Tuesday, July 13, 2010

喫煙でない別の看板


In the red (赤) at the top (上):

迷惑な(めいわく)- A ~ adjective 'meiwaku' that means 'troublesome/annoying'.

路上(ろじょう)- The noun 'rojou' that means '(on the) road/(on the) way' or an equal expression could be 'walking while ...".

喫煙(きつえん)- The noun 'kitsuen' that means 'smoking'.

は- The particle pronounced 'wa' but written as 'ha' that marks the subject of the sentence.

やめましょう!- 'yamemashou' is a form of the verb 'yameru' that means 'to stop'. The conjugation ~しょう is used to express 'Let's' as in 行きましょう 'Let's go', しましょう 'Let's do', やめましょう 'Let's stop'.

Translation: "Let's stop troublesome smoking while walking."


Arching around (アーチ形に曲げます)the sign (看板) in blue (青):

ここは- 'Here'

やめよう - This is the short form of やめましょう for saying 'Let's stop'.
*The form ~よう has different uses when attached to verbs combined with different particles. It's possible the grammar has been cut out for space in this sign, but the meaning is correct.

迷惑(めいわく)- 'meiwaku' again.

たばこ - Tobacco in Japanese uses phonetic syllables 'tabako' that can be written in Hiragana or Katakana タバコ, but doesn't have a Kanji

市民(しみん)- 'shimin' means 'citizens'. The Kanji 市 has the meanings for 'market, city, town'. 民 has the meaning for 'people, nation, subjects' which makes them together literally mean 'city people' or 'citizens'.

マナー - Katakana word taken from English (英語) meaning 'manners'.

向上(こうじょう)- 'koujou' means 'improvement' and contains the Kanji 向 for 'facing, beyond, tend toward' and 上 for 'up, above'.

エリア - Katakana word taken from 英語 meaning 'area'.

せんば心斎橋(しんさいばし)- Senba Shinsaibashi is an area of Osaka.

Translation: "Let's stop troublesome tobacco and improve citizens manners here in the Senba Shinsaibashi area."

Of the last four Kanji I can only make out these two 商店 (しょうてん)'shouten' that means 'shop or business firm.' The other two on each side are too blurry to make out. ごめんなさい。


それから、以上です。

ジョシュア

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