Saturday, March 6, 2010

Kimono Kanji Cheat Sheet

Beyond the satisfaction of learning new words in a language, if you're interested in kimono, knowing the original Japanese names can help you in searching online for more information, photos, or Japan-based auctions and webshops. Here are a few:

kimono: 着物 or きもの

obi: 帯
hanhaba obi: 半幅帯
Nagoya obi: 名古屋帯
fukuro obi: 袋帯
maru obi: 丸帯
obi-age: 帯揚げ
obi-jime: 帯締め
zouri: 草履
geta: 下駄

(Want to learn more Japanese? Check out the "Language" section of the TKL Book Shop.)