Japanese Character Translations
as commonly seen in Japanese Temari books

        Perhaps the language hardest to learn as a second language after English is Japanese - the sheer number of characters used in various combinations for words, and indeed single characters representing words or phrases makes it most daunting. It also does not lead itself to easy "automatic" translation since the character set is so totally unique from the alphabet used for English and other languages. That makes it most frustrating for us wouldbeTemaribes. With great thanks to a friend and discussion group charter member, I am very happy to offer to you here some Japanese Kanji character translations that you will encounter in Japanese books - enough that you can being to put some pieces together, and more will come in the future.
        This work is courtesy of Sue Hayashi, who has spent two separate times for a total of eight years living in Japan with her family and Japanese hubby (who is very generous in helping out with translating). Sue studied Temari with Sensei Ozaki, a well-known Temari master, and author of many Temari books in Japan, and Sue became a Temari Master herself from the Japanese Temari Association. Between Sue's experiences living and learning in Japan, her hubby's support and her efforts, these results are known to be accurate. It is Sue's ultimate goal "to build a single pattern translation character group that one could eventually decipher a modicum of the Japanese books with.". I am pleased and honored to be able to help her in bringing them to you as they become available. Please note that this work is copyrighted by Susan Hayashi and Ginny Thompson, 2000 all rights reserved and may not be reproduced without permission. You may download one copy for personal, not for profit use only.
 
 

Advanced level Aka - means red Angle or corner Aoi  - means blue
Beginner level Brown Center or middle Cha - means tea brown
Chysanthemum Diameter East Embroidery
Face, side or pole Final stitch Go, means 5 Hachi, means 8
Half, or one side Ichi, means 1 Intermediate level Juu, means 10
Kinko - means gold Ku, means 9 Kuro - means black Light coloring
Midori - means green Navy or dark blue Ni, means 2 North
Purple or violet Radius Right angle Roku, means 6
San, means 3 Shi, means 4 Shichi, means 7 Shiro - means white
Silk Thread Silver South Square
Stitch Stitch or seam Strand Thread or yarn
West Yellow
In an inconspicuous thread


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