How do you say お墓参り in English?

Yesterday, I went for a walk with my camera in Yanaka. In the cemetery (霊園）, I was surprised to see so many people cleaning the graves. In Canada, we don't visit cemeteries as much as Japanese people do, and there is no special day when a lot of people go.

Maybe your foreign friends or your English teacher will ask you what you did on the national holiday (休日）this week. If you did お墓参り, you can say, "I visited my family grave," or "I paid my respects (敬意を表する) at the family grave."

Yesterday was autumnal equinox day (秋分), but most English speakers don't use those words. "Autumnal equinox" is an astronomical term (天文学用語）so we call it "the first day of autumn." We don't have a good word in English for お彼岸, so usually we say, "the period around the autumnal equinox."

National Holidays

I really like autumn in Japan. The temperatures are cool (温度が涼しい) and the autumn leaves (紅葉）are beautiful, but the best thing is that there are lots of national holidays (休日). Last week I was really tired, so I was very happy to have a three-day weekend (連休). I want to see Wanted with Angelina Jolie. It was very exciting and reminded me of (思い出させる) Matrix because there were a lot of slow-motion action scenes.

Here's a quiz about the names of Japanese National Holidays. Can you say them in Japanese?
Children's Day
Coming of Age Day
Constitution Memorial Day
Autumnal Equinox
The Emperor's Birthday
New Year's Day
Vernal Equinox Day
Greenery Day
Labor Thanksgiving Day
National Foundation Day
Showa Day
Marine Day
Respect for the Aged Day
Culture Day
Health and Sports Day

The answers are in the comments section.

危険な英語の間違えのベスト１０ （その９）

Usually, mistakes are not serious (真剣). If you forget (忘れる) “a” or “the” people will be able to understand you, or if you say “Go to shopping” instead of (変わりに) “go shopping” (買い物は場所ではないから”to”は使えない), people will still understand your meaning. But some mistakes can be very dangerous.

This series is about the most dangerous mistakes in English. These are mistakes that could cause a serious misunderstanding (重大な誤解の原因になる). Here’s number 9:

Sometimes people make a big mistake with the 不定詞. Look at these two sentences. Do you understand the difference? (違いが分かりますか。）

1. I stopped to talk to my friend.
2. I stopped talking to my friend.

Number one means 友達と喋る為に立ち止まった。 Number two means 友達と喋るをやめた。　We use the 不定詞 when we have a purpose (目的) for doing something. For example, "I went to America to see the Grand Canyon." (グランドキャ ニオンを見る為にアメリカに行きました。） We use a 動名詞 when we talk about an action that is also a thing. For example, "I remember meeting him. (彼と会ったことを覚えています。）

Here are some sentences. Can you write them in English?
1. 私は部屋を掃除するのを忘れた。(forget)
2. 私は部屋を掃除したことを忘れた。(forget)
3. 私は犬に餌をやったことを覚えている。(remember)
4. 私は犬に餌をやるのを覚えている。(remember)
5. 兄さんは（誰かを）手伝わなければなりません。(need)
6. 兄さんは手伝いが必要です。(need)
７. 晩御飯を作るのを忘れた。(forget)
8. 晩御飯を作ったことを忘れた。(forget)
9. 食べる為に立ち止まった。(stopped)
10. 食べることをやめた。(stopped)

 If you write your answers in the comments of this blog, I will check
 them. このブログのコメントに答えを書いてくれたら、チェック
します。） You don't have to use your real name　and more than one
ｐerson (二人以上） can do it.  

How Fast Can You Read?

How fast can you read? An average university student in America can read about 250-350 words per minute (1分間に250-350単語). It's difficult to read fast in a foreign language, but you can learn to read faster with training. I found a useful homepage that helps you to read faster. It's called Spreeder.com.

You can enter in some text by cutting and pasting (コピー・アンド・ペーストする）, and then practice reading it on the homepage.
When you enter the homepage, you will see a window like this. Just paste your text in the box:

Next, push the "s" key for the settings (設定）. You can choose the speed (maybe 100 is good at first) and the number of words (the "chunk size").
Click the "save" command, and you're ready to start practicing! I think if you read some text with Spreeder every day, you could really improve your speed.