6th Kyu

6th Kyu Language Tutorial

Vocabulary

Kata	A form, the way a technique should be done. Written with a character meaning shape or form.
Waza	Technique(s)
Kyu	Level or rank. Use to count the eight colored belts.
Ikkyu	First kyu. (Notice the double kk's and the glottal stop.)
Nikyu	Second kyu
Sankyu	Third kyu
Yonkyu	Fourth kyu
Gokyu	Fifth kyu
Rokkyu	Sixth kyu
Nanakyu	Eighth kyu
Hachikyu	Eight kyu
Watashi no hachikyu no kata ga dame desu.	My eighth kyu kata are bad.
Ryo	Prefix meaning both
Ryote	Both hands, using both hands
Kouhou Ryote Dori	Double handed wrist grab from behind
Hanza	Half sitting. Han means half. Za means sitting.
Handachi	Half standing. Han means half. Tachi means standing
Hanza handachi	Half sitting and half standing. Refers to standing on your knees but with your torso vertical.

In the above counters for colored belts, you see that some are irregular. You would expect, for instance, Fourth Kyu to be pronounced Shikyu, as the Japanese word for four is shi. Similarly, you would expect 7th Kyu to be Shichikyu, as the Japanese word for seven is shichi. What is going on here is that the basic way of counting from one to ten that you learned above is actually the Japanese pronunciations for how to count to ten in Chinese. Before Buddhist monks came with Chinese writing and Chinese counting, the indiginous Japanese has a different set of words to count to ten. What is confusing nowdays, is that the Japanese sometimes use the indiginous system mixed in with the Chinese system. The indigineous numbers are as follows.

1	Hitotsu
2	Futatsu
3	Mittsu
4	Yottsu
5	Itsutsu
6	Muttsu
7	Nanatsu
8	Yottsu
9	Kokonotsu
10	To

They all end in “tsu” except for ten. As you can see from comparing this system for counting 1 to 10 with the numbers for 1st kyu through 8th kyu, 4th kyu (yonkyu) is gotten from truncating yottsu down to yo and then adding kyu. And 7th kyu (nanakyu) comes from chopping nanatsu down to nana and then adding kyu.

More generally, you need to know counters. In English, we sometimes use counters. Thus we count flocks of sheep, herds of cattle, schools of fish, crowds of people and so on. But the use of counters is much more pervasive in Japanese. Everything falls into a category, and the category has a counter. Long thin objects (pencils, sticks, etc) have the counter hon, but it is sometimes pronounced pon or bon, as follows.

1	Ippon
2	Nihon
3	Sanbon
4	Yonhon
5	Gohon
6	Roppon
7	Nanahon
8	Happon
9	Kyuuhon
10	Juppon

Flat things like papers, shirts (when laid out), etc are counted with mai. This counter is regular and doesn’t change sounds a lot like hon.

1	Ichimai
2	Nimai
3	Sanmai
4	Yonmai
5	Gomai
6	Rokumai
7	Nanamai
8	Hachimai
9	Kyumai
10	Juumai

Another very useful counter is kai, which is used for repetitions, as in one time, two times, three times, etc.

1	Ikkai
2	Nikkai
3	Sankai
4	Yonkai
5	Gokai
6	Rokkai
7	Nanakai
8	Hakkai
9	Kyuukai
10	Jukkai

Most counters are very regular like mai. Here are some other counters.

Ko	Small objects (candies, rocks, marbles)
To	Large mammals (equivalent to counting head of cattle or head of sheep.
Dai	Large vehicles (trucks)
Piki	Small animals (birds, squirrels). This one is irregular like hon.

A list of 500 counters for just about everything can be found at: http://www.trussel.com/jcount.htm

Grammar Section

The default way to ask how may would be to ask, Ikutsu desu ka? The answer would be hitotsu, futatsu, etc. However, if you know the category into which a number falls, you should use the a apropriate questing word. These are all constructed by adding the word nan to the counter.

        Nankai desu ka? How many repititions?
        Nanmai desu ka? How many flat things?
        Nankyu desu ka? What kyu level?
        Nanbon desu ka? How many thin flat things?

To ask how many about a particular item, you do as follows. Given that kami is the Japanese word for paper, we write,

        Kami wa nanmai desu ka? How many sheets of paper are there? (Literally, "As for paper, how many sheets are there?")

Similarly, we can ask,

        Kote hineri wa nankai desu ka? How many times should I do kote hineri? (Literally, "As for kote hineri, how many repititions?")

Rebecca sempai wa nankyu desu ka? What kyu rank is Rebecca Sempai? (Literally, "As for Rebecca Sempai, what rank is she?")

        Pen wa nanbon desu ka? How many pens are there?

Another thing you should know is how to convert cardinal numbers (one, two three, etc) into ordinal numbers (first, second, third, etc). This can be done two ways in Japanese. A very formal way to do it is to simply place "dai" in front of a number. So dai-ichi is first, dai-ni is second, dai-san is third, and so on. As you study more aikido, you will see this system, as we have collections of kata (forms) called the dai-ichi no kata, the dai-ni no kata, etc. Similarly, the recent 5th Aikido World Championships was the "Dai-go Sekai Taikai." (Sekai means world, and taikai means big meeting or tournament.)

The more common way of creating cardinal numbers in Japanese is to place the word "ban" after the number. So ichi-ban means first, ni-ban means second, san-ban means third, and so on.

        Rebecca sempai wa ichiban! Rebecca sensei is number 1!

Daigaku means university or college. So, we can say,

        America no ichiban daigaku wa Vassar College desu. America's number one college is Vassar College.

Translate the following

1) How many times should I do kote gaeshi?
2) How many fighting staves (jo in Japanese) are there?
3) What kyu rank is Joseph sempai?
4) Fifth
5) Ninth
6) 17th
7) How many pages are there? (Page in Japanese is peeji.)
8) My 3rd kyu kata are bad.