonetic script
**katakana is the phonetic script used for borrow words (and sometimes for other purposes such as for animal names)

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BONUS
I'll keep this blog content light, so I will end by mentioning that upon further (2 minute) research, I learnt that the hiragana are indeed, derived from chinese characters. Interesting!! There is a nifty chart showing a 3 step evolution from chinese characters to hiragana  found in the hiragana entry over at Wikipedia.