Japanese traditional culture ~17~ karuta

I introduce a Japanese plaything, called "karuta".
Do you know "hiragana"?
Hiragana is one of the Japanese characters. There are 50 kinds of hiragana.
Some of you would know あいうえお...
Traditionally, we have a plaything that uses the hiragana.
The name is "karuta". Here is the photo.

I explain how to play it.
There are 50 kinds of cards that have picture and hiragana.
And there are 50 kinds of cards that is written a sentence on it.
Someone read aloud the sentence.
And the players find the card someone read as quickly as possible.
Players have to listen carefully what was the first hiragana of the sentence.
You repeat this until players take the all cards.
The winner is the person who got a lot of cards.

Ｔｈｅ　ｓｅｎｔｅｎｃｅ　ｄｅｐｅｎｄｓ　on the kind of karuta.
A Japanese saying is written on this karuta.
いしのうえにもさんねん means, "you have to stand something at least
three years to achieve it".
Cold stone would get warmer if you sit down on it for three years.
In this sentence, getting warmer the stone means you "achieve something"

Thanks for reading!

Facebook page

http://www.facebook.com/#!/SeeMyJapan