GRAMMAR PATTERN ～の中で～がいちばん __No nakade ___ Ga ichiban____
Among ____, ______ is the most _______

EXAMPLE 1:
日本の食べ物の中で、すしが一番おいしいです。
Nihon no tabemono no naka de, sushi ga ichiban oishii desu.
Among Japanese foods, sushi is the most delicious.

EXAMPLE 2:
クラスの中で、マイクがいちばん背が高いです。
Kurasu no naka de, Maiku ga ichiban se ga takai desu.
Among the class, Mike is the tallest.

Started practicing Hiragana today! Focusing on the first row: あ (a)、い(i)、う(u)、え(e)、お(o). Wrote each character 7 times to build familiarity. 📝✨

I visualized each character by thinking of what they reminded me of. あ (a) reminded me of my Japanese teacher, Shingo. A common word that starts with あ is 朝 {あさ} Asa (meaning: Morning)...So since the sound is "aaa" I imagined Mr. Shingo sitting at his home office preparing to log on to teach our Monday language class. It's early in the MORNING (asa) for him and he has a speech bubble popping out beside him reading 「あああ」 like a yawn.

Outside the window of his office are some rocks 石 {いし} (Pronounced 'Ishi') laying on the ground... いし (ishi) starts with い (i) so it's a pretty simple detail to add. Now we have 2 of the 5 vowels down, awesome!

Next, visually I think the character う (u) looks like a duck...Words starting with う are うみ {海} (Umi) and うた {歌} (Uta). Umi means the 'sea', so we can imagine the vowel う as a duck sitting out on the sea, beyond the rocks... Uta means 'to sing', so our duck (vowel う) is sitting out on the うみ (Sea), while loudly うた (Singing).

え (e) looks like an old man standing out on the shore counting some money. A word starting with え is えん (Pronounced 'En' - Meaning: Yen, Japanese Currency/money). So he's just another detail to our scenario here...

Lastly, お (o) looks like a boat with wind in its sail. But what type of person would own a boat? A king perhaps! Well that's a simple word starting with お - it's spelled おう (ō).

So basically our 5 vowels depict:
Mr. Shingo being up early in the morning to teach a class. While stretching he yawns 「あああ」 (aaa). As he looks outside the office window some tiny little rocks sit, tossed about. Behind the rocks is a duck sitting in the ocean, singing. Back in the foreground an old man stands on the shore counting his Yen. Furthermore, all the while the king's boat passes by. 👑🌊

LESSON 108_PG.3

Basic Vocab!
やま - Yama (Mountain)
そら - Sora (Sky)
みどり - Midori (Green)
とざん - Tozan (Hiking)
しぜん - Shizen (Nature)
かぜ - Kaze (Wind)