Animals in Japanese!

Japanese Vocab Lesson 5: The Zoo 動物園- Review Notes

Today we went to the virtual zoo and we learned a lot of new Japanese vocabulary! In this review, we will list all the Japanese words that were in the video and some that weren’t! Learn the Japanese words for tiger, gorilla, panda and more!

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Number 1:

★　Today we visited the dōbutsuen!

★　The kanji for dōbutsuen is made up of the words dōbutsu (動物) meaning animal and en (園) meaning park.

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Number 2:

★　The first animal we saw was the elephant! The Japanese word for elephant is zō.

★　The kanji for zō is 象 – although there is kanji for this word, it is more common to use hiragana or katakana.

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Number 3:

★　Next we saw a cute baby giraffe and his mom!

★　The Japanese word for giraffe is kirin.

★　The kanji for kirin is 麒麟 – This kanji is very difficult, so people usually write this word in hiragana or katakana.

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Number 4:

★　Saru means monkey in Japanese!

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Number 5:

★　The Japanese word for penguin is pengin.

★　Although this word looks similar to the English word, it is pronounced differently!

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Number 6:

★　We also saw a cute baby hippo and his mommy!

★　The Japanese word for hippo is kaba!

★　The kanji for kaba is 河馬 – although there is kanji for this word, most people write it in hiragana or katakana

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Number 7:

★　The Japanese word for zebra is shima uma.

★　Shima means stripe, and uma means horse. So shima uma is “striped horse” or zebra.

★　The kanji for shimauma is 縞馬 – although there is kanji for this word, most people just use hiragana or katakana.

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Number 8:

★　We also saw a raion.

★　Raion san kind of scared us but I don’t think he meant to.

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Additional zoo vocabulary:

虎　　　とら　　　　　tora 　　　 　 tiger

白熊        しろくま　　　shirokuma　 white bear

(犀)　　さい　　　　　sai　　　　  　rhino

　　　　ゴリラ　　　　gorira　　  　gorilla

　　　　チンパンジー　chinpanjī　　chimpanzee

　　　　カンガルー　　kangarū　  　kangaroo

　　　　パンダ　　　　panda　　   　panda

The kanji in parentheses is not used very often. Most people just write it with hiragana or katakana.

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Conclusion:

We learned a lot of Japanese words on our trip to the virtual zoo! But there are always more words! Study the additional vocab list to expand your Japanese knowledge! Let’s go to the real zoo in Japan someday!

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These squishable animals are sooo cute and soft\(◕ω◕)/♥

Squishable Panda

Squishable Polar Bear

Squishable Monkey

Squishable Kangaroo

Squishable Penguin

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