Japan Books: ‘Take the rear’ Japanese word game. Level 1

Let’s play the Japanese word-chain game, Shiritori!

Reading level: Level 1
Script type: Hiragana & Katakana characters with Furigana
Char: 95
Pages: 21
Type: words
Style: A5 saddle-stitched booklet
ISBN : 978-1-925808-09-4

In alignment with the Australian Curriculum: Foundation to Year 2 band achievement standards:

• Understand that hiragana represents the basic units of Japanese sound
• Understand that katakana is used for borrowed words.
• use visual support such as pictures to make meaning of simple texts

Cultural note from the author:

Shiritori is a traditional Japanese word game that everyone in Japan plays, especially during childhood. The name comes from the phrase ????(Shiri o toru).  It literally means “take the rear”, and that is the basic rule of the game.  One person starts with a word and the next person takes the last letter from that word and uses it to start the next word.  The game goes on until someone says the word ending with ‘?’ (n), then you lose the game.