Japan Books: Animals Level 2

Description

Can you guess what animals are in this book by their footprints?

Level: 2
Script: Hiragana characters

Sentence examples:

• This is a dog.
•  This is not a cat.

In alignment with the Australian Curriculum: Year 3 and 4 band achievement standards

• Describe things, using nouns.
• Structure sentences using particles.
• Locate specific information and some supporting details in written texts on familiar topics.
• Identify words from other languages used in Japanese.

Cultural note from the author:

Through animal names, this book introduces the concept of Katakana, which is the second type of Japanese phonetic script. All the names of the animals in this book are written in Hiragana (the first type of Japanese phonetic script), except for the last two animals, ‘ra i o n (lion)’ and ‘mi i a kya tto’(meerkat). These two words have been “borrowed” from the English language, and words like this that originate from outside of Japan are typically written in Katakana. Although Katakana has the same 46 sounds as Hiragana, it is only used for “loan words” or words that have been “borrowed” from other languages.